In Slate, Dave Weigel engages in one of the funnier rituals of modern day politics: the pre-emptive accusation of racism:
Will the GOP play the race card on Rangel and Waters?
The commercial that keeps Democrats up at night does not exist yet. If or when it does, they expect it to look like this.
Fade-in to black-and-white image of Rep. Whiteguy Bluedog, looking sleazy and pale as he messily eats a sandwich.
NARRATOR: What is your congressman trying to hide?
Images of Rep. Charles Rangel, D-N.Y., and Rep. Maxine Waters, D-Calif., appear behind the congressman, looking just as sleazy, but much less pale.
NARRATOR: Why hasn't he returned the $1,000 he took from Harlem Democrat Charlie Rangel, who's facing a trial for cheating on his taxes? Why did he oppose investigating Democrat Maxine Waters, who got a tax break for her husband's business and says that American spies invented crack cocaine?
The images of Waters and Rangel fade and are replaced by slow-motion footage of two members of the New Black Panther Party, stalking outside of a polling place in 2008.
NARRATOR: Why did he support Barack Obama's lawyers when they dropped a case against the racist New Black Panther Party, a hate group that threatened voters in the last election?
The image of the Panthers fade, and the congressman morphs into Barack Obama.
NARRATOR: What is he trying to hide? Is there something about him we should know?
Since last week's double shot of rotten ethics news—the investigations into Rangel and Waters, both of whom refuse so far to settle—Democrats have contemplated two potential nightmares. The first is that Republicans will use the troubles of Rangel and Waters to try to depress the Democrats' African-American base, making them less likely to come to the rescue of endangered incumbents. The second is that Republicans will use the embattled committee chairs the way that they once used Willie Horton, as Halloween masks in TV ads.
"In 2006, the Democrats could have put out ads about Mark Foley, and it wouldn't have made a difference whether they used pictures of him or not," says Bob Shrum, a Democratic strategist for multiple presidential campaigns who now teaches at New York University and warns of Republican race-baiting in the weeks ahead. "In 2010, if Republicans put up photos of Rangel or Waters, they're putting them there to elicit another kind of response. That would be fear among white voters."
The Democratic angst comes, in part, because they know they're facing a whiter, older electorate this year than they faced in 2008. The electorate that put Obama into office and pulled in new, vulnerable Democrats was 74 percent white, and 53 percent were older than 45. In 2006, the last midterm election and a fine year for Democrats overall, the electorate was 79 percent white, and 63 percent were 45 or older. Will an older, whiter electorate in Nov. 2010 be susceptible to a racially-tinged message from the GOP?
Uh, oh, say well-trained Republican "strategists" as they read this, We'd better not criticize two of the most famous Democrats in the House ... because they're black. Also, we'd better not criticize the most famous Democrat in the country, because he's black, too. We wouldn't want to be like George H.W. Bush in 1988 and win. Heavens, no. It's so much nicer to be like John McCain in 2008 not mentioning Rev. Wright and lose.
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The mistake in this analysis is the assumption that the ethical system remains static. When blacks get into power they start to change the system so that things which would be considered unethical in whitey's world, and lands many of them in the soup, are redefined as being unproblematic. Obama has been hinting at this intent and his justice dpt. has made a few forays, but many white Americans don’t have a clue what’s awaiting them at the other side of the multicultural tunnel.
The development in South Africa is a good example of this. Instead of dealing with widespread corruption which engulfs almost all the politicians of the ANC, Zuma, the polygamist, has called out a “national debate about ethics”. His intention is to redefine "western" values more in line with "traditional African values", which is codeword for corruption, nepotism, witchcraft and a sexual wasteland, the very things which keep Africa on its knees.
So Weigel's got another job already? That didn't take long.
Is this sleazeball still telling people he's a right-winger?
What other group fantasizes so vividly and masturbatorily about the coming persecutions?
That a liberal thinks of Willie Horton when considering the campaign impact of Charles Rangel and Maxine Waters is...interesting.
When guys like this go out of their way demonstrate their anti-racism, they often lump blacks together as all alike.
If he were to pause one second to consider the facts of the Willie Horton case, he'd realize that the comparison is specious.
Thinking pre-emptively, I'm going to predict that if Mike Huckabee runs in 2012, the dems or a left-leaning organization will run ads about Maurice Clemmons. I'm also going to predict that Dave Weigel won't have a problem with that.
