The Rats in the Polls
Randall Kennedy is as entitled as any American with access to our most prestigious op-ed venues to write honestly about his feelings, including how he anticipates feeling, as an African-American, if Barack Obama loses, and how he anticipates the black community as a whole feeling. Two things:
1) There’s a class of white person who is always hyper-ready to be offended that any black person imply that any white person might have and act on racist feelings. These are often the same white people who complain about "political correctness" and excess racial sensitivity and "victimology" among minorities.
2) Here’s what I think is the ultimate potential ratfuck if the GOP thinks they need it: The weekend before the election, Homeland Security or some pliable Republican governor in a swing state, someone official or semi-official, announces that, with the polls indicating a possible Obama defeat, law enforcement has been directed to prepare for possible riots in major cities on election night. The slightly subtler version of the same maneuver is to leak word that such an alert is under consideration – possibly even that authority was denied because of "political correctness." Such a maneuver could help swing anxious white voters against Obama at the last minute.
(Link via an e-mail tip from Mister Newsrack.)
Comment by ed —
September 14, 2008 @ 10:29 pm
Count on the rumors getting out there. That’s what Republicans do.
Comment by Michael L —
September 15, 2008 @ 9:39 am
It doesn’t even have to be a rumor. The subject will start being discussed on talk-radio, move to FOX, “journalists” will then cover it, Sunday talk shows will invite homeland security officials to discuss it, and mayors will announce something because they will be afraid to look like “do-nothings”.
Comment by Picador —
September 15, 2008 @ 10:08 am
“If you vote for Obama, the rioters will have won.” I love it. And I fully expect Bill O’Reilly to use a line very much like that shortly before the election.
Comment by mds —
September 16, 2008 @ 11:50 am
The thing I see getting in the way of this strategy is the hard-core racism of the Party hierarchy. We’ve seen people like Rep. Westmoreland have a hard time holding in their real thoughts about Negroes. And most swing voters are at least made uncomfortable by flagrant racism.
So ominous mutters about “rioters” would probably work on closet racists. But the way they’ve been working themselves up, the modern GOP might instead go with a TV ad campaign titled “Fear of a Black Planet,” which I think would backfire.
Comment by Curmudgeon —
September 16, 2008 @ 4:11 pm
Take a wild guess at what just turned up on Fark:
http://www.philly.com/dailynews/opinion/20080916_Fatimah_Ali___Race_war__in_America.html
Your prediction came true early.
Comment by Idi Amin's Last Meal —
September 18, 2008 @ 6:18 pm
DON’T LET KWAME KILPATRICK TURN THE RED ROOM INTO THE CHAMPAGNE ROOM.
Vote Republican November 4th.
(Of course, this won’t mean that Bristol Palin won’t be giving lappers in the Red Room. Levi like what Levi like.)