The race card cannot work on Obama, or really any national candidate going forward
Friday, May 18, 2012 at 11:03AM 
WAPO story on Romney rightfully steering clear of those within GOP who, in their desperation, consider racially motivated election attacks against Obama.
The problem with this approach is that it is magnificently self-defeating - that's how America has evolved in its racial make-up.
Obama is carrying Blacks, Hispanics and Asians - plus the "minority-majority" that are women (historically far less welcoming of racially tinged messages than men, to include white women versus white men).
All three of those major minority groups tilt decisively toward Dems, and racially-tinged political messages simply reinforce that reality and perhaps lock it in for the longer term. Simply put, as a polity, America is past all that nonsense.
And the fact that the Republicans are considering it - even among just their fringe hardcore elements - signals just how bereft of ideas and leadership and vision they really are.
And that is a very sad day for this republic, because, quite frankly, Obama does not deserve a second term and it won't be any better than the first.
But I do take comfort in this reality, being the father of one Asian female and two future African-American women.
Reader Comments (3)
Just watch the race card at work on the next national Republican minority candidate. Certainly the Democrats did not suffer unduly from their 2008 misogynistic attacks. Why wouldn't the race card be in play in 2012 and beyond?
Here's a way I could see the race card working.
If Mitt Romney picked Herman Cain as his running mate you would see Democrats dusting off racial insults and caricatures that would make an Exalted Cyclops blush.
However in Cain spoke at black churches where pastors had expressed unhappiness about President Obama's embrace of same sex marriage and spoke about how current economic conditions and high joblessness are hurting everybody but especially blacks. He cold then play the race card by saying that he is the black candidate with a black mother.
It might be enough to get 30% of the black vote. If the Democrats don't get more than 90% of the black vote they are doomed.
Republicans aren't considering it, the ad was never considered by Mr. Ricketts (George Will addressed this on the most recent "This Week" w/ George Stephanopoulos). And am I misunderstanding you or are you really going to ascribe to a group as a whole the characteristics of its fringes?