The only reason Obama would lose the election is white racism. At least that's what Jacob Weisberg at Slate thinks. For such addled minds as Weisberg's a vote for McCain is proof of one's racism. Here are a couple of excerpts:
But let's be honest: If you break the numbers down, the reason Obama isn't ahead right now is that he trails badly among one group, older white voters. He does so for a simple reason: the color of his skin.
Is that the main reason he trails among older whites? Is it even a significant reason? Could it not be that older whites are generally wiser, more educated and more conservative than young people and they just don't like Obama's lack of experience, his arrogance, his ideas, his ability to take all sides of an issue, his affiliations with people like William Ayers, Jeremiah Wright and Tony Rezko, his support for infanticide, his threat to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory in Iraq, his wife who believes that this is a "downright mean country", his refusal to drill for oil in the U.S., his promise to raise taxes, and on and on?
Is it not possible that older whites actually vote on issues rather than on a candidate's charisma and rhetoric? Weisberg seems unable to comprehend that people might actually do such a thing:
Many have discoursed on what an Obama victory could mean for America. We would finally be able to see our legacy of slavery, segregation, and racism in the rearview mirror. Our kids would grow up thinking of prejudice as a nonfactor in their lives. The rest of the world would embrace a less fearful and more open post-post-9/11 America.
You could replace Obama's name in the above paragraph with that of Clarence Thomas or Condi Rice and much of what Weisberg says would still be true, but I'd bet my house that Weisberg wouldn't vote for either of them. Does that make him a racist?
He then embarrasses himself with this bit of witless treacle:
But does it not follow that an Obama defeat would signify the opposite? If Obama loses, our children will grow up thinking of equal opportunity as a myth. His defeat would say that when handed a perfect opportunity to put the worst part of our history behind us, we chose not to. In this event, the world's judgment will be severe and inescapable: The United States had its day but, in the end, couldn't put its own self-interest ahead of its crazy irrationality over race.
Notwithstanding Weisberg's lachrymose hand-wringing what an Obama defeat would signify is that the Democrat party can not win the presidency by running a far-left elitist as a candidate. Every time they've tried since 1950 (McGovern, Gore, Kerry) they've lost. Every Democrat president elected in the last fifty years has run as a moderate.
Weisberg thinks we should vote for Obama no matter how bad we may think his policies so that we can make some sort of feel-good social statement. That's very liberal of him and very shallow. Weisberg has things exactly backward: If Obama loses it would be because the American voter decided to put our national interest ahead of our crazy irrationality over race.
RLC
