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Not even the magnetic subject that my colleague Mr. Sisa discussed at length this morning in his weekly essay inflames the passions of meek persons the way that the conversational insertion of race does.
Given the sotte voce nature of the largest portion of Barack Obama’s campaign, it is unlikely that race is just accidentally ankling into the last hour of the campaign.
The issue has been framed brilliantly by the people around Mr. Obama to plant the seed that it will be the pivotal reason in the event of defeat.
Remember what you said when you were a kid? “Heads I win, tails you lose.”
The Obama campaign has said the same thing, and gotten away with it unmarked, unexamined.
And there is not a darned thing that John McCain can do or could have done about it.
It was out of everybody’s hands except those belonging to the Democratic candidate.
Remember last March when Mr. Obama already was considered by many as the eventual winner of the nomination even though, upon more sober reflection, he never achieved more than a 2-inch lead on Hillary?
The ugly spectre of racism never was charged last winter or spring during the primaries, as I recall. Liberals generally don’t sack and burn fellow lefties.
Defeating the Clinton movement was one of the shocking accomplishments in American political history. No one else has come close to beating the Clintons, and Mr. Obama might not have if he had been white, so prosaic are his credentials.
Opposite Direction
So completely has the monstrous ugliness of racism been reversed in the last half-century that if members of two different races are competing for a prize, no allusion to the non-white’s race may be thought of, much less articulated.
Of course it should not come up any more than a white man’s race should be mentioned. But the pertinent locution is a befogged minefield where the slant of a shoestring can be interpreted as a racist gesture.
The genius of the way the Obama campaign has handled race has been so deftly manufactured that Mr. McCain’s only alternative is to stand there with hands on his hips, purse his lips and mutter, “I will be gosh-darned.”
Even if his daughter had married an Obama relative during the campaign, or if his aides had kidnapped the smartest person in the Obama camp and held him hostage until Nov. 5, Mr. McCain still would have been rendered powerless in this area.
The Winning Pitch
Thirty or forty years from today, when you and I start to calm down, it will be written that the race strategy won the election.
Short-sighted pundits can talk until they are blue or green in their faces about the economy, the war, the candidate’s dainty posture in legislative sessions or the disgusting persons who have been Mr. Obama’s mentors since the 1980s as the key factors.
They contributed, but they were about the 29th and 30th spokes in the wheel.
Instead of standing back and waiting for Mr. McCain to make an allusion to race that he never, never was going to utter, Mr. Obama uttered it for him.
You remember those speeches where Mr. Obama said, “The other side will tell you he looks different.”
His handlers told him to ward off any possibility of having racism being raised by the other side by bringing up the subject himself.
There was a great chance The New York Times would disavow rglobal warming tomorrow morning.
Once Mr. Obama made that phony accusation, and it was repeated about 15 million times, Mr. McCain may as well have taken the rest of the campaign off.
The narrative against Mr. McCain has been wildly lopsided ever since.
Mr. Obama has talked about race — his — in numerous speeches. Dutifully, the press formfully has jotted down his words without engendering the
slightest irony or curiosity about Mr. O’s motivation.
This is an underappreciated aspect of the tankism displayed by more than 95 percent of America’s journalists who want Mr. Obama elected so badly it hurts. Many of them are on painkillers until Nov. 4.
The final nail in the racist campaign was driven into the Republican coffin on Sunday in an essay by Nicky Kristoff, the Victims Editor of The New York Times.
Laying out the strategy in some detail, Mr. Kristof told The Times faithful that if Mr. Obama wins, it will be because of his superiority over his rival. If he loses, racism will be the principal cause. We will discuss this at a later date.
Three Realities
As long as there are non-white and non-black Americans, there will be racism in this country. It is the way we are wired.
What the arsonists in Mr. Obama’s campaign have conveniently overlooked is that racism probably has been reduced by 75 percent in the last 45 years.
Historians will tell you this is the greatest cultural progress since man arrived on the planet.
From slavery to second-class status to genuine freedom has taken about 145 years, which is not terrific — just better than anyone else.
