One of the most anticipated books from the 2008 presidential campaign, Game Change, written by Time magazine’s Mark Halperin and New York Magazine’s John Heilman is being published today.
There are a number of juicy excerpts that made the rounds this weekend (such as Ted Kennedy allegedly saying that Bill Clinton had said of Barack Obama that, "a few years ago, this guy would have been getting us coffee”).
But none had a bigger impact than the revelation of comments made by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid , calling Barack Obama as a "light-skinned" African-American who lacked a "Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one."
Sunday morning, Republicans of all stripes fell over themselves calling for Reid's ouster, claiming if former GOP Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott could lose his gig over racially insensitive comments back in 2002, so should Harry.
The tag team of DNC Chair Tim Kaine and GOP kingpin Michael Steele took their act to Fox News Sunday and NBC’s Meet the Press to discuss the issue.
Kaine was in the unfortunate position of debating Steele on race. He somewhat lamely tried to say that because the overall comments were made in the context of saying positive things about the Obama candidacy, it was no big thing.
Steele would have none of that. It was perhaps the first time ever that an RNC Chair could speak with some moral authority on the matter. He said Republicans were the victims of a vicious double standard when it comes to race, "There is this standard where Democrats feel they can say these things and apologize as long as it comes from one of their own," he said. " And if it comes from somebody else, it’s racism."
Steele probably was correct in claiming that there is somewhat of a double standard when it comes to racially insensitive comments coming from Democrats or Republicans. But that unfairness comes from an ugly legacy (i.e., Richard Nixon’s “Southern Strategy”) that party leaders have always had to acknowledge.
Unfortunately Reid has had a series of remarks that other Democrats have winced at in the past (anyone remember when he said the Iraq war "was lost"?) Reid reportedly called over 30 black leaders on Saturday apologizing,
The RNC on Saturday released comments that Reid made during the Lott controversy, such as “If you tell ethnic jokes in the back room, it’s that much easier to say ethnic things publicly. I’ve always practiced how I play.”
But Washington D.C. Congressional delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton, an African-American who represents an overwhelmingly black district, was one of many Democrats who came to Reid's defense, saying,
"While Sen. Reid has been producing for African Americans, many of his critics were opposing him on these same issues. Majority Leader Reid has a record. They do not. Words matter, but what matters most are the actions of a man whose committed career on our issues speaks for itself.”
Reid is already considered to be extremely vulnerable in his bid for re-election as the senior senator from Nevada. His odds just got a little longer.
