There have been some doozies so far- from Ed Rendell arguing that it's harder to beat "uncommitted" than an opponent to the Richard Cohen/Farrakhan op-ed to Rep. Steve King arguing that terrorists must love Obama because Barack is "an Arabic name."* But I really do believe there's no bigger reach yet in the campaign than Orlando Patterson's "the 3 A.M. ad was racist" op-ed in the NYT yesterday.
I am, of course, an Obama supporter, and I'd be the first to admit that all sorts of coded -and not-so-coded- racial appeals have been used against him in this campaign, by the Clintons and others. I also never got why everyone thought "3 A.M." was such a brilliant ad. But comparing it to "Birth of a Nation"? Really? When the ad has absolutely no racial connotation whatsoever? If this were the "hands" ad or Willie Horton, that would be one thing. But that Patterson saw that in the ad says a lot more about Patterson than it does about the ad.
*Yes, he said this on Philly's WPHT last night. He also cautioned against voting against Obama because- yes, he really said this- when he types Obama's name on his computer, the spell-checker asks if he meant to type "Osama."
Posted by Stephen Silver at March 12, 2008 04:22 PM