The Race Game

When they talk about how to "confront the issue of race" in the general election, the listener assumes the Obama campaign is talking about what its reaction will be if race is used against Barack. That's not it.

Barack plans on using race proactively, as a shroud to protect the campaign from the forthcoming, and highly legitimate, questions about Barack's character. As the past week reaffirms, the one value that Barack places great weight on is getting power, and he'll take America through the race ringer to get himself into the presidency.

Obama adviser David Axelrod said the Democrat's campaign will be on high alert for code words or innuendo meant to play on voters' racial sentiments. "We're going to be aggressive about pushing back on anything that we feel is inappropriate or misleading," he said.

What sort of code words would those be? Yesterday on "This Week" with George Stephanopolous, panelist Donna Brazile offered that we'd see lots of images of Barack with Reverend Wright. That's certainly true, but how can that be legitimately argued to be racial code?

It's not enough for McCain to say he cannot control independent groups airing racially charged ads on his behalf, Axelrod said, noting that the "Swift Boat Veterans for Truth" was independent of President Bush's campaign.

"We've seen this movie before," he said. "And we're not going to be passive in the face of those kinds of tactics."

What Barack's handlers mean is they know their candidate and his vulnerabilities regarding the bizarre people he's associated with throughout his political career, and before. It is impossible that they won't be made a big part of the campaign because they cast a serious shadow over Barack's character. The campaign needs some way to protect him from his sordid past, and they'll go on a reverse race baiting spree to protect him.

Racially charged criticism of Obama already has surfaced in several states.

Shortly before North Carolina's May 6 primary, the state Republican Party aired a TV ad linking Democratic candidates to Obama, who was described as "too extreme" because of his ties to the retired Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr.

Huh? This is from the Associated Press! You're not allowed to show Barack with his closest political/personal/spiritual ally, who happens to be America's most famous race baiter, because that would be race baiting? Apparently, showing pictures of Barack himself will be considered race baiting.

Kathleen Hall Jamieson, an authority on political communications at the University of Pennsylvania, said overt racial references are risky. But more subtle ads might stir doubts in voters' minds that could lead, in part, to racially tinged subjects, she said.

"The appeal that suggests that Senator Obama is 'out of touch with American values' invites audiences to ask what 'American' means," Jamieson said. Are voters being asked to link Obama to Wright's anti-American remarks? she said. "To question his patriotism? To fill in their fears and stereotypes? Foreigner? Muslim? For some, that appeal may elicit race-based reactions."

Okay - there's a window into the liberal mindset. Some people's minds, when presented with common and legitimate stimuli, may "elicit race-based reactions." And, apparently, it is the job of Barack's opponents to guess what these might be and avoid them, no matter how compelling their non-racial content may be.

Esquire Magazine, in a Wright inspired exploration entitled "Cracking the Racial Code," warned about being confused.

The best recent example of this I-think-I-just-saw-a-racist case of erroneous code-spotting has to be the inexplicably listened-to Donna Brazile’s assertion that Bill Clinton had been speaking in code when he said early this year that the narrative of Barack Obama’s opposition to the war in Iraq was a “fairy tale” and then for good measure called Obama a “kid.” At this, Brazile invoked her own race to claim special privilege to be offended: “As an African-American,” she said, “I find his words and his tone to be very depressing.”

Now they've got me confused - showing a picture of Barack with his racist preacher is racial code, but Bill Clinton calling Barack a kid isn't? How are you supposed to figure this out? Have no fear - The Obama campaign will be providing the answers.

The McCain team understands the attempt to make race into a fence around Barack that forbids the entry of Barack's shady friends - Wright, Pfleger, Ayers, Dohrn, Rezko, et al - into the conversation, and will presumably have a strategy in place to counteract this reverse race-baiting.

"Every word will be twisted to make it about race," said Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., a McCain friend and adviser. When he and others confront Obama on issues such as national security and the economy, Graham said, it will have "nothing to do with him being an African-American."

This is what the Obama campaign plans to do with all the money - build a defense against the questions coming down the pike about Barack's poor judgment in choosing his friends and associates. It won't bother them for a second to use race baiting to build that wall.