Since 1948, the Republican party has had a history of reaching out to the right-wing fringe in this country on various occasions. But never - and I mean never - since that time, has the GOP so overtly allowed racism to play a role in a Presidential election as they have this year.
This does not mean that most Republicans are racist. I think we can fairly say that most of us know Republicans who are frequently wrong on the issues, but don't discriminate. However - here's the problem: The history of the GOP shows us that winning is so important that they frequenty ignore principles of this country in order to gain a rediculously high turnout among the smaller-sized elements in the voting population.
They did it in 1994 to fill vacant House candidacy slots with the likes of Steve Stockman and Helen Chenoweth. They did it in 2006 to beat back Harold Ford, Jr. in Tennessee. Heck, when Strom Thurmond walked out of the Democratic party in 1948 over the advent of the modern civil rights movement, he took a bunch of loathesome racists with him - and many of them ended up elected as Republicans (including Thurmond himself). So what's worse: A Presidential candidate who is a racist, or one who simply coddles them because he needs them to win?
This is simply unacceptable. And if the crazy-car, maverick, too old, too incompetant, too attached to the Iraq War, too attached to Bush economic policies issues - if all those were not there - this alone, this unbridled acceptance and even encouragement of racist behavior should disqualify John McCain from office. Period.
Why is he doing it? Well, because he needs them to have any chance of winning at all, and he knows it. Frankly, McCain's response to this issue in this week's debate (that he repudiates these comments at all of his rallies) is a bold-faced lie. All we have on tape is him telling one old woman that she was wrong when she told McCain she was concerned that Senator Obama was an Arab. That's it. McCain and that characature of a running mate of his have stood there at rallies time after time, with people screaming epithets to calls to violence against Barack Obama, and they say nothing.
You had the Texas state Republican convention featuring racist campaign buttons. A member of a local GOP club in California sends out hate e-mail with an incredibly racist graphic of our Democratic nominee stereotyped on welfare bills with watermelon and ribs. And now we have some racist cretin in Ohio who hangs him in effigy on his front lawn.
And where are the GOP chairpersons from these states? Where is Senator Cornyn or Hutchinson? Governor Schwartzenegger? Senator Voinovich? Even more important: Where is Sarah Palin? Where is John McCain? Where are these uber-patriotic Americans (or is that pro-Americans) who can't seem to defend as simple an American ideal as equality?
I'll tell you where: Complaining about Democrats attacking Joe the Plumber for lying through his teeth while trying to sucker punch Senator Obama at a campaign stop, complaining about Acorn trying to register new voters (God forbid), complaining about the media. They cannot speak out on racism, because winning is more important than being right, being a real American. Again: They will not condemn the racists, because they cannot win without them. This is all they have left.
Apparently, it's not that John McCain would rather win a war than win an election. It's that he would rather lose his dignity than lose an election. The vast majority of Americans surely do not think like the losers that scream racism and threaten violence at Republican rallies. It's sad, but not surprising, that a major party candidate for President could sink this low.
The good news is that over the next two weeks we have exactly the right organization, the right message and the perfect candidate to lift the rest of the country beyond this race-baiting miasma. America is better than the know-nothings. They can scream all they want, but they'll be taught their lesson in the voting booth come Election Day.