Playing the Race Card in Tennessee

The Rethugs wonder out loud why Baby Doc's ratings among African-Americans is hovering around 2% (and that's with a margin of error of plus-or-minus 4%!). Well, maybe the new party campaign ads swarming the airwaves in Tennessee are an indicator.

US Rep Harold Ford, a Democrat who also happens to be black, is making a run for the US Senate in Tennessee. If elected, he would be the first African-American senator from the south since Reconstruction. Which is to say, the first elected African-American senator from the south.

So what does the Rethug party do about this unfortunate turn of events? It comes up with a series of ads featuring nubile young white women hinting all over the place that they want to have hot interracial sex with Ford.

Jesus.

Well, we all just cain't have thet kinda shit. Tennessee is, after all, the birthplace of the Ku Klux Klan and no self-respectin' southern man is gonna let hisself be misrepresented by one o' them nigra boys, 'specially one who would choose to sully -- sully Ah say! -- the fair blossom of southern womanhood...

It would be to the credit of Ford's opponent, Bob Corker, that he's taken steps to distance himself from the ads, except can you name any southern politician who would actually come out and admit that he was a racist who hates black people? Not even David Duke would do that.

So this is one of those races to watch next month. And watch how desperate the power-hungry Rethugs get between now and election day.