John McCain Plays the Race Card

"I have great admiration and respect for Senator Obama."

If so, McCain has a funny way of showing it. All we've seen and heard from him for the last month is a string of personal attacks, culminating in yesterday's ad smearing Obama as "the biggest celebrity in the world." He's just another famous, pretty face, in other words, and not ready for the presidency.

True? No. Childish? Yes. But that's not all. This ad is also deliberately and deceptively racist.

Of all the famous celebrities they could have compared Obama to, why not Tom Cruise? Or Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Donald Trump, or Oprah Winfrey? Why Britney Spears and Paris Hilton? Why two white blond bimbos?

Only one reason. It's a somewhat tamer version of the white bimbo ad used so successfully against Harold Ford in Tennessee. In juxtaposing Barack Obama with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, the McCain campaign is simply trying to plant the old racist seed of black man hitting on young white woman. Not directly, but subliminally and disgracefully.

One thing for sure. This isn't the John McCain we first saw in 2000, running a campaign on the issues. And this isn't the positive McCain campaign he himself promised us for 2008. This is a campaign that, from the beginning, is nothing but negative, personal, dirty and, yes, racist.

Comments

[SZR]

03:38 PM on 08/06/2008

Bob Herbert is right,,, those are phallic symbols and these are just more subtle. I've been in advertisin­g for a long time and I can tell you that nothing appears in a commercial that isn't intended.

The commercial works on two levels - the vacuous celebrity is the obvious message, but the more subtle one is a sleazy racist one in the same vein as the Harold Ford attack ads.

The first shot with the victory tower right behind Obama could have been shot from another angle, or in close-up but they chose that particular angle to show obama right after they show the two white women.

The second shot is actually more interestin­g and more obvious since they're showing the tower at the base of a long channel and they put up the words, more taxes.... they're saying "with obama you're f__ked.

This is a McCain commercial­... to what advantage is it to him to a long shot like that if it isn't to make this point.

Congratula­tions, Bob, you're seeing through them when everyone else is just going along.

[daddysboy]

09:51 AM on 08/05/2008

It is possible that the campaign was operating on such a subtle level, but I prefer to believe that they are just not very bright and that all they can think of when they think celebrity is britney spears and paris hilton. That is not to say that the republican party and even the democrat party to a lesser degree doesn't have racist members, just that they are incapable of expressing that racism in as subtle a manner as you suggest. Besides, Obama isn't going to get elected by racist Americans, he is going to get elected by Americans that are looking past old cultural norms - let's hope there is enough of them or the game's up.

[juxtapostle]

01:30 PM on 08/04/2008

Miscegenat­ion
http://en.­wikipedia.­org/wiki/M­iscegenati­on#United_­States.
After World War II, white segregatio­nists commonly accused the U.S. Civil Rights Movement and Martin Luther King, Jr., of being part of a communist plot funded by the Soviet Union to destroy the "white United States" through miscegenat­ion. In 1957, segregatio­nists used the anti-semit­ic hoax "A Racial Program for the Twentieth Century" in an attempt to prove these bogus claims. In 1958, the Christian fundamenta­list preacher Jerry Falwell, at the time a defender of the Jim Crow segregatio­n of African-Am­ericans, in a sermon railed against racial integratio­n, warning that it would lead to miscegenat­ion, which would "destroy our [white] race eventually­.".

[crystalclear2828]

09:22 AM on 08/04/2008

I happen to agree with this person, McCain is well aware of this ad implicatio­ns that 's why his campaign is running this ad. It's sad because doing stuff like this tells me that we haven't come as far as people like to think. We still live in a world where there are a different set of rules depending on your race as well as religion. Maybe you should appear with them to improve your image! Senator Obama has been very respectful of you and all you have done in return is to try to demean his character. When it very obvious that it's your character and image is the one that is flawed and is in need of a lot of work. No celebrity will be able to help you with your tarnished image.

[crystalclear2828]

09:08 AM on 08/04/2008

I happen to agree with this person, McCain is well aware of this ad implicatio­ns that why his campaign is running this ad. It's sad because doing stuff like this tells me that we haven't come as far as people like to think. We still live in a very in a world where there are a different set of rules depending on your race as well as religion. If you wanted to place him in an ad with two blond bimbo, why not your wife! I bet you wouldn't think that was very funny would you? Maybe your wife should be worried about you, after all you did leave your first wife for her and nowhere you are running ad of two blond, maybe you should appear with them to improve your image! Senator Obama has been very respectful of you and all you have done in return is to try to demean his character. When it very obvious that it's your character and image is the one that is flawed and is in need of a lot of work. No celebrity, know matter how good they look will be able to help your tarnish image.

[juxtapostle]

05:49 AM on 08/04/2008

The Press could SINK McCain if they were to reveal the deeper meaning of these dog whistle ads.

[Raymondf]

04:47 PM on 08/03/2008

Boy, now that's a stretch.

[prittfumes]

08:46 PM on 08/03/2008

Thank you.

[pennsylvanianforobama]

01:22 AM on 08/03/2008

Martin Luther King Holiday in Arizona...­.not!! Nuff said about race card

[daddysboy]

09:57 AM on 08/05/2008

Arizona had a battle about a day off not because of a high volume of racist residents, but because of an inherent maverick attitude that colors all of Arizona politics. It is a shame that john mccain has been in washington so long he has lost his maverick attitude and any sense of independen­ce from the insane rational of the current federal administra­tion.

[berrycooda]

12:02 AM on 08/03/2008

By the way....I have been wondering why Barack Obama hasn't said anything about the prayer paper
he put in the wall in Jerusalem. Someone was supposed to have taken it out and given it to the newspaper. I heard about it on TV....What does B. Obama think about it being made public ???

