McCain and Obama Have Played the Race Card

Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama is anything but naïve. He knew the instant that he tossed his hat in the presidential ring that race would be an issue, maybe even the dominating issue in the White House campaign. No matter how much generic, race neutral talk he made about hope and change, and no matter how much time he spent talking about the Iraq War, the Iran Missile threat, the war on terrorism, a tanking economy, and the lack of affordable health care, race would lurk close to the surface.

So it's hardly a revelation that Republican rival John McCain would turn the tables and accuse Obama of playing the race card. This deft or crude bit of reverse political psychology says Obama plants a seed in voter's minds that he hides behind color to play on white guilt, or do a hit job on McCain. Or simply to preempt McCain from using what some consider sneaky and insidious code words such as inexperienced, novice, and greenhorn on foreign policy issues as surrogates for race.

But Obama does have a point about the peril of race. A legion of websites has cropped up to spew non-stop borderline racist digs at Obama and his wife, Michelle. McCain has swiftly disavowed all race tinged ads, cracks, taunts against Obama as well as the New Yorker magazine cover, at least publicly. The jury is way out whether these attacks help or hurt Obama.

Meanwhile, Obama's hands aren't completely clean on the race issue. Team Obama lambasted Hillary Clinton for supposedly denigrating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., made a blatant racial pitch to blacks to flood the polls in the South Carolina primary, and uses a bible thumping preacher cadence in talking to black audiences.

Then there's the curious quip that he doesn't look like all the other presidents on dollar bills. This got McCain's dander up since the obvious inference was that maybe it's time for a black to be on those bills. This is hardly a race neutral way to make the point that Republicans allegedly are using scare tactics against him.

Even while Obama and McCain cautiously tip around race, they have been fascinated and terrified by its potential to do both harm and good to their campaigns. The faintest utterance from McCain about race and Obama will bring loud, outraged shouts that McCain is playing dirty racial pool. But the reality is that at times this ploy has worked to sink black candidates who have run head to head with white candidates in more than a few state races. A racial hit even helped sink a white candidate presidential campaign; the Willie Horton hit on Michael Dukakis in 1988.

On the other hand, Obama will get reamed if he dares make a racial utterance as he did with the quip about the faces of presidents on dollar bills, or complain that he is being picked at by the GOP because he is black. The rap is that he screams racism to drum up public sympathy and votes. But the reality is that this work too. It stirs disgust and anger that Obama is being racially targeted. This was the case with the New Yorker cover.

Obama and McCain can play it as close to the vest as humanly possible and never make any allusion to, or charge about race. Yet race still will be shoved down their throats. This was virtually preordained when every media outlet made a virtual mantra of the question: Can an African-American win the presidency? There have been endless variations on that question. This imprinted the notion that race does, or at least might, matter to an awful lot of voters, black and white, but especially white voters.

Unfortunately, this has proven to be a self-fulfilling prophecy.

During his hard fought Democratic primaries with Clinton, a significant percentage of whites were unabashed in saying that they wouldn't and didn't vote for Obama because of his color. Obama publicly shrugged it off with the retort that he was aware that some whites wouldn't support him because he was black but that he was confident this was a tiny minority. Privately, Team Obama worry that the number who think that way might be more than a small bigoted minority. He hedged his bet by again making an obvious racial pitch for blacks to mob the polls in November. McCain moved quickly to capitalize on the anti-Obama racial sentiment by imploring these turned off Democrats to cross over and back him. McCain never mentioned race, but race is the subtle undercurrent in their disaffection with Obama.

Obama is ever alert to race and the potential damage that it can do to his White House drive. That's why he wasted no time in accusing McCain of "injecting' race into the campaign with his racial knock against him for his dollar bill remark. It won't be the last time the two will finger point each other for a racial injection. And they'll be right about each other each time.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is The Ethnic Presidency: How Race Decides the Race to the White House (Middle Passage Press, February 2008).

