Carter Wrenn on race

One of the best blogs about N.C. politics and national politics is Gary Pearce and Carter Wrenn's blog Talking About Politics at http://www2.talkingaboutpolitics.com/

Some folks think they're an odd couple because they come at it from different places on the political spectrum -- and because they went head-to-head in one of the epic races in American politics, the 1984 U.S. Senate race between Gov. Jim Hunt, the Democrat, and Sen Jesse Helms, the Republican.

A lot of political blood was shed in that bruising, expensive campaign, but Pearce and Wrenn came out of it with respect for one another. Their blog is always interesting,with the kind of insight you get from two political insiders who know where the bodies are buried -- and who put them there.

One such blogpost in particular was Carter Wrenn's recent post about the playing of race cards. Carter knows something about this because -- as he has said in the past -- the Helms campaign and the Congressional Club he used to run used racial images in a ruthless way. His recent posting "A Catch-22 for Obama" was especially interesting on how John McCain cleverly put Barack Obama on the defensive over race.

Rather than give you a link, here's what he had to say in full:

A Catch-22 for Obama
There are two race cards.
One is a no-holds-barred, two-fisted, blunt-edged appeal to race that’s hardly ever seen anymore. These days only a desperate politician, or one bent on suicide, plays that race card.
The other race card is more subtle. It can be as simple as a candidate having a campaign slogan like, “He’s one of us.” A lot of times that’s not racist at all. But other times, subtly, it is.
Because, just naturally, when folks see even a friend who has a strange accent or a different skin color or round eyes, they think, He’s not like me. And then, without even thinking. a shadow of doubt flashes across their synapses about what that difference means, and sets off little alarm bells. Chalk it up to original sin, but that’s the way it is.
When a steel worker in Ohio looks at Barack Obama, then looks at John McCain, one looks like his grandfather and one doesn’t.
Black people look at McCain’s new ad and the pictures of Barack Obama and the two blonde celebrities and say, I know where this is going. I’ve seen this before. White people look at the same ad and say with equal sincerity, Give me a break. That has nothing to do with race.
Blatantly, what McCain is saying loud and clear in his new ad is that Obama’s a shallow rockstar celebrity who’s nowhere near tough enough to be President. And that’s a perfectly legitimate, above the belt, point. But, subtly, a lot of steel workers will also see that ad of Barack Obama, ‘world-class celebrity,’ with 200,000 Germans fawning over him and, just naturally, the message flashing through their retinas is ‘He’s not one of us.’
And Barack Obama seems to recognize that. And he seems to want to talk about it. As if he was walking on eggshells, he said, ‘Look, they’re going to tell you I don’t look like those other guys on the dollar bills.’
Then a shocking thing happened.
He got slammed by John McCain for playing the race card – which must have seemed to Obama pretty odd. Because for 200 years playing the race card has meant getting white people to vote against people like him.
Worse, for Obama, it worked. Without thinking twice, the drumbeat started: ‘Obama’s playing the race card.’
And, even worse for Obama, he’s got to keep on talking about race. Because if he doesn’t his campaign sinks. Because that ‘he’s not one of us’ sentiment is one of the hurdles he has to clear to get elected.
Which means McCain’s attack was pretty darn clever. Or pernicious. Or both. Because suddenly he’s turned the debate on race upside down. McCain says, in effect, I’m taking the high road. I don’t believe race has any place in this campaign. Obama says, That sounds fine, but let’s face it: It is part of this campaign. Then, tying Obama in a knot, McCain says, That’s despicable. You just played the race card.
So even if Obama’s race – like Yossarian’s sanity in Catch-22 – matters, Obama can’t talk about it. Because that’s playing the race card.
That’s a box Obama has to get out of.
posted @ Monday, August 11, 2008 12:10 PM by Carter Wrenn