RACE IN REPUBLICAN RACES. Raw Story reporter Brian Beutler has catalogued a surprising number of racist remarks from Republican candidates this year and noted the national party's response -- or lack thereof. Unlike Macacagate, most of these examples have not garnered national media attention. (The heated GOP primary race to fill Katherine Harris's House seat, for example, pits a candidate who issued an official statement noting Muslims' history of terrorism against a candidate who offered the choice nugget, "I know from experience that blacks are not the greatest swimmers, or may not even know how to swim.�)
The frame of Beutler's piece seems to be his assertion in the opening graf that: "Republican leadership is keeping its distance from statements by lesser-known candidates that may be perceived as racially insensitive." But the evidence later in his piece only demonstrates that the RNC and NRCC haven't come out in support of these statements, not that they've repudiated them. Their silence, which implies acquiesence, is notable.
--Ben Adler