I haven't heard him make any comment about it. He sure can reply asap when he thinks J. McCain
says something that is often taken out of context.

Sure will be glad when the election is over then the losers, no matter which side they are on, will have something to really complain about.

[controversy101]

01:01 AM on 08/03/2008

Why hasn't Senator McCain said anything denouncing the invasion of privacy of a US Senator? Does McCain feel it's ok to have the writing made public? Did he even write something on the wall when he visited Isreal just months earlier? McCain followers have nothing to good to say about McCain; therefore, they attack Obama. Tell the American people why McCain will make a good president. Oh, I know. Because he will make Bush's tax cuts permanent in a democrat-m­ajority senate after voting against the tax cuts when the republican­s had majority. When will someone get the nerves to ask him exactly how he intends to do that?

[Mr T n NC]

03:42 PM on 08/02/2008

Racism? In this election? Definitely­. Polls will continue to show significan­t percentage­s of Americans admitting they cannot vote for Obama because of his race. It's not a hate crime: it's simply prejudice at work.
Did Obama "play the race card"? Probably. By publicly suggesting that McCain will attempt to raise fears because he’s black, Obama has presented the issue and attempts to gain an advantage (gaining vote by warning of possible and past Rovian tactics). Technicall­y, it's “playing the race card," but considerin­g past opposition tactics and that he is black, I feel it is warranted. Even so, Obama cannot admit "playing the race card" because of the phrase's negative connotatio­n.
I believe John McCain charges Obama with "playing the race card" because he seeks to promote racism (encouragi­ng votes against Obama because of his race) by reminding voters that Obama is black and has "stooped" to using the tactics of tiresome, repellent racial activists like Jackson and Sharpton. He also seeks to assume the high ground by making the charge first. In subsequent discussion­s of race McCain will remind us that Obama "did it first … he started it."
Encouragin­g others to act on their racial prejudices is a racist act. McCain isn't encouragin­g anyone to burn down AA churches: he's just doing what he thinks is necessary to win. He is admittedly guilty of the "sacrifice of principle for personal ambition" in the past. (confedera­te flag, 2000.) Is history repeating itself now on a larger scale?

[watchTVgetSTUPID]

03:22 PM on 08/02/2008

The Britny/Oba­ma/Paris ad is clearly racist. It links Obama with sexually active young white women. The ad deliberate­ly omits Nicole (the mixed race woman who routinely partied with Paris and Britney). Even McCain's mother was wondering why the ad did not include all 3.

The GOP attacked the Tennessee senate candidate in a similar racist fashion. They ran TV ads of a young white sexually active woman saying she wanted to party with Ford.

The McCain camp is deliberate­ly stiring up racial hatred ... par for David Duke, par for the GOP.

[MissKaren]

07:04 PM on 08/03/2008

Dave Gergen, in today's Huffpo, read the ads correctly and came out against McCain's use of racism. He said that arrogant and not one of us are coded terms that anyone in the South learns to read from childhood. Putting two blond Aryans in the same commercial with a man of color raises the specter of Emmett Louis Till, who was lynched for whistling at a white woman. The question is right there: Do you want a black man near your blond daughter?

[Mr T n NC]

03:08 PM on 08/02/2008

Concerning the Britney and Paris ad: an apt comparison would be Obama airing a commercial about McCain being a long-time beltway insider . . . by leading with shots of Mark Foley and Larry Craig.

[nubret2008]

11:59 AM on 08/02/2008

Come on everybody, don't be overly sensitive. Obama didn't play the race card. If someone pulled out the race card it would be McCain camp for blaming Obama that he had put it out. Even you shouldn't suggest what people should feel when they see this ad. Maybe the Maccies took two blondes, because they are thinking in stereotype­s, maybe it is just a coincidenc­e. As a matter of fact Brit and Paris are the two dumbest celeb chicks worldwide - and they are blond. I see more sexism than racism in this ad.

Everybody with a little sense knows that Obama is a bright mind. By the way the ad is even wrong, because neither Brit nor Paris could attract 200k people in Germany to get together. And if you see that nonsense McCain was talking in the past (e.g. 'Czechoslo­vakia') the proper interpreta­tion is that Brit and Paris rather symbolize McCain himself - blonde, dumb but the age is an antagonism

Greetings from the old world!

[Exhaust]

07:40 AM on 08/02/2008

Maybe the McCain camp wasn't only taking a poke at Obama with this ad. Maybe he was taking a poke at the Media too.
Why does the Media follow Britney and Paris around, day and night?
Paris and Britney have many fans and pull in many readers and views...Ob­ama is the same.
Paris and Britney are admired around the globe...Ob­ama is also.
Paris and Britney have done little or nothing to become that famous...O­bama hasn't either.
The other thing the three of them (Obama, Britney, and Paris) have in common, is their potential to become train wrecks.
Maybe everything isn't racism or racist. Maybe we don't need to read racism into everything said or done.
Take Obama's name out and put in Larry Birkhead (Anna Nicole Smith's ex) or Kato Kaelin (OJ's house guest). They are not global, but the media was all over them...and for what? Waiting for the wreck or fireworks.

[Bongborg]

09:13 AM on 08/02/2008

I think your nick here is extremely appropriat­e, and an Airwick would be also.

[Jessegirl]

02:45 AM on 08/02/2008

I NEVER want to see Obama have to use 2 drunk-driv­ing "girls-gon­e-wild" for his ads.
The only people these 2 girls appeal to are young, white, girls under 10.