Race and the 2006 elections: Two views from opposite sides

[ProfJohn]

I highly recommend everyone check out realclearpolitics.com it is a great web site for election news with TONS of links to op-ed and news pieces that relate to the elections.

From there I found two op-eds about race and the Tennessee TV ads. One right and on left. Totally different points of views.
Jeff Jacoby of the Boston Globe Link

But the plain fact is, there is nothing remotely racial about the Tennessee ad. And I can prove it: The ad would be just as effective if Ford were white. The Playboy blonde isn't a coded reference to interracial dating (which, according to the Pew Research Center, most Southern whites don't oppose anyway). Her presence isn't a subliminal reminder of Ford's color. It is a cue that Ford, who campaigns as something of a goody-goody -- one of his campaign spots was filmed in a church -- may be a little less straitlaced than he lets on.

Eleanor Clift of Newsweek Link

A party that came of age with a Southern Strategy of race baiting can?t play innocent. Ford is African-American; the woman in the ad is white. Race has been a subliminal factor in the campaign. Now it?s out in the open, and it?s another wake-up call for a fractured coalition that has lost its way.

It is shameful for the GOP to stoop this low to hang on to its majority... Whatever the outcome on Election Day, Ford has come too far too fast to let a racist ad extinguish his electoral future.

Two columns by two well known and well respected writers.
I think the one thing this shows is that people see what they want to see.
Democrats see the blonde as a subliminal racist attack pointing out that Ford is black.
Republicans see the blonde as pointing out the double standard of Ford filming ads in a church one day while going to Playboy Parties on another.

 

[jackschmittusa]

How are going to church and going to a Playboy party considered incongruent?

Must have missd the "Thou shalt not party" commandment.

 

[palehorse]

Originally posted by: jackschmittusa
How are going to church and going to a Playboy party considered incongruent?

Must have missd the "Thou shalt not party" commandment.

the point is that the intent of the ad was not racist at all, but the left just loves to play the race card... I call it paranoia, and in this case, their claims of racism are ridiculous.

 

[ProfJohn]

The point is two reasonable and respected people can see the same thing and make totally different conclusions based on their built in baises. Democrats see a racist attack, Republicans don?t.

 

[Jhhnn]

Yeh, right, ProfJohn... Willie Horton wasn't racist, either...

In some Repub apologist dreamworld, that is...

The ad approaches and exploits lingering racism in an almost subliminal way. Just because it's subtle doesn't mean it's not designed to appeal to that... If anything, it's more powerful because of it... people don't even realize that their own lingering beliefs are being exploited...

 

[jackschmittusa]

Well, maybe this is my built in bias, but here goes.

There have been many times that I have found what Jeff Jacoby has written to be quite unreasonable. I, for one, have never thought much of him.

I have traveled in the South (even lived in Georgia for a short time). You are pretty niave if you think it means nothing in Old Dixie to have a foxy white girl be suggestive to a black man. The South does have a different cultural perspective on many things that perhaps people who read The Boston Globe are unaware of. (Stayed in Boston for a few months once too. Great city, great people, but they do have a Bostonian tint to the glasses they wear to see the world.)

The ad has no racial undertones only if you take it out of the context of where it was run.

My earlier comment was basically to ask whether a man who goes to church is then barred from attending parties with attractive hostesses. Is going to Hooters out? While I agree that some ultra conservative Christians might think so, most others would not.

I myself get angry when the "race card" is used without merit, but think it may apply here.

 

[ProfJohn]

Jack there is nothing wrong with going to a Playboy party, I wish they would invite me.

But to then turn around and film a TV ad in a church and act like you are the pillar of the community is a little dishonest.

That is the only reason the playboy thing has become an issue.

On top of that? where are the claims of mixing religion and politics?

I started in church the old fashioned way . . . I was forced to. And I?m better for it.
I?m Harold Ford Jr. Here, I learned the difference between right and wrong

What would happen if a Republican filmed an ad in a church and said the exact same thing?

