Playing the Race Card a Risky Strategy

Now that all criticism of Obama is based on racism, purveyors of that nonsense should be forewarned that playing the race card is often a losing strategy:

Memo to politicians looking to "play the race card": Use it at your own risk.

Critics were accusing former President Jimmy Carter of race-baiting on Wednesday after he called South Carolina Rep. Joe Wilson's "You lie!" outburst an act "based in racism." It's a strategy that has often backfired among politicians who tap race to score points.

Former President Bill Clinton was accused of playing the race card in 2008 when he compared presidential candidate Barack Obama's strong showing in the South Carolina primary to that of another black politician -- the Rev. Jesse Jackson, who went on to lose his bid for the White House in 1984 and 1988. Clinton vehemently denied the charge -- and fired back with an accusation that the Obama campaign kept a memo in which they said they had planned to use the race card.

For Clinton, the commentary was a political debacle, analysts say.

"There's no question it hurt Hillary Clinton's campaign," said Larry Sabato, director of the University of Virginia's Center for Politics. "The interpretation was that he was trying to dismiss Obama as another Jesse Jackson," he said, adding that black voters comprised 40 to 50 percent of South Carolina's primary electorate.

Since Obama's election, a number of politicians have used race to dismiss criticisms of the nation's first black president.

New York Rep. Charles Rangel was among the first to claim that bias and prejudice are the driving forces behind opposition to Obama's health care reform proposals. Rangel, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, compared the battle over health care to the fight for civil rights:

"Why do we have to wait for the right to vote? Why can't we get what God has given us? That is the right to live as human beings and not negotiate with white Southerners and not count the votes," Rangel said.

New York Gov. David Paterson injected race when he said in an Aug. 29 radio interview that the media have exploited racial stereotypes in covering him and other black elected officials.

"We're not in the post-racial period," Paterson said in the interview. "The reality is the next victim on the list -- and you can see it coming -- is President Barack Obama, who did nothing more than trying to reform a health care system."

Sabato said politicians should not back down from their criticism of the president's policies because they fear being called racist, but they must handle issues of race prudently.

"You cannot stifle criticism simply because the president is African-American. That is racist too," he said.

Sabato's right to this point, but goes off the rails in his next point:

"But you have to be sensitive to race. You must be careful with the language and images you project," he said, citing some signs held by Tea Party protesters at Saturday's march in Washington that critics say were racist depictions of Obama.

Wrong. Just because some "critic" says it's racist doesn't mean it's racist. Determining political strategy based on race is either right or wrong, and in my view it's wrong. Race should no longer matter.

Politics is a contact sport and the race baiters will try and turn every statement about or portrayal of Obama as racist, so it's no longer useful to try and be careful in how you present him.

If all the "Bush/Cheney is Hitler" depictions were considered fair game in protests of years past, then anything goes now. Race complaints are just tactics to muzzle opposition.