WRT this post by Glenn Reynolds, it’s always been a mistake to assume that a black Republican candidate would be immune to racial demagoguery. If Cain does well as a candidate Democrats will attack him. They will make race-based and other attacks and they will continue to use the attacks that work. It doesn’t matter that Cain as a black person is most unlikely to be an anti-black racist. What matters is whether any particular kind of demagogic attack on him is politically effective. Conservatives and libertarians have no excuse for uncertainty on this point since Democrats relentlessly attacked their last presidential candidate, a RINO squish and former media favorite, as a right-wing extremist once he became a contender. If Cain becomes the Republican nominee Democrats will attack him as a racist even as they attack Obama’s opponents as racists. There will be no irony in these attacks because they will not be about accuracy or logical consistency but about political effectiveness.
Republican voters should not assume that a candidate’s background will insulate him from personal attacks by political opponents. Democratic pols and their media allies will subject any Republican contender to vile personal attacks and campaigns of character assassination. The best course of action for Republicans and the country is to run highly-qualified candidates who can perform well on their own merits without any consideration to identity politics.
” it’s always been a mistake to assume that a black Republican candidate would be immune to racial demagoguery.”
Any who remembers the Thomas hearings can anticipate the treatment of Cain by the NYT, WaPo, et. al.
Herman Cain’s race, far from insulating him, will make the attacks even more vicious. I am sure they are already digging through his trash, looking for disgruntled former employees, etc., etc. They will save their dirt until tactically important moments. I hope he does not have any buried skeletons, because they will all come out.
Larry O’Donnell is implying that Cain’s nonparticipation in life-risking protests is somehow disqualifying. But why isn’t it disqualifying for whites? And how much of the black population is Larry O’Donnell trying to shame into nonparticipation in high politics?
Larry O’Donnell needs to be fired for gross unfairness and racial insensitivity.
Is the increasingly long time between the early primaries and the election going to see a vicious, divisive, ad hominem, vulgar campaign fueled by the union money that we as taxpayers have paid to the likes of those on Wall Street and then turned against the Republican nominee? Or, does that length mean that the attacks will become less useful, the truth will out, and the slow drip of the less msm will proof convincing?
I don’t know what the answer is. I believe in the general sense of the American people and the virtues of an open marketplace of ideas, but I’m also not looking forward to the next year and a half.
And in a faculty discussion a few months ago, one of the social scientists was describing her disgust with Thomas – this hasn’t died down over twenty years. He was still, in her eyes, neither intelligent nor sensitive. When I said that modern historians note the depth of his thought and his ability to change minds on the court. A government teacher had heard that, but she, too, clearly wasn’t sold that was a good thing. If slow, steady, persuasive arguments over a period of twenty years don’t change opinions, I’m not sure what does.
And I also sometimes wonder how much of the race-baiting doesn’t come from people like Al Gore – whose actions regarding Ward Connerley were the worst kind of rudeness and whose father voted against civil rights legislation but who is seen (or at least sees himself) as some kind of champion of minorities. Southern Democrats have some baggage they probably need to come to terms with (and become conscious of) before they accuse others of racism.
sorry – at a different computer – above by Ginny
It’s a critical part of the left’s culture. They have to view themselves as the intellectual and moral superiors of everyone else. They adopt self-gratifying circular reasoning in which all non-leftist be some mixture of stupid and evil because otherwise they would be leftists.
Since all non-leftists of any note are racist, Cain must be racism because he is a non-leftists of note. QED. Likewise, since all non-Leftist are racist, non-Left support for Cain must be some elaborate charade to convince leftists that non-leftists aren’t racist.
The self-centeredness of the Left never ceases to amaze me. In the end, everything has to be about them.
I’ve already seen the beginnings of the Cain-trashing on Open Salon; a post which basically denigrated him as just another Uncle Tom. Apparently, Herman Cain didn’t feel deeply enough marinated in racial resentments when he was growing up. Not up to the standards of the writer. Look upon the post and the comments, and shake your head in sad wonder.
http://open.salon.com/blog/chauncey_devega/2011/03/21/herman_cain_lover_of_jim_crow_apologist_for_white_racism.
The key for Cain is how he conducts himself now. Reagan was attacked viciously but managed to deflect a lot of it with humor and good will. Sarah Palin was too new in national politics to do it on her own and the McCain staff stabbed her in the back.
I expect the Lefties will pull a Clarence Thomas on Cain and conduct a hi tech lynching. Lefties are like the KKK. They believe Blacks have their place, either in the big house or in the fields. House blacks are expected to dress well and use big words. Field blacks are expected to vote and be dependent. All blacks are expected to follow orders, even the Prez.
Um, anybody rememberCondi Rice?