This has been so obvious to me. Painting Obama as the other or different or palling around with terrorists is simply racism undercover. The McCain camp can't say it outright but these kinds of attacks speak to the people of Appalachia and the old ladies in Florida and Ohio, who are scared of Obama.
The AP says it:
The Vietnam-era Swift Boat veterans who attacked Democrat John Kerry's war record started in the spring of 2004 and gained traction in late summer.
''The four weeks that are left are an eternity. There's plenty of time in the campaign,'' said Republican strategist Joe Gaylord. ''I think it is a legitimate strategy to talk about Obama and to talk about his background and who he pals around with.''
Palin's words avoid repulsing voters with overt racism. But is there another subtext for creating the false image of a black presidential nominee ''palling around'' with terrorists while assuring a predominantly white audience that he doesn't see their America?
In a post-Sept. 11 America, terrorists are envisioned as dark-skinned radical Muslims, not the homegrown anarchists of Ayers' day 40 years ago. With Obama a relative unknown when he began his campaign, the Internet hummed with false e-mails about ties to radical Islam of a foreign-born candidate.
Whether intended or not by the McCain campaign, portraying Obama as ''not like us'' is another potential appeal to racism. It suggests that the Hawaiian-born Christian is, at heart, un-American.
Another great look at the covert racism going on in this election. Undercover racists are folks who would go to their grave saying they're not racist because they wouldn't actually DO anything to black people. Rather they rationalize their racism in their mind --Obama's middle name is Hussein and that's scary, and stuff like that. They'll say they have black friends so they can't possibly be racist. They'll read black columnists who oppose Obama so that proves they can't be racist. Thomas Sowell is usually one they like to quote.
NYT: Most of the lost votes aren’t those of dyed-in-the-wool racists. Such racists account for perhaps 10 percent of the electorate and, polling suggests, are mostly conservatives who would not vote for any Democratic presidential candidate.
Rather, most of the votes that Mr. Obama actually loses belong to well-meaning whites who believe in racial equality and have no objection to electing a black person as president — yet who discriminate unconsciously.
“When we fixate on the racist individual, we’re focused on the least interesting way that race works,” said Phillip Goff, a social psychologist at U.C.L.A. who focuses his research on “racism without racists.” “Most of the way race functions is without the need for racial animus.”
