Yes, Virginia, the Republicans really are that stupid

[xela]

From a Seattle Times article, "Iowa Results Scare GOP":

"November could be dark," said Republican strategist Scott Reed.

Um.

(Those of you who've always lived among civilized people may not get it; I know I didn't the first time I heard it. I was in Ann Arbor, Michigan, looking for a place to live, back when the way you did that was by reading classified ads in a newspaper. I made an appointment to see a place, headed to the part of town where all the buses converged, found a bus driver, and asked if he knew which route I should take to get to that address.

He told me, and then, in what seemed a friendly, make-conversation, sort of way asked why I was headed that way.

"I'm looking at an apartment."

"You may want to think about that. That part of town's mighty dark."

I thanked him and went off to catch my bus, trying to figure out why one part of town would be darker than another. Was it in the shadow of one of the area's few hills? It was only when I got there, and realized that I was the only white person on the street, that I figured it out.

I'm not going to say there's no racism in the Northwest, but I had certainly never encountered overt racism in the flesh before. Not only did I not know the code, the code was almost beyond my imagination. I wonder if that (along with plausible deniability, of course) is what Mr Reed was betting on when he used that phrase?)

Comments

[zkzkz.livejournal.com]

So did you take an appartment in that area?

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

No, but not because of the neighborhood; I'd lived in mostly black neighborhoods before and would again a few years later. It was one of the first places I looked at, and was still on the list when a friend told me there was an opening in their group house a few days later.

[sammason.livejournal.com]

It certainly sounds as though he was talking about Obama.

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

Yes, but that's just as true regardless of whether the remark was intended as code or merely ill-considered. Not all Republicans are racists and homophobes — hell, there are even black and gay Republicans* — and if you're a Republican and your brain is operational at all (let's assume for the the sake of argument that that is possible), your only possible reaction to Iowa's results is "we are so fucked." Iowa has long been a swing state, with roughly equal numbers of voters for both parties, but the Democratic turnout in the caucuses dwarfed the Republican turnout. Until now the pundits have been talking without any actual data about how disaffected Republican voters were over what a total catastrophe their party has been in power. Now there's data, and that disaffection is every bit as bad as the pundits imagined. And not only are the Democrats conspicuously more motivated than the Republicans, they're supporting the likable, charismatic Obama rather than the polarizing Clinton, whose victory would at least have given the Republcans hope of a backlash boost. There is, in short, nothing for a Republican to be glad of in the Iowa results.

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* That is there exist ((black Republicans) and (gay Republicans)). I suppose statistically there must be ((black and gay) Republicans) — but the mind boggles.

[bluedaisy.livejournal.com]

I saw that story, too, but I would *never* have thought that it referred to a particular candidate. I assumed they just thought they were going to do badly in November elections because Obama pulled out lots of new voters.

I hope you're wrong.

[yakshaver.livejournal.com]

> I hope you're wrong.

So do I. But the fact of the matter is, it wouldn't even have crossed my mind if the party of Lincoln hadn't been courting racist whites with a wink and a nudge since before I can remember.