Racism worked well for Obama against the Clintons in South Carolina. The Obama campaign had an internal memo of how they would neutralize President Clinton's effective campaigning by putting his statements through the lens of race. And they did, and Weigel and crew parroted along.
Republicans can't think of Obama as being black. That's really irrelevant. He's a Chicago politician and he should treated as such. That means playing to win. WWLAD...What Would Lee Atwater do? He would mobilize his base, ridicule his opponent, and neutralize the media's bias by developing a narrative they could understand.
I think Ohio and Florida could easily be in play in 2012, and Virginia is off the table for Obama. Purple states like Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico could be up for grabs. I think it's a winnable one, if the Republican wants it.
I read mainly conservative websites and lately I've been getting a kick out of watching Steve's ideas and observations ripple over them -- nearly always without Steve getting credit, I might add. The order goes: after Steve, then Pat Buchanan, American Thinker, American Spectator, Drudge, Hotair, then, bringing up the rear on occasion, NRO.
Steve Sailer is the Nostradamus of the Republican Party, and it would appear that the Stupid Party is beginning to notice him, especially now that all his uncanny predictions about Obie are coming TRUE, TRUE, TRUE!
Who says sociology doesn't have predictive value?
Right. Willie Horton was a cheap ploy used by Republican Lee Atwater to exploit the phony, nonexistent issue of urban crime. If America had been a little more enlightened, it would've seen through this and elected Michael Dukakis as president. We would then have had the benefit of Massachusettes-style furlough programs being extended to federal prisons across America.
"In 2010, if Republicans put up photos of Rangel or Waters, they're putting them there to elicit another kind of response. That would be fear among white voters."
Well, they've got that right. Pictures of Maxine Waters scare me to death.
Don't forget -- lately its not just the conservative websites and their ripple effect -- its at least half the venerated left-leaning columnists at the NY Times, the Atlantic, Slate, Salon and the New Yorker who have been imbibing heavily from Steve's well stocked bar of ideas.
The other day, I found myself in an elevator with only one other passenger, John McCain. But I had no elevator speech prepared. What do you say when you've only got 5 or 10 seconds to make a pitch to a guy like that?
Its hard to believe the Republican
'strategists' have ever believed this crap. I think the reluctance of Republicans to criticize Affirmative action and illegal immigration has more to do with the Chamber-of-Commerce and wealthy doners then bad political analysis. But its a good fig leaf.
Replace George H.W. Bush and Willie Horton in 1988 with Pete Wilson and illegal immigration in 1994, or Arnold Schwarzenegger and illegal immigration in 2003, as compared to, say, the GOP and amnesty in 2006. Why go the route of Schwarzenegger and Wilson and win when you can go the route of Bush and the GOP in '06 and '07 and lose?
Played right, anti-illegal immigration and anti-affirmative action are the most under-exploited issues out there - issues that would win Republicans a lot of votes, yet they leave them on the table every election season.
"What do you say when you've only got 5 or 10 seconds to make a pitch to a guy like that?" You say "O's proved a great disappointment, don't you think?"
Then you wait to see whether he replies "Not really, it's all panned out as iSteve predicted."
"its at least half the venerated left-leaning columnists ... who have been imbibing heavily from Steve's well stocked bar of ideas."
Steve is the Typhoid Mary of HBD.
Meanwhile in In Shreveport
The AP is surmising a tragedy like this is due to lack of access to public pools?
Presumably not for the guy who managed to save one of the teens.
Unbelievable.
Huh. So Dave Weigel's getting paid to publicly think and talk like he did on journolist now? Lots of "framing" away from "What did these people do and should we reject them because of it?" towards ingroup normalization because otherwise Poland will invade Germany.
Democrats need to race bait this issue to take the focus of black anger and suspicion off them and put it on the Devils in the Republican party.
No doubt many blacks are wondering why a Democrat congress is "going after" two prominent black politicians.
The Democrats' self serving strategy should be to claim White racist Republicans are the villains of the story, that they are "playing to fear, hate and racism", and shift the outrage that way.
Same with the Willie Horton case. A predatory black racist rapist and murderer with a career history of brutalizing White people becomes a kind of victim of a White Republican smear campaign.
So the politician at fault is not Governor Dukakis for vetoing an anti-furlough bill that would have kept the criminal in jail. Instead it was VP Bush at fault for getting you to notice.
