In my opinion, agreeing with Big Tent, Sen. Obama threw the gate open for the McCain campaign to "bait" & switch the ethnic comparisons from now until Nov 4.  That issue could've been left off the table if Obama had been smart.

I had actually predicted it back in February:

Consider, for example, the entire issue of racism. There is nothing more certain than that Obama and his followers will accuse the Republicans of racism when they criticize Obama, on however flimsy the ground may be.

But the Republicans now have a perfect inoculating response: "Well of course they attack us as being racists. They attack every critic as being racist, including fellow Democrats. Look at what they did to Bill Clinton. One day, he's the first black President. The next day, when it suits their convenience, he's a terrible racist, based on nothing. I tell you, they'll say it about anybody. They have no shame in using that smear."

In short, the Obama campaign, having cried wolf again and again in the Democratic campaign, will make it very hard to do so effectively in the general election.

NOW, the old "what goes around comes around" is coming true.  Some Hillary fans STILL resent the racist charge. I do.  Hillary is not perfect.  Neither is Bill and certainly there were plenty of debates  where those not wanting her as the candidate could go.  But the race thing was disgraceful and offensive.  

When pundits like Maddow are saying words like "presumptuous" are racist, it's mind boggling.  When bloggers insist "arrogant" is a racist word, it's mind blowing.  Just like saying that "fairy tale" was a racist word was laughable, defining a word because it was describing something Obama said or did with a word does not make it racist.

Arrogant is the word I have used to describe George W since the moment he came on the national political scene.  Presumptuous can aptly describe ANYONE who does things to make it look like they have already won a race not run.  It has nothing to do with ethnicity.  Saying someone's own words, when you think they are not accurate, are a fairy tale is not racist.

On the other hand, calling a woman a "b*tch" is clearly sexist and yet the incident of the woman with McCain got nothing more than giggles from the pundit class.  "*uc*ing ho" is definitely sexist but the comedian launching that diatribe at democratic women candidates gets applauded by progressives no less.

The Clintons had a delicate path to trod in responding to those charges. It was a campaign for the Democratic nomination, after all.

Here is what Obama said in FL

"We know what kind of campaign they're going to run. They're going to try to make you afraid.
They're going to try to make you afraid of me.  
They're gonna.... They're going to say, "You know what, he's -- he's -- he's young,
inexperienced, and, uh, uh, he's got a funny name. Did I mention he's black?"

He would have been OK if he had stopped before throwing in the black part at the end.  Because McCain is going to say he is young and inexperienced.  And, McCain is going to try to tell the voters that his inexperience should scare them.  There is nothing wrong with McCain saying those things either.  They are legitimate issues.  But, I would challenge Obama to find one instance where the McCain campaign has brought up Obama's race or "funny name".  It hasn't happened.

And, I don't want any examples from Obama supporters where they say McCain's campaign used a "code word" for race or implied race.  Because we all know that Obama supporters never allow anyone to accuse Obama's campaign of "implying" anything.  

A commenter last night challenged everyone to find a specific quote from Obama where he LITERALLY called McCain a racist or LITERALLY accused McCain (and not the generic they) of race-baiting when discussing the Paris Hilton ad.  

So, let's all use the same set of standards.

If Hillary had won the primary, the Republican narrative would be like "she's ruthless and unprincipled, did you see how she used race-baiting to defeat that nice, inspiring Barack Obama?"

Instead, since Obama won, he now has to deal with the consequences in the way we're seeing now.  I gotta admit, they're good, these Republicans, standing there with a straight face as they lament how terrible it is that Bill Clinton faced unfair attacks!

I don't really see where McCain has "played" anything.  He rightly pointed out EXACTLY what Obama was doing and has been doing since the start of the primaries.

The only salvation to all of this is if he picks Hilary.

Maybe he will pick Hilary but Hilary could say to him:

Sorry Obama thanks but no thanks. You waited too long to decide and you were to wishy washy on picking me and just because you are hurting now and you really need me now I feel you are just using me to cinch your election.   See you in 2012.

6. race-bait will become an accepted political tactic

7. political parties GIVING unearned delegates to candidates will be OK in the future

8. denying legitimate candidates their votes by roll call at a convention will become standard practice.

9. Intimidation of rival supporters at caucuses will be normal

Howard Wolfson, who was the communications director of the Clinton campaign, said, "The McCain campaign has obviously been watching our primary very closely and recognized how damaging it had been to be tagged with the charge of race baiting."

