This is the latest in a series on the use of the race card for political gain:
As you know, I support Newt Gingrich.
But you also know that I have a policy of uniting behind any Republican candidate who comes under false attack from Democrats and Obama supporters in the media.
It’s a point I have tried to make repeatedly when the media piled on Sarah Palin and some Republicans joined the mob: What went around for Palin eventually would go around for your candidate of choice.
So I defended Rick Perry and Herman Cain against media smears, and now I’m doing it for Mitt Romney.
Last week Romney launched his first television ad directed at Obama:
The ad caused some bickering between the Obama and Romney camps because the wording attributed to Obama about the economy actually was Obama quoting John McCain. While Team Romney is claiming some sort of victory from getting Obama’s attention, I’m not so sure a misleading ad is needed or warranted against Obama — there’s plenty of real material from which to draw.
But as happened in 2008, the Obama campaign relied on a surrogate to make charges of racism. Just as Team Obama left it to James Clyburn to play the race card on Bill Clinton, this time Team Obama left it to Tad Devine, a senior Democratic operative. As reported in The Hill:
Democratic strategist Tad Devine, an adviser to the Al Gore and John Kerry presidential campaigns, accused Mitt Romney’s campaign of invoking the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright in a recent ad.
Devine said Wednesday that he was “shocked” to see what he believed was imagery of an African-American church in an ad released Tuesday by Romney’s campaign team and airing in New Hampshire. The ad, Romney’s first of the campaign, is “clearly an attempt to bring back Rev. Wright and race,” Devine tweeted.
The charge is based on two images which float through the video so quickly you’ll miss them if you blink. Again as reported by The Hill:
In the ad, a series of images including those of a foreclosed home and empty businesses flash by as text criticizes President Obama’s economic record. But at two points, the imagery cuts to well-dressed African-American women walking down a large hallway, and pans over a predominantly black audience.
“It appears to be a congregation of African-American people,” Devine told The Hill. “In the first scene there are no white people at all, in the second … it is all African Americans except possibly one person, [whose race] you can’t really tell.”
Devine said he believes these images were selected intentionally to invoke race and the controversy involving Wright, the president’s former pastor.
I never heard of Tad Devine before, but he is pathetic and disgusting in his role of race card player.
First, the notion that showing images of blacks in a video is an attempt to invoke Jeremiah Wright is preposterous. There also were plenty of whites in the video; momentary flashes of non-whites does not give the video a racial overtone.
Second, and most important, this was nothing more than a pre-emptive Democratic attempt to make it toxic for anyone to bring up Obama’s long association with Wright by making charges of racism even when Wright is not mentioned. That shows you how much the Democrats fear a true investigation of Obama’s background and his ridiculously incredible claims that he did not know that his pastor and mentor was a race-baiting flame thrower.
Tad Devine occupies a special place in the Saturday Night Card Game as having fired the first preemptive race card shot of the 2012 election.
So too does The Hill blogger David Di Martino who took Devine’s accusations and ran with them in a blog post:
Even though Romney apparently approved of the message in the ad, it is unlikely he’s very comfortable with this strategy. The ad, with its intentional misrepresentations and stealth nod to racism, betrays Romney’s squeaky-clean image that he has spent decades grooming.
Memo to Tad Devine and David Di Martino: If a rock from 1984 and a dinner from 1997 are on the table, so too are Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers, and the vast emptiness of Obama’s narrative.
Your attempt to suppress legitimate political expression through false accusations of racism will not work this time, unlike in 2008.
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Comments
A fraction of a second is now racism? I’d place good money they just used some stock footage they had in the back for that. It’s lose/lose honestly. If they didn’t have those pictures in there, they’d be racist for only having whites in the commercial.
I love the post race politics Obama ushered in [Sarcasm]
Let me see if I get this. If you bring up a church where the pastor is a hatemonger, that makes you a racist?
Ditto Islamophobia I guess.
It’s time to break out of the debate cycle, and Mitt’s move here is good. I think he’s Obama’s worst nightmare as a candidate because he’s as proabortion and pro-gay as Hillary Clinton, he won top office in a very liberal state, he actually governed, he out-ObamaCared Obama, and he’s endured more bashing in campaigns over a much longer time. And I’ll have no choice but to vote for him, if he gets the nod, as Mitt isn’t a Marxist.
On the other hand (could you hear it coming?) I could never willingly vote for the man. My reasons are found at MassResistance.org/Romney. My only solace is that Jay Severin, a politically savvy conservative talk-show host in Boston, claims that Mitt will keep his word. This time.
As for Newt, I loved his speeches in ’94. Then what happened? Now I hear good speeches again. My trust factor is below zero. Yes, I’ll vote for him if necessary.
I think the Romney ad was very clever. Without the “apparently misleading” Obama soundbite, it is a powerful ad. With it, it’s a powerful ad that got loads of free play nationally.
And when average voters heard Obama saying “if we talk about the economy, we lose,” even if they know he was quoting McCain from 2008, doesn’t it sound exactly like what Obama would say about himself today if he was being honest?
“Paul is dead! Oh my God! Paul is really dead!! Oh, the rock ‘n roll humanity!!”
