How many here think this "Who IS Barack Obama"? meme is subtlety racist?

McCain is sounding this one again..."I mean do we really KNOW Barack Obama"?!

I mean, please..The guy's written two books and has been campaigning for EIGHTEEN months!...If you don't "know" him now, when will you?

I've never heard this meme about ANY other candidate and, considering the above, it makes me wonder.

I think there's a racial subtext and it goes something like this: "WHO is this Black Man who wants to be president"?.."We (the white majority) don't really KNOW Black people"...and you can believe many of them really do NOT know any Black people, especially these small-town repukes

I believe it's a deliberate strategy -- A way of playing into the "alienation" and/or "distrust" many whites (especially small-towners) feel about African Americans.

McCain has nothing to stand on of any substance so he is using scare tactics. Racism is about the only thing he can tap into. No subtlety there. It is straight out..."hey did you know that Obama is BLACK?"

…about the "subtlely" part. There's nothing subtle about it. Neither McAint nor imPalem do "subtle".

:sarcasm:

But seriously it is a strategy designed to appeal to the "codeword racist" (which is pretty much all of 'em these days).

And it will. Sadly...it will.

I'm so disorganized.

Although, I think the stint in the Bushie Slave Labor Camp sometime in the future will also have a similar "positive" effect. :rofl:

I think it's them trying to gain some points due to Obama's well-known socialist views. Scare everyone, make em think there's more.... make em think Che Guevera is gonna pop up and demand your guns... all that.

Socialism doesn't just mean communism. Obama is viewed as being fairly liberal, so they want to ride that rep and push it far to scare people.

objective knows that his record -- and the platform he's running on -- is moderate.

I would bet that even here most would not call him "progressive" -- Kucinich, yes, Obama, no.

Of course it's relative. In "Right Wing World" they keep mentioning his "liberal" record, but these jerks think anyone left of George Bush is a "liberal" or maybe even a "socialist".

But, that's the rep Obama has... deserved or not.

"how well do we really know __________" has been a standard line in campaigns for a looooooooong time.

It's not racist on it's own but sure... some racists will be positive McCain is talking in secret code and that he's really one of them.
... but they're idiots ... they're going to find a racist subtext in everything anyways.

Boomer here...born in the fifties.

Many posters here think it's not "subtle" but I see it that way a: because they're not saying anything "racial" and b. I don't think the repukes believe they could be BLATANTLY racist (not the campaign team, anyway) because they'd be called on it.

it seems I've heard candidates (generally incumbents) trying to sow doubt about how well opponents are known since I can remember.
:shrug:

"Hockey mom" is all she needs to say. It all reeks with racism.

--IMM

"He doesn't look like one of us...what is he doing here...what does he want from us"

:scared:

Yes. Racist.

that *does sound racist to me... but that's a LOT different from "he's not like us".

Look at John McCain.. with his 9 homes and 13 cars... he's NOT like us.
(us being the average American with a household income of ~ $47k/year)
There's nothing racist about that statement.

Obama is more like us... definitely seems to care more about us... but he's NOT like us either.
People with household incomes of $48k don't live in houses like his.
I don't even know anybody that lives in that big of a house.
He's a lawyer and his wife is a lawyer. Regardless of political success they're likely to be in at least the top 5% of average household income for the rest of their lives.
( > $200k/year )
Obama is currently in the top 1.5% of earners(this is 1 similarity Obama and McCain do share)

I'm not referring to race and it's not racist for me to say "he's not like us" about either candidate because race is what comes to somebody else's mind.

Once again, the Republicans are resorting to their "Southern Strategy".

:)

I don't know that I'd go all the way to racist. (The KKK member is racist. The idiot who yells the n word in his car when a person of color cuts him off is not.) But it IS intended to play on people's racial biases.

....but I'm sure they'll take whatever way it hits.

It's also a flip-flop, considering they were just whining two months ago about all the attention he gets.

If not knowing much about a candidate was a deciding issue WTF is with the GOP VP selection?