Tell me again what a brilliant campaign Obama ran to beat the "establishment candidate,"  who also happened to be the better qualified and more experienced candidate.

Obama is not being attacked because he is black. He is being attacked because he is the Democratic nominee for President. (And because he is ahead.) He is not being labeled as arrogant because he doesn't know his place, but because of his youth and inexperience. Are we seriously supposed to believe that if McCain were running against a young, Ivy League educated, first term senator who had never served in the military, but whom was white, that he wouldn't be making these kinds of attacks? When one generation attempts to seize power from another it will always be characterized as arrogant by the older one. Also, Obama is attacked as arrogant because that is a plausible line of attack. He certainly doesn't lack for confidence, and on occasion has been arrogant. (Remember your likable enough Hillary?) We won't see him attacked for being stupid because that would just be ridiculous to claim, not so with the claims of his arrogance.

McCain is not Hillary Clinton. He may not be the media darling, but the media will never treat him as badly as they treated Hillary Clinton. Never.

And then I think the problem for Hillary during the campaign is that she couldn't really fight back. The media was incredibly biased against her, so she was already fighting with both hands tied behind her back. And I think when it first happened, the Clinton campaign was caught really off guard, I don't think they believed that Obama would actually do that, frankly, that anyone would actually do that. So even as they tried to clarify and clarify the fairy tale remarks, they didn't come outright and say what was going on (the race card), and even if they had, the media was so excited about this narrative, I don't think it would have mattered...

then you don't understand and haven't read the content of this thread with any comprehension.

There was NOTHING "primarily by the media" about the way Clinton was treated.  Obama PARTICIPATED in both the sexist treatment of Hillary and the false charges of race-baiting against her.

If you are talking about what Bill Clinton said when he said "fairytale" ( it didn't happen in NC BTW), there is no way he should have thought it would be taken the "wrong way".  The only reason it was taken the wrong was is because Michelle Obama went out and intentionally twisted what he said out of context.  Donna Brazile did the same.  And, most of the media piled on.

If you happened to watch FOX News reports on this, they actually played the entire video in context and PROVED there was nothing racist in what Bill said.  But, no one else in the media bothered and the Obama campaign deliberately used it to stoke the resentment in the black community against Hillary.

The Obama campaign, its supporters and surrogates and the media did this to Clinton so many times it was almost laughable.  But, not really, because there was nothing amusing about their deliberate campaign tactic.  

Obama was able to use this tactic to gain 80% - 90% of the black vote in the primaries.  That was the only reason he was able to win.  Go back through the vote totals and analyze what the results would have been if Clinton had even taken 40% of the black vote.  And, prior to Obama's race-card against Clitnon she was doing much better than 40%.

Barack Obama, in spite of his mixed-race heritage, made a conscious decision to identify as a black man, and even wrote a book about his quest for identity that led to that decision.  I did not read the book, but presumably, he explored not only his black roots, but the white ones, as well.  He's seen life from both sides of the racial divide and should, therefore, have the kind of understanding and grasp of the dynamic that he would not pit those two sides against each other.  But he does it all the time, and he does it not in the spirit of coming together or unity or in furtherance of post-racial progress - he does it for pure political gain.

I think that stinks, frankly.

The Obama campaign, in the form of multiple surrogates, stirred this racial pot coming out of an unexpected loss in the New Hampshire primary.  Fearing the possibility that the African-American population of South Carolina might choose to put its support behind Hillary Clinton, who was, together with her husband, tremendously popular in the AA community, the Obama surrogates set out to purposely and quite effectively demonize the Clintons by the same kind of parsing and framing we are seeing now.  

It worked - at least by shifting allegiance away from Clinton, which probably prevented a second loss early in the primary calendar that could have led to a cascade of losses and the end of the Obama campaign.

Since Obama has the AA vote in the bag, what's the purpose of warning people that McCain will remind people that Obama does not look like he belongs on the paper currency of this country?  Easy: it's to plant the seed in people's minds that McCain - and the rest of the Republican operation - are racists, and people who reject racism should, therefore, vote for Obama.

The media and a lot of the blogosphere are playing along as if choreographed, but there's perhaps one thing the Obama campaign has not taken into consideration, and that is that people do not like being cast as something they are not, and rather than prove the negative that they are not racists by voting for Obama, many will express their anger at being backhandedly accused of racism by not voting for the person who lodged the not-so-thinly disguised accusation.

The accusations were planted among the MCMers who were only too delighted to accuse the Clintons and their supporters of racism or race baiting.

