John McCain accused Barack Obama of playing politics with race on Thursday, raising the explosive issue after the first black candidate with a serious chance of winning the White House claimed Republicans will try to scare voters by saying he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."
Until now, the subject of race has been almost taboo in the campaign, at least in public, with both sides fearing its destructive force.
"I'm disappointed that Senator Obama would say the things he's saying," McCain told reporters in Racine, Wis. The Arizona senator said he agreed with campaign manager Rick Davis' statement earlier that "Barack Obama has played the race card, and he played it from the bottom of the deck. It's divisive, negative, shameful and wrong." The aide was suggesting McCain had been wrongfully accused.
The MSM and the other liberal commentators have expressed outrage that that nice Mr. McCain would take the “low road” by pointing out the racist currents buoying the Obama campaign balloon. In his race for the Democrat party’s nomination his ethnic background has been a major plus in a party obsessed with the politics of racial guilt. Now he’s trying the same tack in the general election and McCain is calling him on it.
In turn, Obama campaign manager David Plouffe said, "We weren't suggesting in any way he's using race as an issue" but that McCain "is using the same, old low-road politics that voters are very unhappy about to distract voters from the real issues in this campaign."
A day earlier and in response to a hard-hitting McCain commercial, Obama argued that President Bush and McCain have little to offer voters so Republicans will resort to a strategy of fear to keep the White House.
"What they're going to try to do is make you scared of me," Obama said. "You know, he's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name, you know, he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."
He didn't explain the comment. But it evoked images of past presidents who grace U.S. paper money, such as George Washington, Abraham Lincoln, Andrew Jackson and Ulysses S. Grant. All were white men, and all but Grant were older than Obama when elected.
Obama long has talked about his physical appearance in speeches, but McCain advisers argue he crossed a significant line by accusing the GOP of scare tactics and alluding to his own race in the same breath.
“…he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills." That’s not a reference to race?
Not content with mere insinuations of racism, the Obama campaign publically signals their belief that we're galactically stupid.
Karl Rove seems to have been appointed by the left as the all purpose boogie man in this campaign. He serves the purpose that “Nazi” or “Hitler” references once served the Left before the effect of overuse wore off. Democrats are wishing for the good old days of the Dole campaign when they could sling charges of racism, sexism, homophobia and the overwhelming desire to throw poor old people out on the snow on Christmas eve and the Republican response would be to bleat a weak denial.
In recent days, McCain has been going after Obama with new fervor, painting him as not ready to lead and too liberal for the country. It's an aggressive approach reminiscent of GOP operative Karl Rove, who orchestrated Bush's back-to-back victories in part by tearing down Democratic opponents.
Now, several of Rove's former rank-and-file are in elevated roles in McCain's campaign, and it shows.
This part of the campaign will be interesting. If McCain can point out that race has been used by Obama as THE major selling point of his candidacy, Obama is toast. The big question is: has McCain fallen out of love with his former sweetheart, the MSM, and is he willing to make a clean break?
Stay tuned.
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