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White House ‘race’ turns nasty

Washington: The battle for the White House took a nasty turn when Senator John McCain’s team accused Senator Barack Obama of “playing the race card.”

While race surfaced during Mr. Obama’s contest with Hillary Clinton for the Democratic nomination, it had been absent from the McCain-Obama contest.

Mr. McCain’s team said it was responding to a speech the previous day by Mr. Obama in which the Democratic candidate claimed his Republican rival was trying to frighten voters by saying he had a strange name and did not look like other Presidents.

Mr. McCain’s team interpreted this as Mr. Obama implying his rival was a racist. Rick Davis, Mr. McCain’s campaign manager, said Mr. Obama had “played the race card and played it from the bottom of the deck.” He described Mr. Obama’s comments as “divisive, negative, shameful and wrong.” Mr. Obama’s team responded by calling Mr. Davis’s statement as low politics. Now that race is out as an issue, it is likely to remain a subtext for the remainder of the election. If many Americans remain privately racist, Mr. McCain could benefit. Alternatively, voters could take the opportunity to choose Mr. Obama to demonstrate that race is no longer a significant factor. The row came after a week in which Mr. McCain launched a series of personal attacks on Mr. Obama, including a TV ad accusing him of engaging in celebrity politics and comparing him to Paris Hilton and Britney Spears.

Mr. Obama was not helped by a song by the Grammy award-winning rapper Ludacris endorsing him and abusing Mr. McCain and U.S. President George W. Bush. The campaign has shifted from promises made by Mr. McCain to fight on policy not personality.

The switch came shortly after Mr. McCain reshuffled his team and made Steve Schmidt his chief strategist. Mr. Schmidt, launching the new ad, asked whether the American people wanted to elect the world’s biggest celebrity, Mr. Obama, or an American hero, Mr. McCain. Race first surfaced as an issue in December 2007 when the Mr. Obama’s team blamed the former President, Bill Clinton, for bringing it up. — © Guardian Newspapers Limited, 2008

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