Huh. Imagine that

Scott Lucas apparently buys the "That's RACIST!!!" line about a recent anti-Harold Ford Jr. ad.

If America's most popular blowhard and recovering drug addict making a fool out of himself doesn't get you going, how about some good old-fashioned race-baiting? In the Tennessee Senate race, a shadowy group connected to the Republican National Committee ran an ad featuring a blond party-girl exhorting the Democratic candidate, Harold Ford to "call me." Ford is single and supposedly attended a party thrown by Playboy after the Superbowl in 2005.

You may be thinking that accusing a single man of liking women and attending cool parties is about the cleanest piece of dirt one could sling. That's true, except for one caveat: Ford is black. The ad plays on racist fears of miscegenation. Ford's opponent in the race, Republican Bob Corker, distanced himself from the ad, but the damage is done.

The Playboy party attendance isn't really a "supposedly" anymore. I think the straightforward way worked much better for him.

"I like football and I like girls. No apologies for that."

The supposedly race-baiting ad is here, and you can judge for yourself. I first saw the ad while looking for the race-baiting, and it took me a bit to figure out what everyone was so up-in-arms about. If you want a generic Playboy model, of course you're going to pick a blond bimbo. The fact that Democrats responded to seeing that with "OMG INTERRACIAL SEX!!!" does not reflect well on them. If I was looking for racial stereotypes and such, I would have been more affected by the first person in the ad, a black woman saying "Harold Ford looks nice, isn't that enough?" but even that's a stretch.

posted by Beetle Aurora Drake 10/30/2006 12:07:00 PM #
Comments (5)

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Comments:

You can figure out that most of those faux man on the street interviews are proxies for Republican talking points. The hunter "interviewed" jokes about gun control, another person is peeved about terrorists and privacy, senior citizens are concerned about estate taxes, and, there is that throwaway line about Canada and North Korea.

But why is the blonde with no visible clothes on vamping, "I met Harold at the Playboy Party"? What is this policy initiative? Why does the advertisement end with her winking at the camera and asking Ford to call?

There is no talking point associated with the bimbo—only the age-old stereotype that black men are oversexed and lust after white women.

# posted by  Anonymous : 1:20 PM, October 30, 2006

 

This may surprise you, but there's also a stereotype that applies to all men concerning such matters.

# posted by  Beetle Aurora Drake : 1:39 PM, October 30, 2006

 

Beetle, that you can deny the stereotype is amazing.

It's not coincidence that the hot babe isn't a Latino or an Af-Am woman. But then, you obviously just see what you want to see, my man, and you deny what you don't want to admit.

# posted by  Anonymous : 7:09 PM, October 31, 2006

 

Nothing stereotypical about this ad either


http://www.blogactive.com/2006/10/here-it-is_31.html

# posted by  Anonymous : 10:01 AM, November 01, 2006

 

It's not like the republicans don't have a history of race baiting. I mean, Willie Horton was white, right?

# posted by  Anonymous : 10:03 AM, November 01, 2006

 

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