Nerve: 20 Greatest Political Campaign Ads of all Time

Nerve

20 Greatest Political Campaign Ads of all Time

(ed note, check #19, 16, 11, 4, and this one not on the list.)

 

Think Progress: The Party of Race

Think Progress (Matthew Yglesias, 10/30/08)

The Party of Race

Well, obviously you could read just about anything as a coded racist appeal. And I think a case could be made that you’d be right to. The simple fact of the matter is that the politics of economic conservatism in the United States have a lot to do with the politics of race. I always think it’s worth recalling the practical constituency for libertarian economic policies as seen in the 1964 elections:

Now that’s not to say that the politics of American conservatism are exclusively about race. Lots and lots of people in places like Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Hampshire, Maine, etc. where there were no racial tensions in 1964 (no black people in those states) voted for Barry Goldwater. It just wasn’t a majority. And next week lots of people are going to vote for John McCain because they believe his opponent favors the murder of innocent unborn children, whereas a President McCain could plausibly appoint Supreme Court justices who would dramatically curtail said slaughter. There are lots of things in play. But voting behavior is very tied up with race and with attitudes about race even when it’s two white candidates facing off against each other.

NY Times: The George Wallace We Forgot

NY Times

The George Wallace We Forgot

Likewise, to describe George Wallace as a simple racist is to give his biography short shrift. As a circuit court judge in the 1950s, Wallace was respectful toward blacks, and as a legislator from 1947 to 1953, he was a moderate. In 1948, when Strom Thurmond led the Southern delegations out of the Democratic convention to protest the party’s pioneer civil rights plank, Wallace stayed in his seat. Though no fan of the plank, he was yet more Democrat than demagogue, and was instrumental in rallying the other Southern alternate delegates to save the convention’s quorum, and pass its platform.

…

He might have carried a tolerant message into the Alabama governor’s mansion in 1958, but he lost the race after spurning the support of the Ku Klux Klan (which then backed his primary opponent, John Patterson) and being endorsed by the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Sadly for Wallace’s state, his region, his nation and himself, he did not respond as John Lewis did after his defeat by Carmichael. Mr. Lewis, whenever confronted with calls to divisiveness, chose to redouble his commitment to reason and tolerance. After his loss to Mr. Patterson, Wallace is said to have turned to an aide and declared, “I was out-niggered … and I’ll never be out-niggered again.”

After Wallace finally won the governorship in 1962, his administration was never as race-hostile as his campaign appeals implied; black leaders found his office door open, and often his mind, too. But he would eternally pay the price for the methods he used to gain that office.

…

It would behoove everyone in the current race for America’s highest offices to pay attention to what Mr. Lewis was really saying, and judge it for its provenance in his long experience. Better than perhaps any living American, he knows that courage on the front line is one thing, and on the campaign stage quite another, knows how tiny and harmless the seeds of fanaticism can seem, how one cry of “kill him” can crescendo into a chorus that can’t be stifled. Mr. Lewis might be deemed generous in wishing on no other member of his profession the harrowed look I witnessed in George Wallace’s eyes as he struggled up off the floor in Boston and beheld what a hell he’d wrought.

La Shawn Barber’s Corner: Lewis Diuguid: Code Word for Race-Card Playing Journalis

La Shawn Barber’s Corner

Lewis Diuguid: Code Word for Race-Card Playing Journalis 

Oh, what a tangled web we weave when we practice to play the race card so close to Election Eve!*

Lewis Diuguid, a columnist for the Kansas City Star, played the race card and opened up a can of Drudge-linked worms with a blog post titled, “Shame on McCain and Palin for using an old code word for black.” An excerpt:

“The ’socialist’ label that Sen. John McCain and his GOP presidential running mate Sarah Palin are trying to attach to Sen. Barack Obama actually has long and very ugly historical roots.

“J. Edgar Hoover, director of the FBI from 1924 to 1972, used the term liberally to describe African Americans who spent their lives fighting for equality.

…

I surmise that socialism and communism appeal to many blacks today because of what they perceive to be invidious racism. Their inability to rise higher in their profession or score a higher-paying job or reach the pinnacle of whatever they define as success is attributed to racism. So is poverty. Since white people have all the power and use it to hold them back, it’s only fair to take from white people and give to the collective, so that all may benefit.

