McCain Supporter - "You Can Have Your Tiger Woods"

David Ballavia, former Army Sergeant, who introduced McCain at a rally given to him by the group Vets for Freedom goes on and on the other day glowing about his candidate and warming up the crowd while McCain gets ready to take the stage. Right before he takes the stage he says:

Rest assured, that men like Sen. McCain will be the goal and the men that my two young boys will emulate and admire. [sic] You can have your Tiger Woods, we’ve got Sen. McCain. [..] My friends, this is the real ‘audacity of hope.’

Now we're all adults. We know veiled subtext when we see it . I'm not saying this man is a racist. I'm not even saying the words themself are racist. What I am saying is what I'm seeing. This pattern, not started by this incident but continued since the primaries in South Carolina, of interjecting race and tribal divisions by way of subtle subliminal coded language threatening to not only halt any progress we can make as country in the face of the rest of a world that surpasses us everyday but also forfeits any maturity this nation has earned by way of the sacrifice and battles those before us waged so brave and valiantly to afford us today.

You might be asking yourself why are this idiot's comments really harmful. They're harmful because they appeal to the worst, most juvenile intellectual instincts of otherwise reasonable and rationale individuals who may have decided on a candidate who most spoke to their worries and concerns, or even voters who may not have reached a conclusion for who most fits their ideals but are leaning one way regardless of the race or demographic of that candidate, and completely tries to undermine the issues and the things that matter and burden people with silly tribal and racial constraints to consider in their decision-making.

Let me repeat, this isn't overtly racist, but it is racial. Because what we do know is racial isn't good for Barack Obama. It never has been. It's not advantageous to present yourself to the American public and/or self-identify as black to country that is 74% white. It's not an accident that white men have been on a 43 election win streak in America and that we just happened to not have any other demographic serve as commander in chief. I'm not saying it's owed or due, just holding a mirror to the country and showing how America tends to vote. Now it seems to me, Obama as a candidate runs his strongest and most effective when his race is in the background of his presentation to America and that his attributes and character have a chance to be on display to the voters. It's like when he talks, people's eye sight wane and their hearing sharpens and in a way they hear him more than they actually see him and what he is and what that means but when people serve up a heaping of race they count of voters to lose the objectivity of their judgment in favor of their own prejudices and we always divert back to children and we never progress.

For those keeping score at home, score this one for the bad guys.