—Tad Devine, shouting and sobbing uncontrollably from his dorm window after returning from the record store with his purchase of Sgt. Pepper’s and examining the album cover, 1967.
I remember Tad from the 2008 election cycle. He is a chief propagandist for Obama. One nasty customer.
We can expect an absolutely brutal 2012 election cycle where Obama has nothing left to run on other than attempting to diminish the opposition.
That is why I believe in Ann Coutler’s analysis of the Herman Cain women and the connection with David Axelrod. Obama’s political history is replete with his not running on his merits but engaging in character assassinations of the opposition.
I should also point out that Obama must not feel confident that he has locked in his base. He will likely not get the overwhelming support of black Americans in 2012 due to dreadfully high unemployment in the black communities.
Hispanics are quite diverse and will likely vote their pocket books too.
They brought some no name dem to attack Romney? Must be getting desperate.
So, by his logic, Obama going to a all black church with no white people is racist as well, right?
And even more so, considering Rev Wrong was having sermons of the anti-America, anti-white, anti-sematic variety. And Mr. Barry Soetero considering the Rev his mentor, his “spiritual mentor” I believe were the exact words, and now really, he’s been listening to the rev for over 2 decades, Barry wants americans to believe he doesn’t believe the same things as his mentor?!
I do not change my predictions, but will make the following observation.
Obama should pay attention to history. Like other subjects, geography, economics, Constitutional law and honesty it’s a subject he really didn’t do any study of.
The Clinton years gave us terms like “Clinton fatigue”. We have the danger of Obama’s efforts generating “racism fatigue”.
The charges of racism being behind every single challenge to the Democrats policies has gone non-stop since Jan. of 2009. Every attempt to ask for a review of Obama’s record, past associations, academic record or even a look at what he said was greeted with charges of racism.
To keep waving this flag after three years of more wars, more unemployment, more discontent is going to lead to race card fatigue even among the devoted faithful.
It won’t make them vote any different, but it really is hard to get upset over the latest feigned outrage when everyone knows it’s feigned.
[…] JEREMIAH WRIGHT still scares Democrats. […]
Obama surrogates claimed that Hillary’s “3am” ad was racist because it didn’t show any children of color in it.
So if Romney’s ad didn’t show any black faces at all it would be called racist on that basis.
Let’s suppose that this nut’s analysis is correct, and those two frames really were intended, somehow, to subliminally evoke the image of Wright in people’s minds. It’s not a very logical claim, but let’s suppose anyway, just for fun. I still don’t get how that’s racist, or at all objectionable. Shouldn’t people be thinking about Wright, and how Obama called him his “mentor”?
I say play “reverend” Wright footage over a montage of Obama every day, day in and day out, till people realize the two are linked. Inextricably. Show no mercy, they have none.
No quarter.
Those that cry, “Racist!” often indulge in the practice routinely themselves.
I’m not fond of Mittens but… I’ll take him way before another four years of O’bammy.
We cannot afford another four years of liberal democrat rule…
Dems better watch out. Perhaps the most effective way to get conservatives like me fired up about supporting Romney would be to pull this crap again.
I had to watch that video 2 or 3 times to see the so-called “raaaaacist” images they were referencing. Less than 1/10 of 1 second (at about the .19 sec. spot – but don’t go too fast, or you will miss it!). The image it brought to my mind was people out of work, people at town halls, not a “black” church.
I didn’t even notice the color of the people’s skin until it was pointed out by the Democrat attack dog.
So, who is the racist? Which party is “inherently” raaaaacist?
(Yes, rhetorical questions; some day, and I hope it’s soon, people will wake up and realize this raaaaace card is mere projection – the true racists are the leftists, the Democrat Party. Also, I agree with the “racist fatigue” comment. I’d not heard of “Clinton fatigue” but this race card is beyond a “jumped the shark” moment – from the ridiculous to the absurd; returning like a boomerang, hopefully taking down the user!)
Maybe not, but among the democrats, even the ‘moderate’ ones, in my admittedly small circle of family, friends, and co-workers, any mention of Ayers, Wright, or even Obama’s own words from his book brings exaggerated eye rolls and disgusted lip curls. To even mention these things invokes a strong response.
It has all been settled, you know. To bring it up again is racist.
Jeremiah Wright, Bill Ayers and ACORN 24/7. If the Republicans aren’t willing to play hardball this time they will continue to get empty envelopes back in the mail.
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This stuff needs to be mocked immediately and without cessation. It should be given no room to move at all. Every time there race card is played it should result in immediate denigration and laughter. Like this.
This is all just theatre.
Romney is Obama’s Brother from another Mother. Why is the MSM pushing Romney so hard? Why is he never in rotation for an anal exam? Because he’s their RINO. Their boy. The right doesn’t want Romney – the left does.
These lefty trolls are trying to create conflict and contrast between Obama and Romney when in reality there is none.
“But you also know that I have a policy of uniting behind any Republican candidate who comes under false attack from Democrats and Obama supporters in the media.”
NASCAR fans, on the other hand, you don’t hesitate to falsely attack as racist based on nothing other than some booing of Michelle O.