I’d rather take my chances and try to be successful on my own merits and earn my own way, without taking that which belongs to someone else. If I fail, I fail with a cheerful heart, knowing my failure belongs to me.

Washington Independent: The Mis-Reading of the ‘Bradley Effect’

Washington Independent

The Mis-Reading of the ‘Bradley Effect’ 

Lance Tarrance, who polled for Deukmejian in 1982, got it closest to right. Recently, he wrote: “[A]nalysis of the 1982 election revealed the weakness in the Bradley Effect theory as Bradley actually won on Election Day turnout, but lost the absentee vote so badly that Deukmejian pulled ahead to win. That Bradley won the vote on Election Day would hardly seem to suggest a hidden or last minute anti-black backlash.”

In fact, this reveals that Bradley’s liberal supporters had bungled an important strategic decision. In hopes of increasing Democratic turnout, they qualified Proposition 15, a hand-gun control initiative, for the November 1982 ballot. Every gun owner in California was furious.

The National Rifle Assn. endorsed Deukmejian; and the first large-scale, aggressive absentee ballot campaign was launched by the GOP.

Prop. 15 lost by a nearly 2 to 1 margin. It was defeated in every county except San Francisco and Marin. According to the California Journal, “it was obliterated in rural California,” where turnout ran about 10 percent higher than in urban areas. And the absentee ballot count was lopsided in favor of the Republican.

Tens of thousands of gun lovers registered their vote against gun control and stuck around to mark their ballots for Deukmejian.

Nonetheless, Mervin Field’s exit polling was, to some extent, accurate. Field did not account for absentee ballot voters. His survey—like the actual results—showed a Bradley win at the ballot box.

There were other factors that contributed to imperfect polling — and Bradley’s loss. A lackluster campaign led to a low-turnout election. The Democratic Party, overall, did a mediocre job of getting out the vote. Bradley was also criticized for not energizing his African-American base.

In the end, black turnout was lower than expected — the higher-turnout model used by some pollsters could have skewed the poll results toward Bradley. In addition, some exit polls, according to the California Journal, revealed that the unpopularity of Jerry Brown, the departing Democratic governor who was running against Pete Wilson for the Senate, “rubbed off on Bradley.”

A far stronger case can be made for the impact of a “Bradley effect” in the 1969 race for Los Angeles mayor — when then-City Councilman Tom Bradley first challenged the conservative Democratic incumbent, Sam Yorty. Bradley finished first in a crowded primary, with 42 percent of the vote; Yorty came in second with 26 percent.

Before the head-to-head runoff. pre-election polls showed Bradley handily defeating Yorty. Then, in what was considered a major upset, Yorty won re-election, with 53 percent of the vote to Bradley’s 47 percent. Yorty succeeded, according to his biographer, John Bollens, by “riding to advantage a wave of fear, prejudice and reaction.”

Yorty portrayed Bradley as a Black Panther supporter and depicted the former cop as anti-police. The Political scientist Raphael Sonenshein wrote, “Yorty directly exploited white fears. His campaign ads ran in the real estate section of [San Fernando] Valley newspapers showing Bradley’s picture with the caption ‘Will Your City Be Safe with This Man?’”

Bradley took “a high road approach,” barely responding. In an election with record high turnout overall, Sonenshein observed, a hefty anti-Bradley vote coming from the San Fernando Valley, and dramatic shifts in support to Yorty “among whites, Jews and Latinos, were devastating” to Bradley’s chances.

Politico: McCain warned on race card

Politico

McCain warned on race card

The name of George Wallace, who died in 1998, was invoked a few days ago by Rep. John Lewis, Democrat of Georgia and a civil rights leader. Lewis likened the rhetoric of Wallace to the rhetoric of John McCain and Sarah Palin. 

“Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are sowing the seeds of hatred and division, and there is no need for this hostility in our political discourse,” Lewis said. “George Wallace never threw a bomb. He never fired a gun, but he created the climate and the conditions that encouraged vicious attacks against innocent Americans who were simply trying to exercise their constitutional rights. Because of this atmosphere of hate, four little girls were killed on Sunday morning when a church was bombed in Birmingham, Ala. As public figures with the power to influence and persuade, Sen. McCain and Gov. Palin are playing with fire, and if they are not careful, that fire will consume us all.” 

It was a shocking statement. (And it was meant to shock.) McCain was stunned. In August, at a public forum, McCain had named Lewis as one of the “wisest” people he knew and a person he would “rely on heavily” during his administration. 

McCain issued a very tough statement in reply to Lewis’ remarks, saying the comments were “beyond the pale” and that Lewis had made a “brazen and baseless attack” on McCain’s character and the character of his supporters. McCain then called on Barack Obama to “repudiate these outrageous and divisive comments,” even though Obama had not made them. 

Obama obliged — in part. Bill Burton, spokesman for Obama, said: “Sen. Obama does not believe that John McCain or his policy criticism is in any way comparable to George Wallace or his segregationist policies. But John Lewis was right to condemn some of the hateful rhetoric that John McCain himself personally rebuked just last night, as well as the baseless and profoundly irresponsible charges from his own running mate that the Democratic nominee for president of the United States ‘pals around with terrorists.’” 

That latter reference was to ’60s radical William Ayers, a line of attack the McCain campaign has been pursuing with vigor recently. What McCain has not been pursuing, to the consternation of some of his supporters, is an attack on Obama’s former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright. 

On the face of it, attacking Obama on Wright makes more sense than attacking him on Ayers. Obama was much closer to Wright and Wright’s statements are much more recent than Ayers’ actions. 

But McCain is resisting. So far. He wants to get out of this presidential race without being accused of racism. 

And that was the point of John Lewis’ very strong statement. Lewis was issuing a warning to McCain. 

Pink Flamingo: Jackie Kennedy en Epanol

Pink Flamingo

Jackie Kennedy en Epanol

Did you know Jackie Kennedy did a commercial in Spanish thanking Hispanic speaking Americans for voting for her husband.  That’s 1960 for all those terrified that the world will come to an end because John McCain is doing ads en Espanol.

That’s the legendary Jackie Kennedy speaking Spanish. Fortunately,Damn Mexicans translates the message for us. 

“…“Dear friends, I am the wife of Senator John F. Kennedy candidate for the presidency of the United States. In these times of great danger when world peace is threatened by Communism we need a firm hand in the White House, a leader capable of guiding our destinies. My husband will watch out for the interests of all the sectors of society that need the protection of a humanitarian government. For the future of our children and in order to achieve world peace, please vote for the Democratic Party on November 8th.

“Long Live Kennedy!”..”

The Roots of Symbolic Racism I: Kevin Phillips, 1970

New York Times (5/17/70)

Nixon’s Southern Strategy ‘It’s All in the Charts’

From a profile of political strategist Kevin Phillips”

“The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That’s where the votes are.”

HipHopRepublican: The Myth of ‘the Southern Strategy’

HipHopRepublican (9/28/08)

The Myth of ‘the Southern Strategy’

In their book “The End of Southern Exceptionalism,” Richard Johnston of the University of Pennsylvania and Byron Shafer of the University of Wisconsin argue that the shift in the South from Democratic to Republican was overwhelmingly a question not of race but of economic growth..”-New York Times

The transformation of Southern politics after World War II changed the political life not just of this distinctive region, but of the entire nation. Until now, the critical shift in Southern political allegiance from Democratic to Republican has been explained, by scholars and journalists, as a white backlash to the civil rights revolution.

In this myth-shattering book, Byron Shafer and Richard Johnston refute that view, one stretching all the way back to V. O. Key in his classic book Southern Politics. The true story is instead one of dramatic class reversal, beginning in the 1950s and pulling everything else in its wake. Where once the poor voted Republican and the rich Democrat, that pattern reversed, as economic development became the engine of Republican gains. Racial desegregation, never far from the heart of the story, often applied the brakes to these gains rather than fueling them.A book that is bound to shake up the study of Southern politics, this will also become required reading for pundits and political strategists, for all those who argue over what it takes to carry the South.