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Race-Based Campaigning

It’s a little shocking to see how President Obama and Governor Romney are campaigning against each other purely on the basis of race. I’ve just been reading some literature from the organizations the two Presidential candidates have put together to build support among their respective racial groups: White Americans for Romney, and African Americans for Obama.

Each makes the same basic appeal, which can be characterized as “vote for this candidate because his skin color is the same as yours.”

I’m half joking, of course. The whole nation would explode if Romney organized a movement called White Americans for Romney. But I’m only half joking. President Obama really does make exactly that kind of purely racial appeal for support  in his video announcement launching the African Americans for Obama movement. The President candidly asks black Americans to support him “in the voting both this election day.”

I find it amusing to think about what the results would be if Romney released a video like this, announcing a group organized on the same principles. Within an hour the TV and Radio networks would interrupt their regularly scheduled broadcasting to break the news of Romney’s unconscionable racism.

By the end of the day the powers that be in the Republican Party would announce that they going to make this year’s convention a brokered convention where someone other than Romney would be selected as the Party’s nominee. By noon the next day every Republican in the House and Senate would have signed a statement renouncing Romney for his hate-filled neanderthal bigotry.

But, for course, none of that has happened in the four months since the President launched African Americans for Obama.