Unfortunately, the Economist saved its biting humor, but offer up a serious indictment of the whole farce:
To make matters even worse for the Republicans, Mr Keyes’s numerous defects as a candidate are only magnified by the comparison with Mr Obama. Mr Obama has spent almost 20 years in Illinois?seven as a state senator?and is married to a woman from the South Side of Chicago. He won an impressive 53% of the Democratic primary vote against six strong opponents. He is optimistic where Mr Keyes preaches Sodom and Gomorrah, and moderate where Mr Keyes is intemperate. He is also a rising national star, with unrivalled support from the national party, while Mr Keyes is a serial failure.
The Republicans’ fatal mistake was to think that the best way to counter a black man was with another black man. The point about Mr Obama?as the Republicans might have realised if they had paid greater attention to his speech in Boston?is that he is a post-racial candidate. Mr Obama is the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas who was brought up by his white mother and grandparents in Hawaii and South-East Asia. He appeals just as strongly to white suburban voters as he does to blacks.
Post-Racial vs. Tokenism
Archpundit finds the Economist getting Illinois right. It really says something about the racial consciousness of the two parties when the Democrats are running a clearly post-racial candidate who happens to be black and the Republicans, giving in to t…
Post-Racial, Post-Modern, Post(ing)
Pandagon linked to an entry from Archpundit that referenced an op/ed from the Economist on the Obama/Keyes senatorial race. In…