On MSNBC’s Ed Schultz program Friday night, the former chief of staff for Colin Powell, retired Army Col. Lawrence Wilkerson, said, of the Republican Party, “My party is full of racists … and the real reason a considerable portion of my party wants President Obama out of the White House has nothing to do with the content of his character, nothing to do with his competence as commander in chief and president, and everything to do with the color of his skin … that’s despicable.”
Wilkerson’s allegation followed his former boss’s endorsement of President Obama for a second term. The history of racism has certainly stained both parties and there are racist Democrats and racist Republicans, but when the race card is played this close to the election, I suspect the pro-Obama forces are sensing trouble.
We’ve come a long way in four years, from a transracial candidate who didn’t see a white or black America, but one America, to one in which if a white person votes for Mitt Romney that is evidence the voter is a racist. Suppose that white person voted for Obama four years ago and thinks the president doesn’t deserve a second term because he’s done a poor job? Was the person not a racist in 2008, but morphed into one in 2012?