Friday, September 19, 2008

This election has no need for this race card crap!!

This post is in response to Karen Tumulty, TIME's National Political Correspondent, web post and the comments posted about it.

Karen, your headline is a hoot, and kids, do you think people give a hoot about what you think this ad is saying? The message of this advertisement is clear, “Osama bin-Laden, I mean, Obama-Biden team, (I always mix up these names) does not have what it takes to lead this country!”. Period, end of explicit message, nothing more, nothing less. So all the ‘hootin and hollerin’ should be focused on this message, but nooooo. There’s also these moronic ‘trash bashing’ comments of an implicit message, an individual perspective based on personal thinking, for which I say…

Advertisements are intended to get people to think, and when people think, they think what they want to think, and the thinking on this ad illustrates the diversity of what people will think. But this ad is not doing the thinking, the people are doing the thinking, so the ad has served its purpose of making people think. So don’t think, you think, the ad is saying what you think, because ads don’t think, they say. People think, so quit thinking what you think is what everyone else is thinking, and want to hear what you think. So get over it and shut up about what it is you think, and save your thinking for the ballot box, it’s only a 30 second advertisement.

This election has no place for this race card crap. Only if this issue is explicitly reference should it be professional addressed. Even though it may be what many Americans are thinking, this post is NOT the place to announce the race card has been played by one of the players!!


September 18, 2008 9:45
McCain Plays the Race Card
Posted by Karen Tumulty Comments (200) Permalink Trackbacks (0) Email This

When politicians interject race into a campaign, they seldom do it directly.

Consider McCain's new ad, which the campaign says it will be airing nationally:



This is hardly subtle: Sinister images of two black men, followed by one of a vulnerable-looking elderly white woman.

Let me stipulate: Obama's Fannie Mae connections are completely fair game. But this ad doesn't even mention a far more significant tie--that of Jim Johnson, the former Fannie Mae chairman who had to resign as head of Obama's vice presidential search team after it was revealed he got a sweetheart deal on a mortgage from Countrywide Financial. Instead, it relies on a fleeting and tenuous reference in a Washington Post Style section story to suggest that Obama's principal economic adviser is former Fannie Mae Chairman Frank Raines. Why? One reason might be that Johnson is white; Raines is black.

And the image of the victim doesn't seem accidental either, given the fact that older white women are a key swing constituency in this election.

After the McCain campaign introduced the ad, the Obama campaign responded with this statement:

  • Statement from Frank Raines on the ad: "I am not an advisor to Barack Obama, nor have I provided his campaign with advice on housing or economic matters."

  • "This is another flat-out lie from a dishonorable campaign that is increasingly incapable of telling the truth. Frank Raines has never advised Senator Obama about anything -- ever. And by the way, someone whose campaign manager and top advisor worked and lobbied for Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac shouldn't be throwing stones from his seven glass houses," said Obama-Biden campaign spokesman Bill Burton.


At Politico, Ben Smith reports:

  • McCain spokesman Brian Rogers notes that Obama didn't contradict the claim when it first appeared in the Post.


But that's not really the point of the ad, is it?


UPDATE: The McCain campaign has now put out an ad on Jim Johnson. Please see my post above.

Check out the rest of the story here.



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