Also, simply criticizing Obama was "demeaning" to him, somehow, as a black man, and could be lumped in with the racism charge.

Back then I believe I noted that it would work among many Dems, but it would not necessarily work in the general among the general populace.

I think that is now coming into play.

Okey-dokey.

Accusing your target voters of racism is not a good way of getting them to vote for you.

I cringed when the Obama campaign and Obama himself played that part of the deck of cards. I predicted it was a terrible thing to do to the Democratic Party, and a terrible thing to do to this society, that it would either debase the impact of the charge of racism or increase it overall.

But Axelrod saw benefits in turning out the highest possible percentage of pro-Obama primary votes. And it worked.

And it isn't schnaudenfreude(sp) but it is satisfaction in knowing that maybe, just maybe, we won't be inundated with

"a noun, a verb, and 'you're a racist if you criticize me'"

for the rest of the election cycle and maybe for the next 4-8 years.  Because personally, I think this is just as dangerous to accountability as Bush's 9/11 defense for everything he did.

Criticizing Obama for being "presumptuous" is criticizing him for hubris, the most dangerous and common failing of any political leader. If we can't criticize him for that, we can't criticize him for anything. If the Obama people can turn Bill Clinton's "fairy tale" remarks into a racist trope, they can do it with anything. As I indicated in a post on my blog about Digby, all they're doing is trying to sow the seeds of hatred against Obama's critics.

In the primary, any challenge to Obama's voting record, experience, or constituency was hysterically, and incorrectly, called racist by the Obama campaign and the media. Don't forget that the whites who didn't vote for Obama were called racists, too.

Of course, the 90+% of blacks who voted for Obama were allowed to do so without any charges of racism. Same for the lunatic rantings of the crazies from Trinity Church; no racists there!

I know so many of you are mad at the way Clinton was treated in the primaries (primarily by the media, I might add) that you have no inclination to get over it and move on. Fine. But the way you're vilifying this man is shameful. You look for any excuse to denigrate him, undermine his campaign, impugn his character, and just flat out insult him and his supporters. I'd agree that some of the more vociferous backers on other blogs and the like probably don't think before they speak. But this anger is a two way street.

For every Hillary supporter mad at Barack and his surrogates for inferred misogyny, there's one on Obama's side that sees things differently and is angry because of perceived racism.

It just seems no one is willing to see the other side. No one is willing to admit that what Bill Clinton said in NC might be taken the wrong way. And if that's not the case, then why were so many people upset by it?

The attack was designed, in part, to invite Obama to call the race card, and the attack was done so well that the McCain camp could easily call BS.

I am with digby on this one. Obama's cannot call the race card. It is quicksand for him.

The Obama campaign won't make that mistake again, I'm sure. And I'm sure many people are happy to know that race will be off the table and McCain can dogwhistle his way in to office without any push back from anyone. Excellent work.

[snip]

 Mum's the word on the racism thing. Nothing more will be said on the subject. It doesn't exist in this campaign. But the good news is that we do have permission to push back on the "Democrats are fags" stuff, which apparently has just been noticed by the members of the press....

update:

"Barack Obama in no way believes that the McCain campaign is using race as an issue, but he does believe they're using the same old low-road politics to distract voters from the real issues in this campaign, and those are the issues he'll continue to talk about."

"Nobody thinks that Bush and McCain have a real answer to the challenges we face. So what they're going to try to do is make you scared of me," Obama said. "You know, 'He's not patriotic enough, he's got a funny name,' you know, 'he doesn't look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills."

Yes, it references race.  Yes, it references the reality that racial politics are alive and well.

If you are saying that he cannot mention that some will attempt to use race to suggest they should not vote for him, you are wrong.  IMHO, acknowledging the realities of race in America is not the same as calling someone racist.

He said so yesterday on CNN. I am practically salivating at the idea of Hil being Obama's attack dog.

I don't think McCain is either, but I KNOW he and his ilk are ready to take advantage of existing racism in America to gain the presidency.

Attacking McCain, and actually Clinton for racism is a sort of reverse surrogateism. Obama cannot attack to country for it's racism without seeming unpatriotic or mean (attacking common Americans), so he attacks his opponents- i.e., those who are the beneficiaries of people who won't vote for him because of their racism.

Thompson writes:

"As a Capitol Hill chief of staff, I often drank at Bullfeathers and was invited to join the throng at McCain's table one evening. A few minutes listening to the racism, bigotry and homophobia of the Arizona Congressman told me all I needed to know."