Mark Z. Barabak: Obama, McCain Find Race Issue Isn't Easily Discarded
Race has bedeviled this country from the start, when the Founding Fathers ducked the slavery issue for fear of killing the nation in its cradle.
Obviously, much has changed. For one thing, Americans are seriously weighing the prospect of elevating a black man to the White House in November.
But as this past week's debate over "the race card" illustrates, there is still no subject in American politics as fraught as the color of a candidate's skin.
Angered by remarks Barack Obama made to an audience in rural Missouri, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who is white, accused the Illinois senator, who is black, of using race as wedge to win support.
Democrats accused McCain of cynically turning things on their head; by crying foul, they claimed, McCain managed to put race front and center just as he was stepping up his personal attacks on Obama.
Both candidates stand to gain -- and lose -- from the testy back-and-forth, underscoring just how incendiary, and complex, racial politics remain more than 200 years after vexing the first set of American politicians.
"It is not to Barack Obama's advantage to make this a big issue," said Dan T. Carter, a history professor at the University of South Carolina, who has written extensively about race and politics. At the same time, McCain cannot afford to be seen as exploiting racial tensions for political gain, Carter said: "It is simply not acceptable to the majority of people, including many of those who may be sympathetic."
That may explain why the candidates acted the way they did: Obama ignoring McCain and leaving his initial response to aides -- who quickly shifted the subject to the economy and foreign policy -- and McCain portraying himself as the victim of a rhetorical mugging...
Read entire article at LAT
Obviously, much has changed. For one thing, Americans are seriously weighing the prospect of elevating a black man to the White House in November.
But as this past week's debate over "the race card" illustrates, there is still no subject in American politics as fraught as the color of a candidate's skin.
Angered by remarks Barack Obama made to an audience in rural Missouri, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, who is white, accused the Illinois senator, who is black, of using race as wedge to win support.
Democrats accused McCain of cynically turning things on their head; by crying foul, they claimed, McCain managed to put race front and center just as he was stepping up his personal attacks on Obama.
Both candidates stand to gain -- and lose -- from the testy back-and-forth, underscoring just how incendiary, and complex, racial politics remain more than 200 years after vexing the first set of American politicians.
"It is not to Barack Obama's advantage to make this a big issue," said Dan T. Carter, a history professor at the University of South Carolina, who has written extensively about race and politics. At the same time, McCain cannot afford to be seen as exploiting racial tensions for political gain, Carter said: "It is simply not acceptable to the majority of people, including many of those who may be sympathetic."
That may explain why the candidates acted the way they did: Obama ignoring McCain and leaving his initial response to aides -- who quickly shifted the subject to the economy and foreign policy -- and McCain portraying himself as the victim of a rhetorical mugging...