The Obama campaign has released a new ad criticizing Mitt Romney for having a Swiss bank account and wanting to keep tax breaks for corporations that offshore jobs. The commercial’s most devastating line: Romney once railed against the deadly pollution from a coal plant.
I know what you’re thinking: Totally racist, right?
That’s sort of the point of Karen Tumulty‘s piece today in the Washington Post (10/23/12). Under the headline “Obama’s ‘Not One of Us’ Attack on Romney Echoes Racial Code,” Tumulty uses complaints from right-wing bloggers to lead a discussion about the commercial, which she says “echoes a slogan that has been used as a racial code over at least the past half-century.”
Tumultly tells us that one writer at the National Review‘s Corner blog objected to the ad. (We’ll set aside the idea that the National Review is the place to go for deep critiques of racism.) Tumulty then cites another blogger at the American Thinker site, who wonders about the double standard: “Had Romney pulled this on him, we’d need a special two-hour episode of Hardball to deal with the dog-whistle implications.” (Tumulty’s actually misidentifying the writer of that passage, which was really published by the right-wing blog Hot Air.)
Of course, there are plenty of reasons why Romney calling Obama “not one of us” would have “dog-whistle implications.” Since the campaign season has given us concocted stories about Obama’s welfare policies and Republican rhetoric about Obama the “food stamp president,” it’s not hard to see racist “code” all around us. But media don’t tend to spend a lot of time dwelling on that.
Karen Tumulty (photo: Center for American Progress)
Indeed, the hardest thing to fathom is why Tumulty is giving this critique any space at all. She notes that the Obama campaign explains that the ad is about the auto bailout and other economic issues–which is obvious enough to anyone who spends 30 seconds watching the ad.
And Tumulty uses this “controversy” to give readers a quick look at racist rhetoric and imagery in earlier political campaigns, like a Republican congressman who won a 1982 election running a TV ad that “featured footage of Confederate monuments” along with the tagline, “He’s one of us.” The idea that this ad has anything to do with that ad is, on its face, rather absurd.
Tumulty nonetheless makes a play for “balance” by noting that the two major party candidates have both seen their share of bigotry:
Obama, the nation’s first black president, has himself been a target of insinuations of otherness, including false but widely circulated suggestions that he was not born in this country and that he is a Muslim. During this presidential campaign, his allies say, they have seen racial coding in accusations that Obama is a “food stamp president” and in popular tea party slogans such as “Take back our country.”
Romney has faced mistrust and prejudice as well, regarding his Mormon faith.
Yes, those two experiences are eerily similar.
If anything, the most revealing part of the ad is how it closes–with an image of Romney saying in 2003 that a coal plant “kills people.”
If there’s a message in the ad, that is the one that is most resonant. Romney was once a fierce critic of a polluting industry–just listen to him angrily denounce this dirty polluter! The next thing you see is the apparently controversial on-screen graphic: “Mitt Romney: Not One of Us.”
There is literally no way to interpret that as having anything to do with “racial code.” The message is that Romney’s not as friendly to the coal industry as he says he is. The odd politics of such an appeal would be a far more interesting topic than empty right-wing posturing.
If the implication of the ad is that anyone who proclaims, regardless of sincerity, their abhorrence of death-dealing poison profiteers, is “not one of us”
I’d say the message is spot on.
If the “us” is the Obama administration, and its fealty to fossil fuel fiefdoms.
From the steamy Gulf to the frozen Arctic, they’ve never met a drill bit they didn’t like.
So Romney gets ragged for posturing on pollution
And Obama gets dissed for claiming to care about climate change.
If only the jabs were justified.
So the GOP can say anything but if the DNC fight back using their dirty tricks its wrong? And that any of the two parties hollow messaging should come as a surprise to anyone who pays some level of attention to these speckticels we still call with a straight face “Elections, Debates & a functional democracy” should know better. It’s the low information voters I assume is the only reason this is note worthy? Very little surprises me these days with a government so under the influence and control of interconnected merchants of death, destruction & greed.
As long as our elections are run by corporations, i.e., who ever gives the biggest bucks wins, we will be pounded to death by hypocrisy. It very odd for the right to claim that the “one of us” phrase is objectionable and racist. Whatever did Mrs. Romney mean when she referred to “those people.” One wonders if underneath the public face there is even deeper hatred and “those people,” truly lessor, are also stupider, meaner, vilier, and really less important that whatever people she preceives herself to be. I suspect her husband shares these views, whatever they are.
I saw not one of us as code for class warfare, but i hadnt watched the ad yet, so it seems its just about industry side-taking.
EIther way it obviously isnt about race, media in the US is so bad that it makes it harder for me to blame the citizens for being so misinformed.
Many conservatives still believe there was a cover up in Lybia even though the attack really is claimed by the attackers, a known militia-group in the area, to be in protest to the video, or at least using it as a last straw catalyst, and if I am correct in reading, the request for more troops was to the other consulate, or official building in the country because the whole point of the diplomat being in that one was due to it being in rebel territory, a bit quieter/safer.
I admit, even I could get better versed on the details, but I know for sure there is no cover up or nothing that could be known the day after the attack.
Children…..No party can ever bring up even the thought of racism on any subject no matter how obscure that has 99% of one race voting for its matching color profile.The black vote is the biggest sign of racism this country has seen since the Klan rode rough shod over southern elections in by gone days.
TUMULTY: “She’s not one of us.”
Well, I think a lot of argumentation and debate people and writers could agree with that quote, plus WOMEN, lots of women: black, white, brown, tan, beige, off white and pink too!
From the article: “The message is that Romney’s not as friendly to the coal industry as he says he is.”
Are you sure? It seems to be the other way around.
michael e says: “The black vote is the biggest sign of racism…”
But whites voting for the white guy is not? Please.
Tee jay….The black vote is 13% tops.That means just about half the white voters voted for (and will vote) for the Democratic candidate Barrack Obama.So the idea that whites per say are racist is nonsense.Back again to the polls.97-100% of blacks polled say they will vote for Obama.Teejay is Jesus came down from heaven you could not get 98% of Catholics to vote for him.A couple percent would believe its bullshit no matter the proof.Yet some polls have found 100% of Blacks voting alike.And that covers all spectrums of earners.Racsist through and through.We have not seen its like since the 1950s in the deep south.The only place and time in this countries history that almost all whites would of voted against a black man.THAT is what this man of inclusiveness has brought us.THAT is what almost no one is speaking about.
I mean hey , Obama being racist and according to that silly ad , no way i won`t even argue on that .