By the way, Dukakis' White female campaign manager Susan Estrich was raped by a black male while attending at Harvard Law school.
She might be a liberal and a feminist but when a black male is involved race trumps all.
That's what it means to be a Democrat.
>Steve is the Typhoid Mary of HBD.
Nice. True and clever, anon.
Why would anyone, at this late date, expect the RNC to run an effective ad against a minority? They would rather water down their criticism and expand the circle of guilt to "the system" than risk pointing out that the majority of the Cong Black Caucus is really more like the Treason Caucus. If "the system" is the problem then there is no reason to elect Republicans, which means they don't have to fill their days with long committee meetings and they can play golf or make fund raising phone calls.
In Connecticut a racist black man kills a bunch of white people.
His family blame it on .... white racism!
It all comes down to the fact that the national republicans would rather lose and still be invited to the next Georgetown cocktail party than win and be snubbed. Which makes sense when you look at: if you merely have support in your home district, you can always be voted out and then have to (yeesh) go back and live with the yokels. But if you are part of the club, you will get a nice lobbying contract and be taken care of. You just have to not rock the boat.
Steve, what makes you think Reps want to win every election? They're just happy to be part of the system and to win (or throw) elections when it suits them.
It's amusing that Wiegel cannot even make an intellectually credible accusation of racism in the hypothetical. He creates a fictional racist campaign run by fictional racist republicans and even then he cannot nail them. The 'racism' or 'race card' in Wiegel's imagined ad comes entirely from SUPPOSING that it was designed to appeal to the racial fears and hatreds ASSUMED to exist in huge numbers of white voters.
I'm not even sure if its possible for someone to unfairly caricature their own caricature, but if it is, Wiegel has done it.
He really does strike me as one of those people with huge moral vanity and a small moral stature. The kind of people who, since their is little outward sign of their believed moral superiority - for the good reason that it doesn't exist - must believe the greater number of their fellows are driven by unspoken evils if their ego is to endure.
This is a job for Steve Sailer. Find the political corruption figures by race and publish an analysis.
I was in San Francisco when we elected Willie Brown mayor. Brown was a crook but I assumed then, as I do now, that all black politicians are crooks. Clearly that is racial prejudice. I need my mind to be "made right".
I need the actual statistics on political corruption by race so that I can begin to eliminate crude generalizations from my thinking and learn to say something more moderate like - "Almost all black politicians are crooks".
Albertosaurus
"By the way, Dukakis' White female campaign manager Susan Estrich was raped by a black male while attending at Harvard Law school."
She did mention during the campaign that she had been the victim of a crime, rape, but not once did she ever, ever mention the perp's race.
"She might be a liberal and a feminist but when a black male is involved race trumps all."
Yes, it's apparent that to the liberal himself, no one criterion so identifies him as liberal to himself than his positions (or posturing)on issues of race. Sadlly, this psychic disturbance causes such a person to force square pegs into round holes when he twists any and every issue into a racial one and when he refuses to acknowledge, refuses to even consider the overwhelming data that puts the lie to so many of their cherished beliefs.
Which Republican strategists are these? The Republican party has criticized Obama plenty, and have been quite successful at it judging by his abysmal poll numbers.
Liberals will call Republicans "racist" no matter what they do, as Keith Olbermann did last night, calling Republicans the party of "scared white people." John McCain didn't understand this, but the only way to beat them at this game is to not give a shit what they call you, and call THEM out for the anti-American elitists they are. Best defense is a good offense.
By the way, Sen. McCain, are the national media loving you again yet? That's what I thought.
An explicitly anti-affirmative action, anti-illegal immigration Reublican party wins back Ohio and Pennsylvania, two fairly white and old states. It probably wins back Virginia and Florida. And watch out long-term for states like Minnesota and even Massachusetts where they aren't truly as liberal as their representation.
We'd better not criticize two of the most famous Democrats in the House ... because they're black.
A hack like Wiggle takes a couple of pages to express one sentence.
Come to think of it, whatever happened to the guy who hid his bribe money in the 'fridge? Last I heard, Bush was letting him off the hook.
@ What Would Lee Atwater Do?
I totally agree with your points. He would do everything necessary to WIN! He would go on the offensive every day. He would frame and reframe every issue to his side.
Tell me, what kind of narrative would the media understand?
We live in a time of loose accusations, don't we?
