In yet another example of lack of any pretense of evenness at ABC News, this is the headline about Bristol Palin’s fiancé and the father of her baby “Palin's Baby Daddy Drops Out of School”. Story here. http://abcnews.go.com/

While this seems unimportant, put it in the context of days of stories questioning McCain on his comments. He has been called racist for using the phrases “That One” or “I’m going to whip Obama’s a$$” (at the debate). Being attacked by Obama supporters for “sowing the seeds of hatred” and compared to segregationist Governor George Wallace for having the audacity to question Obama’s character.

After McCain having his racial tolerance questioned every time he opens his mouth, and ABC gladly spreading the “news”, we have this from the network itself.

Using the term ‘baby’s daddy’ has racial undertones to it, if it’s not used on a white daughter of the Republican candidate for the Vice Presidency that is. I could just see the Hell raised if Fox News ran a story about a minority teenager with this headline.

A Democratic Representative from Georgia, John Lewis, has compared John McCain and Sarah Palin to George Wallace. Governor George Wallace was a segregation proponent from Georgia. Rep Lewis, in comparing McCain and Palin to Wallace, is claiming that they are fanning the flames of hatred.

"What I am seeing reminds me of too much of another destructive period in American history," Lewis said in a statement released to FOX News. "Senator McCain and Governor Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse."

Rest of the story here:  

The implication couldn’t be clearer, criticizing Barack Obama is racism.

The reality is that we better get used to this. I predicted early on that this would be the pattern. Towards the end if Obama was losing, or was under attack, his supporters will trot out the racism charge. It is an absolute gaurantee. He of course will stay above the fray, he has even come out and disagreed with Rep Lewis on this, but it’s out there.

In fact I will go even farther and say it is a planned strategy. Stand ins will cry racism and Obama will say “no, I don’t think he meant it that way”. Obama’s campaign knows, as well as I do, what the media is going to report. They won’t report the denial by Obama as much as they will report the charge of racism against McCain.

This happened after the last debate. Obama supporters raised a fuss over McCain’s “that one” remark. Somehow “that one” has now become a racist remark. The campaign let the issue stew awhile, let their supporters attack, let the media report on it. Then after a little while, Michelle Obama quitely went on Larry King and said she didn’t feel that McCain meant to be racist. This is a win-win for Obama. His supporters tar and feather McCain in the media, at the same time if they are attacked for raising a false call of racism, they can point to Michelle’s remarks on King.

The scary part is that if the phrase “that one” can be turned into charges of racism, what could McCain say that is ok?

There is a recent AP/Yahoo news survey out that examines the link between race and Obama’s poll numbers. The problem is though that the survey is almost entirely on non-Hispanic white voters. Evidently this is the only race of people that vote according to the AP and Yahoo news. Story here

Where do you start with a survey like this? This survey, while trying to explain racism, is incredibly racist in itself.

First, what does a typical white voter look like? Other than badly in need of tan of course. The article does break whites down into Republicans and Democrats but this is too simplistic for someone of any race. The political spectrum is complex in what constitutes party affiliation. There are social liberals and conservatives, fiscal liberals and conservatives, and a combination of both. There are people who are very liberal or conservative and would never vote for the other party. There are people who are moderate and can be drawn to the opposite candidate for many reasons, including yes race, age, and/or gender. There are some voters who don’t even follow the issues and vote based on how they feel about a person. These people may or may not vote for Obama, irregardless of his race, but because of some other characteristic such as likeability, speaking ability, etc. These factors alone cloud the study. For some voters race may be an issue but not the issue. Race along with any of the above could push them away. This does not make race the factor, it makes it a factor.

There also is the issue of racial attitudes being complex and virtually impossible to measure. If there is a person on God’s earth without any racial prejudice, I would like to meet them. No one, including myself, can say they are without some prejudice. It is human nature, it is ingrained into our very fiber. Further, it is not just racial, it is gender, height, age, etc., etc., etc. Everyone of us has it and anyone reading this that thinks they do not is lying to themselves. But, you know what? It’s ok. The key is to not go out and behead someone or fly a plane into a building because your innate prejudice has turned into psychotic hatred. Oops, that sounded a little prejudiced.

Since everyone has prejudice, what does this mean? Very little to everything. There is a huge difference between prejudice against a race and prejudice against a person. You may have an issue with, blacks as an example, but when you go to work and see Joe, things are fine because he’s “different”. This is often the case with all biases. It’s easier to dislike an anonymous group than an individual. I believe this is another flaw in the study. I think it is a little simplistic to say people will not vote for Obama just because he is black. I think most of these people have another issue and that, combined with race, equals a no vote.

Finally, there is the most obvious issue with the survey. Why only whites? Why not Hispanics, Asians, and, of course, blacks. Why have we never studied why blacks vote almost entirely for Democrats? It certainly isn’t because they have done so well under the Democrats. What exactly have the Democrats done for them really? The Democratic party by and large favor policies that are actually destructive to blacks. The welfare system of the 60’s and 70’s had insane rules that favored unmarried women over married. This set up a cycle of generation-to-generation single motherhood that blacks are still trying to break. This single motherhood has led to a host of other social ills that feed on each other, lower high school graduation rate, higher unemployment, and higher imprisonment rates. Liberals favor a wide open abortion industry that disproportionally effects blacks. Finally, I do not believe that blacks are more stupid than others and buy the hollow, unfulfilled promises of Democrats that they receive decade after decade. Is it possible that blacks vote overwhelmingly for Democrats because they view the GOP as the party of “old white guys”? Admittedly if this were true it would likely be the fault of the GOP as much as the Democratic party but nonetheless is still a racial attitude. Why isn’t this studied? Why didn’t they study why blacks aren’t voting for McCain/Palin, is it racism?