Remember back in 2010, when we broke the story, Virginia Beach Republican Committee Chair Forwards Racist Email? It was quite a story, leading Scott Rigell to “call upon Mr. Bartholomew to immediately resign his position as Chairman of the Republican Party of Virginia Beach.”
Well, I hadn’t forgotten about this story, and apparently neither has Rachel Maddow. Last night, on her show, Maddow specifically mentioned it (at around 14:40 in the video), along with a screenshot of Blue Virginia. The context of her mentioning this? A discussion of how Republicans have historically worked at “stoking white people’s economic resentment of black people” (by the way, if you haven’t seen Boogeyman: The Lee Atwater Story, do so!), and how the Romney campaign’s new “welfare ad” is – in Maddow’s view – aimed at the same goal.
Today, it’s the Romney campaign’s “blunt allusion to the populist racist politics of white economic racial resentment.” As Maddow points out, “the Romney campaign has to know [that this is what the ad’s about], they’re not dumb.” Maybe not “dumb,” but definitely “shameless pathological liars.” Given those two choices, come to think of it, “dumb” doesn’t sound so bad!
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