Comments

[GrainOSand]

For purposes of context, and to support subsequent statements, a history of the playing card as object is provided.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Playing_card

Let us look at the concept of a manufactured object versus the end-use of same object. The race card suggests a card in a deck of cards that can be played as a tactic or strategy in a game. It could and should be considered ridiculous for manufacturers of a deck of cards containing a race card to find fault with anyone who would point out the presence of the card in the deck and its use in the games that are played. This is what Barack Obama did. He stated the game that is played and the cards that are used to play it. It is in his best interest to inform the public of how the deck is stacked with cards of disrespect and divide.

Barack Obama is not a manufacturer of cards (America manufactured racial divide not Obama) but he is a student of card games and thus is aware how a joker can be dealt from the bottom of the deck to sully the quality of what otherwise is a respectful game. Since he sees being elected as a collaborative effort involving a national community of the concerned, he simply sought to remind his team of the games that are played by the other side and how they might introduce (have introduced) a card with divisive and distracting properties.

[Edmonsky]

Earl Hutchinson is a commentator who is very biased against Senator Obama for reasons only he knows why. For instance, during the Primaries, Hilary accused Obama of only being good at giving speeches and a talker rather than a doer. The same Hilary went on the same breath to claim that MLK gave speeches and it took the wisdom of a doer, President LBJ to pass civil right laws. Hilary is not a racist but she would not have minded exploiting racial divide to feather her nests. That Blacks voted for Obama in disproportionate number during SC primary was a grand design by the Clintons to provoke reaction from the whites and vote of her but voters saw the intrigue and jettisioned it. You may have forgotten that Bill Clinton referred to Obama as a "kid", said that he was a roll of dice, said that he never got to the Senate before he started running for president, insinuating that Obama was going to win SC as Jesse Jackson did and hence bringing race right and center. All these were antics to force Blacks to rally around Obama in order to pronounce him a black candidate.

[FarOutFish]

Given the racial differences between the candidates, the race card was automatically dealt in this election. The only question was when and by which candidate.

[Gma11]

I require my students do their research before I allow them to hand in their papers.

[betthefarm]

McSame's problem is that Obama is playing the intelligence card and trying to replace one dumb white man and keep another one out of America's top office!

[pottery]

What I can say, is that the term "playing the race card' is messy and indistinct. It's a term for triggering preconceived notions, whatever they might be.

I don't think Obama played a 'race card.' He stated the obvious, thus disarming some who try to nurture those negative racial feeling that may cloud one's judgment when it comes to voting those interests. McCain's people don't want those who will use race as a litmus thus disarmed, so they are attempting to sully the waters with those assertions. Obama was also trying to gird those supporters who may be on the fence, who want to vote what they see as their interests, but might still be swayed be negative media, campaign pressures to conform and vote for the 'war hero,' by making them aware of the pressure.

"The obscure we see eventually, the completely obvious takes longer." - Edward R. Murrow

[several]

"Then there's the curious quip that he doesn't look like all the other presidents on dollar bills."

The comment about the faces on the bills wasn't curious at all. It was specifically addressing this internet ad posted by the McCain campaign on June 27th:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDTJDv4hevU

[Rescisco]

This week, with its focus on race, has been the most disappointing of the campaign to date and a preview of coming attractions. McCain is hoping that America is racist enough to make this an election about the prejudices and fears of too many white Americans. Obama is hoping that the eight year string of unbroken failure, a string that will remain unbroken for another four years if McCain wins, and the public yearning for real change will overcome the unspoken prejudices and fears that have crippled this nation from its inception. I am fearful that prejudice and fear are stronger than reason, and equally fearful that race will be a deciding factor in the end (remember the "Bradley effect"). This week makes it clear to me that we have yet to have our first intelligent and truthful dialogue in this country about race. Until we do that and confront the fact that fear and prejudice live and that appeals to them still have a chance to work, the McCains's will always be with us and always in or at least near the winner's circle. The question isn't who played the race card but, in my humble opinion, for how much longer will that card be played without any negative consequence for the one who plays it. It still looks lika an ace judging by this week and the coverage it has gotten.

