Hoocoodanode?
Rick Santorum is all up in South Carolina’s areas, and he’s blowing dog whistles so loud that folks two states over can hear them:
As he traveled across South Carolina on Thursday, Mr. Santorum urged voters to dismiss the conventional wisdom that Mitt Romney has an upper hand in the nominating contest. He said the party can win back the White House only by offering a “clear contrast” with President Obama.
“We need contrasts,” Mr. Santorum said, “not just a paler shade of what we have.”
Kate Keep, a leader of the Hilton Head Island Tea Party group who asked Mr. Santorum the initial question, applauded his answer and his focus on overhauling entitlement programs.
“Tea Party people are very independent people, but I would like to see Rick Santorum win our primary and I’ll be voting for him,” Ms. Keep said. “I’ve been leaning that way and today I was convinced.”
Well slap my ass and call me Charlene! Do you mean to tell me that Rick Santorum made a less-than-subtle appeal to the delicious racism that courses through the evangelical bodies of 99 percent of the patriots who call themselves proud members of the Tea Party?
I am shocked, I tell you. SHOCKED.
Except, I’m not really. The Tea Party loves to argue that they’re totally not racist, you guys, so why do you keep saying that? But we all know that they’re deluded.
::ahem::
Besides, it’s fucking South Carolina. That’s where all the Republican candidates unzip their flies and let their racism hang out. Remember the 2000 McCain/Bush shenanigans? How the country was transfixed by the shocking discovery that John McCain had fathered an illegitimate black baby? Turned out, he’d adopted a kid from Bangladesh, but South Carolina didn’t care. That adopted/illegitimate child was Negro-adjacent, and the “ZOMG! BLACK BABY!” whisper campaign proved fatal to the McCain campaign in South Carolina. He ended up losing to Bush.
All of this is to say that I’m none too surprised at Frothman’s dog-whistling and I can’t say I care too much, because no matter how many dog-whistles Santorum blows, everyone not named Santorum still wins at life. Why?
This is why.
So in the grand scheme of things? In Rick Santorum vs. Errrybody Else? Advantage, everyone else but you, Rick.
Santorum couldn’t even win a majority of Catholics in New Hampshire. He’s a joke, with or without Google.
How the hell do you live with this shit, day in day out?
This is what I wonder. I can’t imagine what it’s like to be a person of color in this country. It’s bad enough that I’m a woman and the misogyny that I deal with day in and day out. I can’t wrap my mind around what African Americans must live with.
That “paler shade” comment is a classic dog-whistle. I guess he’s just trying to make sure people know how committed he is to changing the complexion of American presidential politics in the 21st Century…
I’m guessing he and the “white only” swimming pool lady would be BFFs…
(I gagged writing that. “Santorum: That’s Latin for Asshole”…)
He said “Pauly Shore”, not “paler shade.” Jeez.
“Well slap my ass and call me Charlene!”
That gave me a coughing fit. Then I read that the McCain adoptee was “Negro-adjacent” which started it all over again.
I think I better lie down now.