RUSH: In The Politico today, David Paul Kuhn. Here’s the headline: ”GOP Fears Charges of Racism, Sexism’ — Top Republican strategists are working on plans to protect the [Republican Party] from charges of racism or sexism in the general election, as they prepare for a presidential campaign against the first-ever [black guy or woman] Democratic nominee. The Republican National Committee has commissioned polling and focus groups…’ (snorts) I only read the first paragraph. What I just read came from the second. But the bile is starting to go north from my stomach. ‘The Republican National Committee has commissioned polling and focus groups to determine the boundaries of attacking a minority or female candidate… The secretive effort underscores the enormous risk senior [Republican] operatives see for a party often criticized for its…’ See, here we go. We accept their premise, and then we act on it. We will accept some of their agenda, we believe what they tell people about us, and we then accept it and have to go out and try to prove that we’re not that. In the meantime, we lose. We pick up little crumbs of their agenda and then we run around and say, ‘Conservatism doesn’t work; conservative ideas don’t work,’ when nobody even tries them.
‘The RNC project is viewed as so sensitive that those involved in the work were reluctant to discuss the findings in detail. But one Republican strategist, who asked that his name be withheld to speak candidly, said the research shows the daunting and delicate task ahead. Republicans will be told to ‘be sensitive to tone and stick to the substance of the discussion’ and that ‘the key is that you have to be sensitive to the fact that you are running against historic firsts,’…’ So what do we have? The Republicans are planning here on getting the black and liberal white vote, by not attacking the liberal candidate in the campaign. If this guy wins it, it’s McGovern all over in terms of policy! I think this is bogus. I was talking to a reporter last week. ‘Are you going to criticize Obama?’
‘Hell, yes, I’m going to criticize him!’
‘How are you going to do it?’
‘Fearlessly! I’m going to do it on the issues.’
I’ve got Snerdley here as the Official Obama Criticizer. When the situation is warranted, he will be brought in also to assist in the project. I just don’t want to accept that this is a problem. We’re already allowing them to tie one hand behind our back with all of this. The policy difference between even McCain and Obama is stark enough — it’s night and day — that race and gender are incidental to it. But this is the reason Hillary’s having trouble, because there are no distinctions in their ideas. So Clinton had to go after him. He had to play the race card. We are not going to have to play the race card. We’re running against Karl Marx, for crying out loud!