Didn't we always know that the Republicans would play the race card in this election? In this week's column, Frank Rich details at length it's use and failure.
It has always been a mostly unspoken fear that a crazy person would act on race-inspired hate and take a shot at Barack Obama. But very early in the campaign Obama was given a Secret Service detail, and he has worked to calm our fears by reassuring us, "I’ve got the best protection in the world, so stop worrying."
In late July, Barack Obama predicted that the tactics now being employed by the McCain campaign would come to pass:
From the start, there have always been two separate but equal questions about race in this election. Is there still enough racism in America to prevent a black man from being elected president no matter what? And, will Republicans play the race card? The jury is out on the first question until Nov. 4. But we now have the unambiguous answer to the second: Yes.
The Terrorist Barack Hussein Obama
The McCain camp has admitted that if the campaign is about the economy, they can't win. So they are desperately trying to make this campaign about tearing down the character of Barack OBama.
By the time McCain asks the crowd "Who is the real Barack Obama?" it’s no surprise that someone cries out "Terrorist!" The rhetorical conflation of Obama with terrorism is complete. It is stoked further by the repeated invocation of Obama’s middle name by surrogates introducing McCain and Palin at these rallies. This sleight of hand at once synchronizes with the poisonous Obama-is-a-Muslim e-mail blasts and shifts the brand of terrorism from Ayers’s Vietnam-era variety to the radical Islamic threats of today.
That’s a far cry from simply accusing Obama of being a guilty-by-association radical leftist. Obama is being branded as a potential killer and an accessory to past attempts at murder. "Barack Obama’s friend tried to kill my family" was how a McCain press release last week packaged the remembrance of a Weather Underground incident from 1970 — when Obama was 8.
We all know what punishment fits the crime of murder, or even potential murder, if the security of post-9/11 America is at stake. We all know how self-appointed "patriotic" martyrs always justify taking the law into their own hands.
The Terrorist Barack Hussein Obama
Has the McCain campaign gone too far? Have they unleashed a monster that they can not control? Will the Republican politics of fear and hate work this time?
Could the old racial politics still be determinative? I’ve long been skeptical of the incessant press prognostications (and liberal panic) that this election will be decided by racist white men in the Rust Belt. Now even the dimmest bloviators have figured out that Americans are riveted by the color green, not black — as in money, not energy. Voters are looking for a leader who might help rescue them, not a reckless gambler whose lurching responses to the economic meltdown (a campaign "suspension," a mortgage-buyout stunt that changes daily) are as unhinged as his wanderings around the debate stage.
To see how fast the tide is moving, just look at North Carolina. On July 4 this year — the day that the godfather of modern G.O.P. racial politics, Jesse Helms, died — The Charlotte Observer reported that strategists of both parties agreed Obama’s chances to win the state fell "between slim and none." Today, as Charlotte reels from the implosion of Wachovia, the McCain-Obama race is a dead heat in North Carolina and Helms’s Republican successor in the Senate, Elizabeth Dole, is looking like a goner.
But we’re not at Election Day yet, and if voters are to have their final say, both America and Obama have to get there safely. The McCain campaign has crossed the line between tough negative campaigning and inciting vigilantism, and each day the mob howls louder. The onus is on the man who says he puts his country first to call off the dogs, pit bulls and otherwise.
The Terrorist Barack Hussein Obama
As Josh Marshall pointed out at Talking Points Memo last night:
There's something else to note too. Over the last 48 hours several name brand Republicans have come out and either chided or denounced McCain's borderline incitement. And given how taboo it is to level such criticism of your own nominee at this stage of the election you have to assume these criticisms were only the tip of the iceberg, with a far more intense and angry barrage of criticism voiced privately.
Weird. Sad. Surreal
As Rich pointed out, it is up to the McCain campaign to "call off the dogs" and it is very likely that he is receiving a lot pressure privately to do so. But, if continuing the hate-fest against Obama is what the campaign sees as the only path to the White House, will McCain bend to pressure?
Reading Frank Rich's weekly column is always a must. He has enlightened us on so many issues. He warned Americans that John McCain was The Candidate We Still Don’t Know back in August, and ever since we have been learning the answer to the question, "Who is the Real John McCain?" It strikes me as ironic that last week John McCain was trying to float the meme, "Who is the Real Barack Obama?" when Barack Obama has been so completely and thoroughly vetted by the press and the American public for months.
The fact that the McCain Campaign is clinging to the Ayers-association as its last hope for victory is laughable, considering it didn't work for Clinton in the primary and was already debunked months ago. But, as Frank Rich pointedly does each week, he reminds us not to be complacent. He always ends his columns with a reminder that the campaign is not over, any anything could happen between now and election day. We must continue to work hard until the very end! And let's keep asking, "Who is the Real John McCain?" and providing the answers.