Last time I posted on long-shot GOP presidential candidate Herman Cain, Ta-Nehisi Coates referred to his brand of identity politics as "white populism." I think this supports that theory:
"The political establishment is not going to elect Herman Cain. The political elite's are not going to support me," Cain said. "ABC, CBS and NBC they're still in denial that I'm even a legitimate candidate."
And why do members of the media treat Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann of Wisconsin and former Republican Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin so "viciously"?
"Because they know that Michele Bachmann or Sarah Palin is going to draw a lot of the women vote away from the Democrat Party," Cain said. "They are scared to death of that, if they were to run and get the nomination. They are doubly scared that a real black man might run against Barack Obama."
That a particular black politician isn't "really black" is, if anything, the most reoccurring and obnoxious criticism liberals make about black conservatives. The larger point is, though, who is Cain appealing to here? The 90 percent of black voters who approve of the president? Or some subsection of the 47 percent of white voters who don't and want tacit "permission" from another black person to say the president isn't really black?
