A Desperate Use of the Race Card

Carol Platt Liebau | September 10, 2008 3:08 PM

New York Governor David Paterson says that by poking fun at Barack's "career" as a community organizer, the GOP was using "racial coding."

It's another sign that the Democrats are panicking. Why play the race card on something like this -- where it patently makes no sense? What's the supposed subtext? That only African Americans are community organizers? That only African Americans need community organizers? Search me -- it makes no sense.

If Paterson thinks he's helping Barack Obama by these silly charges, he's sorely mistaken. Every time the race card is played (especially in such an absurd way), it hurts Barack Obama. It keeps him from projecting the persona which has had the most appeal to American voters -- that of a (supposedly) accomplished public servant who has transcended race -- and instead draws him back into the racial grievance muck that hurt him so badly during the Jeremiah Wright debacle.