Manic, erratic John McCain's poll numbers are down. Stable, steady-as-you-go Barack Obama's are up. Sarah Palin's rhetorical responses to media interviewers are so insensible they've become fodder for every comedian who watches a few minutes' worth of network news any night of the week. I credit an anonymous commenter on a post decrying Palin's gibberish with the best line of September: Palin's verbiage, he wrote, makes every bit as much sense if you read her words backwards. They're Palindromes.
Faced with a faltering campaign, the GOP-inspired race to the bottom of the principles pile is on. And a race it is, make no mistake. It's a foul, shameless race in which an "Obama is not quite like you and me..." meme panders to a climate where allusions to permissible bigotry, the "All-Muslims-are-born-terrorists-and-that-man-is-a-Muslim!" mindset and wholesale xenophobia flourish. The 19 month long whisper campaign becomes a murmur, then a war cry.
The South is fertile ground for sowing new seeds of racial polarization. Southerners bolted from the Democratic ranks the minute they turned traitorous and shoved desegregation down our throats. We were getting around to human rights for our Negroes in our own way and in our own time. Have mercy! They'd only been off the plantation for a hundred years. Democrats pushed us and we've been pushing back ever since.
Lest we forget all that ruckus, kindly pols and their minions remind us. Georgia GOP congressman Lynn Westmoreland calls Barack Obama "uppity" and every Southerner gets the intended message. We know the epithet which follows uppity and Westmoreland knows we know it. He paints us a little reminder, a word-picture, if you will, and it is dark, indeed.
Obama's rise is accompanied in the South by a renewed spate of scurrilous, racist e-mails. It's internet hate-mail, composed and made viral by those who stand to gain from a Republican win in November. Fort Mill, S.C. Mayor Danny Funderburk has had a grand old time recently forwarding e-mails inferring that Barack Obama is the biblical antiChrist. When caught out, Funderburk said he only sent the smear because he "was curious" and he "doesn't know if it's true or not". Makes a Bible-thumping Southern conservative leader proud, don't it? Certainly, it's not easy being one of these hateful hypocrites.
It's not easy being an out-of-the-closet liberal in the Deep South, either. Those of us who write progressive commentary for Southern newspapers are, often, about as popular as a passel of skunks at a picnic. But our readers know who we are and, even when they loathe us, they admit most of us are pretty smart; misguided and Godless, but heavily endowed in the brains department. So they stop those op-ed writers they recognize and ask us questions, especially during campaign season.
Linda R. and Karen A., both Southern baby boomers and very nice ladies, ask me the same question: "Someone told me Obama is a Muslim--is that true? I'm not prejudiced, but you know I just can't vote for a Muslim!"
I give them the sincere, impassioned, 30 minute, fact laden biography of the Obama/Dunham family. They listen.
"Well...I s'pose you're right," Linda answers. "I want to vote for a Democrat and I like what he has to say...but there's just something about him...I'm not comfortable..." She shakes her head.
Karen simply says, "Okay--thanks." Weeks later she calls me. "Now I know I can't vote for Obama," she declares. "He's going to raise my taxes."
I inhale deeply, try not to sound snippy. She's a friend; I like her. I give her another 30 minutes, explain his proposed tax policy. "I don't know, Linda," she says. She doesn't accuse me of lying, and I don't believe she thinks I would lie to her. But she is clearly unconvinced.
"Tell you what," I say, "I'm going to email you links to factcheck.org and snopes. I'll even send you a WSJ post about whose plan best cuts taxes for the working- and middle classes. You can read for yourself--"
"Yeah, but the press is all so liberal--" she interjects.
Gordon H., 66, was a dyed-in-the-wool Bush supporter. Early on he believed in Dubya's war. He and I had a much longer than 30 minute exchange about that -- it takes awhile to explain the 1400 year Sunni-Shia conflict, the data about 9/11, WMD, imminent mushroom clouds and the nationalization of Iraqi oil fields in 1972. Nothing I said changed his mind about his president. Until Katrina hit. Gordon and family live in New Orleans. He, his wife and daughter fled their city. They came to South Carolina as our guests for a month before they could safely return home. We talked politics and the failures of the Bush administration for four weeks.
After his return to New Orleans Gordon called to tell me, "You were right about the war and you were right about what would happen to my city. I will never vote again without talking to you first!"
Gordon phones again as he and his family evacuate New Orleans with Hurricane Gustav barreling toward the Crescent City. He is, understandably, distraught. We talk for awhile. Long enough to get into politics and long enough for him to sigh, saying he is "...going to have no choice but to vote Republican again." When I ask him why on earth he'd vote against his own economic interests, Gordon says, "I just can't vote for that other guy -- there's something about him I don't like..."
Ironically, Gordon cannot tell me what that "something" is. I do not say "Don't come dragging your sorry racist butt up here if Gustav is another killer storm, buddy!" I want to, but I don't. Gordon and his family are decent people. We wouldn't turn them away.
Rachael M., a fifty-something Southern Baptist, swears she is a truly, deeply devout Christian and will not vote for "...that man...there is something wrong with him...something..." She can't say what, either, except to say her concerns are rooted in her religion. We talk about poverty and peace and Jesus, who instructed us to care for the poor and to love one another. "You know, " I tell her, "there are wonderful, prominent progressive Christians who like Barack Obama very much -- and who have publicly vouched for his commitment to Christianity.
"Like who?" she asks.
"Like Jim Wallis," I answer.
"Who's he?" she demands.
"You know, Rachael -- Sojourners, God's Politics, The Great Awakening -- the group, Call to Renewal?"
"Them?" she snaps. "They're a bunch of communists!"
No Southerner appreciates being called a racist. Most are civil to African Americans when they meet them on the street. Many smile and speak to people of color. They no longer lynch them for being uppity or sic their dogs on them. They just don't want them in their churches. Or marrying their kids. Or becoming president. They can't say why. But they're sure it has nothing to do with being racist.
Campaign 2008 is apt to get really nasty between now and election day. McCain/Palin cannot fight a strong, issue-based battle for the White House; the issues are hardly GOP friendly. This fight is going to get shamefully personal. Because, when you cannot find a bona fide political scandal (Keating Five, a 90% pro-Bush voting record) or even a nasty little personal one (adultery, abandoning a sick wife and your kids), political expedience and ambition demand that you create one. This may well become the White Onward Christian Soldiers Muslim-fearing Race Race.
You'll know when fears, smears and loathing begin hitting home. Every political pronouncement from the righteous racist will be prefaced by "I can't say why. You know I'm not prejudiced, but..." All you can do is smile real big, hug 'em, and say, "I always knew you were too good to be a racist! Let's vote for civility, humane governance and positive change -- here, have an Obama/Biden button!"
It couldn't hurt.