Men = sexist.
Whites = racist.
Gentiles = anti-semitic.
Heterosexuals = homophobes.
Just watch how normal, white, fathers are depicted in TV commercials.
Al Gore originally brought up the Willie Horton issue back in the 1988 primaries. Jim Pinkerton claims that he subsequently picked up the Horton issue from Gore and ran with it.
So really, Al Gore was responsible for making Horton an issue.
Now that's what I call an Inconvenient Truth.
This essay nicely illustrates a concept identified by political scientist William Riker, heresthetics. A passable definition can be found here. Its the art and science of how politicians and public policy intellectuals can manipulate arguments and control debate, issue framing only more so. The goal is to constrain the oppositions possible policy options -- perhaps even what would be their best strategy-- by making part of the universe of policy options, or electoral strategies, off limits. The preemptive strike by Weigel is not at all funny, but part of a serious/deadly game of politics. By it, he intends to render a quite possibly winning tactic off limits to Republicans. Now the meme is out there, they will have to thread the needle in using Rangel/Waters as campaign issues.
"Liberals will call Republicans "racist" no matter what they do, as Keith Olbermann did last night, calling Republicans the party of "scared white people."
Olbermann is an ueber-douche, a pompous, hate-spewing liberal clown. I wonder why istevers almost never complain about this German-American white-baiter? Oh, I guess I just answered that question.
In line with Headache's initial comment, in 1990 a black guy came into my office saying he'd been fired due to racism. "The just don't like black folks man." He was a forklift driver at a bottling plant, with thousands of glass bottles everywhere. His union rep told me he'd been warned twice not to smoke dope on his lunchbreak, and this was the third straw. My guy's theory, a bit ahead of its time, apparently was that dope was so integral to being black that prohibiting it was racist. Just the way blacks think. Oh by the way, his wife was fired from the same company for embezzling.
"Olbermann is an ueber-douche, a pompous, hate-spewing liberal clown. I wonder why istevers almost never complain about this German-American white-baiter? Oh, I guess I just answered that question."
This guy again.
Olbermann is an ueber-douche, a pompous, hate-spewing liberal clown. I wonder why istevers almost never complain about this German-American white-baiter? Oh, I guess I just answered that question.
What are you, a moron?
It all comes down to the fact that the national republicans would rather lose and still be invited to the next Georgetown cocktail party than win and be snubbed.
Right. So you get the faux party that pays lip service to its base, but actually serves the same masters of the universe. Problem is, it renders the party vulnerable to takeover by its base, who want real service.
Liberals will call Republicans "racist" no matter what they do, as Keith Olbermann did last night, calling Republicans the party of "scared white people."
But when it comes time to war for control of the Republican party, we'll see the media and Dems go after the insurgents, and protect the establishment Republicans. They'll be calling the rank and file racists, not the Trent Lotts.
Right. So you get the faux party that pays lip service to its base, but actually serves the same masters of the universe. Problem is, it renders the party vulnerable to takeover by its base, who want real service.
See Senator Bob Bennett, the now-defeated 18 year incumbent Republican. Up 'til the day he lost the nomination (and for several weeks after) it was obvious the guy hadn't a clue why the voters were upset.
Olbermann is an ueber-douche, a pompous, hate-spewing liberal clown. I wonder why istevers almost never complain about this German-American white-baiter? Oh, I guess I just answered that question.
"This guy again."
"What are you, a moron?"
Very incisive comments, both. Thanks for proving my point.
Olbermann is an ueber-douche, a pompous, hate-spewing liberal clown. I wonder why istevers almost never complain about this German-American white-baiter?
Olbermann is "German" in the way that Saban is "American".
" "Almost all black politicians are crooks"."
Albertosaurus
And almost all 60+ year old white-church-choir singers go to swinger parties, oh wait, strike that.
Olbermann is "German" in the way that Saban is "American".
Now I understand the irrational hostility that greeted my comment. Y'all think Olbermann is Jewish. He's not. He's gentile through and through, with a square forehead and a jutting jaw.
No anon, you're still a moron. E.g., now you're assuming "y'all" can be explained by one comment, which is about par for a moron.
You're not making sense, Svigor. "Y'all" in this case referred to the three people who responded to my comment with hostility and a lack of understanding - and, in your case, continued ad hominems which make you sound oh-so-manly yet much more stupid than you actually are.
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