It's the black, stupid

From my personal experience, I would say that most white people, even those who support Obama, refuse to acknowledge that racism is the defining underlying strategy of the McCain campaign. However, the racial basis of virtually every anti-Obama message coming from McCain’s campaign (which is pretty much every single message) is absolutely transparent. Perhaps most obvious are the long-promulgated notions that Obama is “not one of us,” that he a secret Muslim, or that he is some kind of neo-Black Panther because his pastor condemned U.S. foreign policy. I should hope that the racial potency of these messages would be obvious, but I fear that they are not.

However, a very recent poll by AP/Yahoo (N=2,227, 8/27-9/5, margin of error +/- 2.1 percent) is a wonderful illustration of what the McCain campaign is all about because it shows exactly what their messages are aiming at. Although the data gathered from this poll are, to be sure, disturbing by themselves, consider the alignment of whites’ stereotypes of black people with the core anti-Obama messages of the McCain campaign.

22 percent of white Americans (all whites, regardless of party) agreed that black people are “boastful”
McCainization: Obama is a celebrity, Obama is elitist, Obama starting running for president as soon as he entered the Senate

11 percent agreed that black people are “irresponsible”
McCainization: Obama is not ready to be president (give Hillary credit for her 3am advertisement during the primaries)

29 percent agreed that black people are “complaining”
McCainization: Obama (and his wife) is unpatriotic, Obama is a negative campaigner, Obama’s work as a community organizer as a laughable endeavor, the general constraint on Obama’s campaign by which he simply cannot even mention race as an issue

20 percent strongly agreed that black Americans are “violent”
McCainization: Obama is a secret Muslim, Obama shares his "extremist" "God damn America" views of the U.S.

13 percent agreed that black people are “lazy”
McCainization: again, Obama is inexperienced and not ready to be president

Most generally, around 40 percent of white Americans hold at least a partly negative view of their black counterparts.
McCainization: the aforementioned messages of Obama is “not one of us,” Obama is not a real American

The analysis of these polling data suggest that these stereotypes will cost Obama around 6 percent of the popular vote.

Virtually every single anti-Obama message that the McCain campaign has used over the past few months fits nicely into a synergistic relationship with one or more of these racial stereotypes. The only exception that I can think of is the age-old "Obama will raise your taxes" message, although I could have forced it into the "irresponsible" and/or "complaining" categories. Among those anti-Obama messages that I did list above, you can give a pass to the inexperience charge, as this is a perfectly valid criticism of any presidential candidate who is a first-term senator.

However, every other anti-Obama message, in my view, clearly draws its resonance directly from racial stereotypes that a disturbing proportion of white Americans hold. McCain’s amalgamated campaign message can be summed up in two words: “He’s black.”

The forced, ice-breaking election post

We will decide this election, and there is nothing we can do about it.

The truth almost seems ashamed of itself.

Do people understand that these moronic messages and lies are specifically designed for distrusting, cynical voters convinced that they are immune from them? When they rebel against the stupidity of our political discourse by tuning out, how many realize that that is the very reaction that is desired of them? Their revolution is submission, and it will be televised.

When they hear or read the messages and lies, after they tell themselves that they are too smart and saavy to believe any of this political nonsense, do they ever realize that the message lingers in their head, struggling desperately to find a suitable place among their premises and preconceptions? (Obama can't be a Muslim, can he? Well, we do know that he isn't very patriotic, so maybe...).

Do people not care about the lies, or are they simply not paying attention? Certainly the latter more than the former (almost 80% of Americans get most of their campaign information from political advertisements). In that case, the game is all about choosing the best lies to put to scary music in a 30-second spot: Obama wants to teach oral sex to kindergarteners, he has an "I Brake for White Women" bumper sticker on his car, and he will take your guns and give them to his pastor.

At what point does a meaningless slogan become fact? When did it become inarguable that the surge worked, that we are fighting al-Quaeda in Iraq, that McCain is a maverick? What if it were possible to calculate an average number of public repetitions required before a majority of people believe something? Would you join me in being afraid what that figure would be?

For all my consumption of political information, for all the countless hours I spend thinking about this stuff, I am essentially as clueless as anyone else. I am helpless. Like a long-tailed cat in a room full of rocking chairs.