May 24, 2004
Missouri Democrats place race baiting billboard, then say "Who, me?"
Democrats in Missouri actually have the gall to insist that a new campaign billboard is not "race baiting."
The billboard, pictured here, has a black man's face dourfully looking out next to the words "Missouri Republicans have a plan. You are not a part of it." -- all of this is splashed across an American Flag graphic.
Now I've been called naive, I've been called gullible, and I've been called a lot of other things that I won't print nor say in mixed company in my years. But I'm not so dim as to believe that this is not meant to be racially driven.
Yet, Missouri Democrats insist that this is not the case.
“We stand very much with what's behind the billboard,” said the Democratic Party's executive director, Jim Kottmeyer. “It has nothing to do with race.”Viacom rejected the billboards when presented to them earlier this year, saying the campaign did not meet their company standards. Translation: They could see that this was meant as pure race-baiting.The same message, he said, applies to other groups, such as young people and seniors. “They do have a plan,” he said of Missouri Republicans. “Average Missourians are not part of it.”
A different billboard company, Waitt, placed the billboard near 14th Street and Troost Avenue in Kansas City. Presently, it is the only one in the state of Missouri.
“Even after they were rejected by one of the state's largest advertisers, Democrats continued to press forward with a campaign that targets African-Americans in a hateful and vile manner,” said Ann Wagner, chairwoman of the Missouri Republican Party.Anything to keep blacks on the intellectual and ideologocial plantation. Of course, it also serves to continue the vilification of conservatives, black and otherwise, not only in Missouri, but across the nation.
Of course it's simply the linear outgrowth of all the "Turning Back the Clock" rhetoric that gets floated by the NAACP around election time. Pretty sad. And pretty much proof positive of the Dems lack of ideas.
Posted by: roach at May 24, 2004 07:51 PMI agree with you, but one of my fellow contributors at The Black Republican takes a more idealistic view.
Frankly, I think Rick is taking "color-blind" to an extreme where I don't want to go. We've got to call it when we see it, and this is definately the pot calling the kettle cast iron.
Posted by: Chris at May 26, 2004 04:32 AMMore like wilful blindness. I suppose if I knew nothing about the authors of the billboard I would give people the benefit of the doubt--as I do in many areas to my frequent pleasant surprise. But here we know it's the Dems, who are out of ideas and know that getting out the black vote gives them 85% or 90% of those votes. Hence, the racial scaretactics.
Posted by: roach at May 26, 2004 09:10 PM