 

[techs]

People like Prof John need to be marginalized.
The best way to do it is to foment an economic collapse. Its what the neo-cons are doing, yet they completely misjudge the outcome.
Which is why I invite everyone to join me in calling on Congress and the President to "CUT TAXES"
When voters are overwhelmed by their economic problems they will vote for their class not their hatred and fear.
And the working class will once again be the pre-eminent political movement in America.
And Prof John will be superfluous.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: techs
People like Prof John need to be marginalized.
The best way to do it is to foment an economic collapse. Its what the neo-cons are doing, yet they completely misjudge the outcome.
Which is why I invite everyone to join me in calling on Congress and the President to "CUT TAXES"
When voters are overwhelmed by their economic problems they will vote for their class not their hatred and fear.
And the working class will once again be the pre-eminent political movement in America.
And Prof John will be superfluous.

You have jumped the shark with the "cut taxes" rant you've been going on for a few days now. Having fun?

 

[Pens1566]

Originally posted by: palehorse74

Originally posted by: jackschmittusa
How are going to church and going to a Playboy party considered incongruent?

Must have missd the "Thou shalt not party" commandment.

the point is that the intent of the ad was not racist at all, but the left just loves to play the race card... I call it paranoia, and in this case, their claims of racism are ridiculous.

And people like Joe Scarborough are such lefties. 🙁

 

[XZeroII]

I'm sorry, but I don't see a link to the actual Ad. How can any conclusions be made from us without seeing the actual Ad?

 

[ProfJohn]

Link to ad

 

[jackschmittusa]

But to then turn around and film a TV ad in a church and act like you are the pillar of the community is a little dishonest.

I see now. A "pillar of the community" could not attend a party with the Bunnies, just low lifes like you and me.

Most of us actually detest those that create a false front of monastic life to to prop up their pillar of the community status, only to fall from grace when they are found out to be like the rest of us.

Having fun and being a pillar of the community should not be mutually exclusive. And we don't need leaders that are better than us, only as good as the best of us.

 

[Rainsford]

Originally posted by: jackschmittusa

But to then turn around and film a TV ad in a church and act like you are the pillar of the community is a little dishonest.

I see now. A "pillar of the community" could not attend a party with the Bunnies, just low lifes like you and me.

Most of us actually detest those that create a false front of monastic life to to prop up their pillar of the community status, only to fall from grace when they are found out to be like the rest of us.

Having fun and being a pillar of the community should not be mutually exclusive. And we don't need leaders that are better than us, only as good as the best of us.

No, see, the way you be a "pillar of the community" is to be judgemental and puritanical. You don't actually have to DO anything, which is a great deal for a lot of people, actually. Do a lot of good work for the community and then attend a Playboy party and you're a hypocrite, do absolutely nothing to help anyone, but endlessly moralize about Playboy parties and you're a "pillar of the community". Quite the deal...

 

[Don Vito Corleone]

FWIW, I am a Democrat and I think the claims that the ad is racist are just silly. FWIW I also don't see it as hypocritical to go to a party sponsored by Playboy, then to a church. The party wasn't some kind of orgy, just a party sponsored by Playboy, and there were no naked women or sexual activity there.

 

[Moonbeam]

Originally posted by: DonVito
FWIW, I am a Democrat and I think the claims that the ad is racist are just silly. FWIW I also don't see it as hypocritical to go to a party sponsored by Playboy, then to a church. The party wasn't some kind of orgy, just a party sponsored by Playboy, and there were no naked women or sexual activity there.

I think this point, excellent as it is on its own, does miss one point about the ad. What PJ failed to consider in his analysis of how bias sways the way we see its intention is the fact that the bias of the voters also sways the way it effects then. For anybody who still harbors unconscious bias toward blacks and a fear of losing white women to them, a fear that every male fears about every other male pretty much without the added stereotypes of race anyway, this ad will have the intended effect, to bias the voter against the guy who is getting some. There is noting that Republicans, who are already uptight and anally retentive anyway, than the notion that somebody is getting some and enjoying it. That is just simply anti- family values. So the ad is very racist to people who have the racist thingi alive in them. The real question is whether you believe that people who make political ads, study the human psyche for all its weaknesses and frailties to pray upon them for political gain, wouldn't know this, or that those of us who know how they operate would give them a pass on this. I, for one, don't think so.

 

[ProfJohn]

Originally posted by: DonVito
FWIW, I am a Democrat and I think the claims that the ad is racist are just silly. FWIW I also don't see it as hypocritical to go to a party sponsored by Playboy, then to a church. The party wasn't some kind of orgy, just a party sponsored by Playboy, and there were no naked women or sexual activity there.

There have been some conservative commentators that have said attacking him for the playboy thing was just not necessary. They could have left out the blonde bimbo and still had an effective ad. I would agree.