[Jezreel]

Yeah. Right, Earl. So Obama played the race card by getting out as many AA voters as he could in SC? And he was playing the race card by speaking with the cadence of a preacher? First, I don't think any objective person would agree with the unbelievable assertion that Obama and his campaign staff were singularly responsible for the millions of people who voted in the SC primaries. Secondly, if you really believe that those instances qualify as playing the race card, you do not understand what playing the race card means.

[PennP]

Interesting what generates a fracas, and why. When I heard Obama make the dollar-bill statement, what I thought of first was his head, how close he wears his hair, and how much less of it he'd have than George Washington, Andrew Jackson, Benjamin Franklin, amd even Lincoln. Fractions of an inch, to their streaming locks and wigged pompadours. I thought, yes, his really would be a modern head, closer to FDR's dime than anything, and it would be different just for its compactness and how well it's defined.

Besides, the notion that color is the key point in Obama's dollar bill statement is funny when you consider that on our currency, everyone's a strange shade of green.

[Politihal]

I almost always agree with youand admire your ability to see all sides...but not this time. I don't think that McCain has played the race card, nor his surrogates. He didn't have to. He knew by watching what happened to the Clintons and Geraldine Ferraro and others that his time would come. It did Wednesday, and McCain moved quickly. He surely didn't want to end up demonized as a racist as Bill Clinton did.

Yes, sadly, there are Americans afraid of Obama because of his race. How he uses race isn't helping his problem. In fact, I'm not certain he hasn't overplayed his hand. The genie is out of the bottle; it will be interesting to see how it all plays out.

Halli Casser-Jayne
http://www.thecjpoliticalreport.com

[nomobull]

big pile of bs

[mypov123]

Oh, I get it Earl. Obama is "playing the race card" by calling the McCain campaign and operatives who work "outside" the campaign out on their race-baiting, that's playing the race card? I don't think so. Rather, Obama is trying to outsmart the Republicans and challenge them to debate him and focus on REAL issues, instead of using fear and smear tactics to win this election. The Republicans know that they don't stand a chance if they try to debate policies concerning issues like health care and education, so instead their M.O. is all about smearing the character of the Democratic opponent. I think Obama did the right thing by publicly letting the Republicans know that he's on their B.S. tactics and he's not going to let them get away with it without throwing it back at them. According to you, Obama should just sit and take whatever smear attacks they throw at him, just keep his mouth shut and "know his place".

[cadbury]

"Meanwhile, Obama's hands aren't completely clean on the race issue. Team Obama lambasted Hillary Clinton for supposedly denigrating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., made a blatant racial pitch to blacks to flood the polls in the South Carolina primary, and uses a bible thumping preacher cadence in talking to black audiences."

Mr. Hutchinson, thank you for this piece of honest analysis. Too many people on HuffPo and in the MSM have promoted, or at least failed to denounce, the idea that the Clintons are racists. This nonsense continues even today!

The Repubs have studied how to use the race issue cleverly and cleanly in the general. They NEVER said a word about race in the controversial celebrity ad. They know that using race would be toxic for them. The ad is ultimately about experience. Obama took the bait. Rather than addressing the "thin resume" issue, he raised the race issue himself. He was fair game. Hopefully Obama learned some important lessons from this experience that will help him to run a more effective campaign and win in Nov.

[nomobull]

excuse me it was mccain who started it in response to the dollar bill remark.then the msm fed the flames.

