Just to clarify, when I wrote that the rash of endless series of Republican racial pseudo scandals was part of a deliberate effort to prey on the racial anxieties of white voters, I didn't mean to suggest I thought it was a really effective strategy. I don't think it is. I think liberals get really anxious about it because prior to the Civil Rights Act, the coalition between Southern racist Democrats and northern liberal Democrats led to the most successful expansion of the American welfare state in history.
I do think that the racial polarization Ron Brownstein identifies is what Republican strategists were looking for. As Jamelle Bouie notes, ethnocentrism correlates strongly with political views and I think the point of these racial pseudo scandals was to stoke ethnocentrism among white voters by getting them to think of themselves as victims of racial discrimination.
But I think the level of those disparities is much more about the economy than the effectiveness of that political strategy, and I think both Republicans and Democrats are incorrect if they think race-baiting is a silver bullet that will doom Obama or the Democrats in future elections.