[mypov123]

The Clinton campaign knew what they were doing when they decided that she would bring up MLK during the primary election, just like the McCain campaign knew what they were doing by including two young, blond-haired White women in the same ad with Obama, and accusing him of playing the race card. The McCain campaign is using strategies right out of the Clinton campaign playbook during the primary, except their attempts are even more ridiculous. Again, here's the Clinton/McCain campaigns race strategy: Make a statement or ad with racial overtones that will likely prompt the Obama campaign to respond in opposition, making Obama look more like the Black civil rights candidate that most Whites rejected when Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton ran for President". Hillary knew that her statement would get a negative response, just like the McCain campaign knew that their Britney/Paris/Obama ad would receive accusations of race-baiting, and both campaigns were waiting for Obama to respond in opposition to their attempts.

[batgirl71]

Bingo!

[Fabienne]

Considering that the white person has used race to his or her advantage since the first slaves entered this country, to criticize Obama for making a few remarks, which are probably true, regarding race seems disingenuous, to say the least. Senator Clinton's remarks DID denigrate Martin Luther King, whether she meant to do so or not, and her surrogates, including her husband, DID use race to denigrate Obama's campaign, whether they are racists or not. White America has held the entire deck for most of our history; for an African-American to use the race card, he or she has to have been dealt it by the white man, which is exactly what Clinton and McCain did during their campaigns. And if you think racism is no longer endemic in our culture, check out the post-Katrina footage. You can say those left behind were victims of "class" rather than "race", but why are so many black people still poor in this country? If you believe it's totally their own fault, you're a racist. And I'm a white woman over 60, by the way.

[DoTheMath]

Mr. Hutchinson, do you think the "celebrity" ad was intended to provoke a race-related response?

The ad throws a black, male, former president of Harvard Law Review into the same category as two blond bimbos, making sure to feature all three on screen at the same time.

The McCain campaign accused Obama of "playing the race card" a day after the ad was released, using the premise of Obama's dollar-bill remark. Obama made the dollar-bill remark on Wednesday, the day the ad was released, as one item on a list of ways in which "they," meaning the opposition in general, would try to make Obama seem too risky, too different to trust with the presidency.

No one said anything about the remark all day Wednesday. Then, on Thursday, the McCain campaign was shocked by it. Although the media dutifully followed the McCain campaign in calling attention to the remark, no one outside the McCain campaign independently identified the remark as "playing the race card" for an entire day after hearing it.

I suspect the McCain campaign hoped for a more direct charge of race-baiting. However, by Thursday morning, with nothing more substantial than the dollar-bill remark, and with criticism of their attacks mounting, especially against their hospital visit ad, which was generally condemned as misleading by independent fact-checkers, they decided to go ahead with the "race card" accusation.

What do you think, Mr. Hutchinson?

[DoTheMath]

Correction: Obama made the dollar-bill comment on Tuesday and several times during the primaries. In other words, it took a lot longer than a day for anyone to be shocked by it.

[Jezreel]

The truth is that the McCain camp had already pasted Obama's face on a currency note in late June. Rick Davis cited the reference to Obama's face on the dollar bill as a reason for the campaign's feigned indignation. They included the image in a Web ad which you can see here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDTJDv4hevU

[arthuride]

The issue of race is real--for bigots--and should have no place in contemporary thought or politics. While I am not impressed with Obama, his race has as little importance for me as does his gender (yet few quibble that he is male). What is important is where anyone (especially the presidential candidates) stand on issues. Both Obama and McCain waffle, both are into showmanship and brinkmanship. I am not impressed with either. We need a candidate who supports the right of a woman to chose an abortion, the right of those no longer wishing to live to end their existence peacefully, gay rights, and the right to privacy, and the restoration of the Constitution that W Bush and his cronies have gutted.

[DoTheMath]

Although you may not fully approve of either candidate, it is in your best interest to choose the better one. In what looks to be a close race, any citizen who fails to select and support one candidate, at least by voting for that candidate, is helping to elect the other candidate. I'm sure that if you carefully research - using reliable sources - the candidates' positions and past actions on the issues you listed, you will find that one candidate would clearly serve what you have defined as your interests much better than the other.