A Runes exclusive: The playbook for the GOP's fall campaign

As the fall campaign lurches to a start, the Republican playbook for the 2012 election has been leaked exclusively to us here at Runes by special courier.  The author, identified only as "Nick," is reportedly in seclusion and was unavailable for comment. 

Here are some excerpts from Nick's playbook, which is now available at select bookstores and online:

“Occasionally words must serve to veil the facts. But let this happen in such a way that no one becomes aware of it; or, if it should be noticed, excuses must be at hand to be produced immediately.”  [Note: The Romney/Ryan campaign has replaced the author's  "occasionally" with "invariably," but otherwise the original text remains intact.  Here's a recent example, courtesy of Paul Ryan.]

The Republican road map for success continues with detailed observations and suggestions like the following:

“If you only notice human proceedings, you may observe that all who attain great power and riches, make use of either force or fraud; and what they have acquired either by deceit or violence, in order to conceal the disgraceful methods of attainment, they endeavor to sanctify with the false title of honest gains...[N]or do any ever escape from servitude but the bold and faithless, or from poverty, but the rapacious and fraudulent. God and nature have thrown all human fortunes into the midst of mankind; and they are thus attainable rather by rapine than by industry, by wicked actions rather than by good. Hence it is that men feed upon each other, and those who cannot defend themselves must be worried.” 

   ____________________________________

"For this reason a [leader] ought to take care that he never lets anything slip from his lips that is not replete with the above-named five qualities, that he may appear to him who sees and hears him altogether merciful, faithful, humane, upright, and religious. There is nothing more necessary to appear to have than this last quality, inasmuch as men judge generally more by the eye than by the hand, because it belongs to everybody to see you, to few to come in touch with you. Every one sees what you appear to be, few really know what you are, and those few dare not oppose themselves to the opinion of the many, who have the majesty of the state to defend them; and in the actions of all men, and especially of [leaders], which it is not prudent to challenge, one judges by the result.” 

  ____________________________________

“Therefore it is unnecessary for a [leader] to have all the good qualities I have enumerated, but it is very necessary to appear to have them. And I shall dare to say this also, that to have them and always to observe them is injurious, and that to appear to have them is useful; to appear merciful, faithful, humane, religious, upright, and to be so, but with a mind so framed that should you require not to be so, you may be able and know how to change to the opposite.” 

  ____________________________________

"For the great majority of mankind are satisfied with appearances as though they were realities. and are often more influenced by things that seem than by those that are."

 ____________________________________

"The [leader] never lacks legitimate reason to break his promise."

____________________________________

UPDATE (9/3/12): Author identified

And the author?  Further investigation by Runes reveals that these passages are from The Prince and other works by Niccolò Machiavelli (1469-1527).  Machiavelli's wise counsel is neatly summarized in his most infamous expression: "The end justifies the means."
 

In the interest of being evenhanded, Macchiavelli offers some slightly less cynical counsel, also from The Prince, for Barack Obama in the event that he's re-elected:

“It ought to be remembered that there is nothing more difficult to take in hand, more perilous to conduct, or more uncertain in its success, than to take the lead in the introduction of a new order of things. Because the innovator has for enemies all those who have done well under the old conditions, and lukewarm defenders in those who may do well under the new. This coolness arises partly from fear of the opponents, who have the laws on their side, and partly from the incredulity of men, who do not readily believe in new things until they have had a long experience of them.”

It's easy to predict that Nick's influence on this election cycle has only begun to blossom.

Werewolves and zombies

The AIG fiasco leads to a few unavoidable conclusions:

1) Tim Geithner and Larry Summers need to join the growing ranks of the unemployed, who already number 10.8% of the workforce here in Oregon. Joblessness would only be temporary for them, no doubt. They're old-school crony capitalists who fundamentally don't get it because they're too embedded in the culture of Wall Street. They should be replaced by advisors who aren't totally clueless — people like Robert Reich and Paul Krugman, for example.

2) The behavior of the werewolves who occupy the AIG corporate leadership may be politically tone-deaf, but it was absolutely predictable. The rage is more suitably directed at politicians: the very people who either saw this coming and accepted it, or should've seen it coming and acted to prevent it. The feigned naïveté of politicians who are "shocked" by the AIG bonuses is a nauseating sight to behold.

3) If U.S. taxpayers own AIG (nearly 80%) and the zombie banks, they should exercise a proportionate amount of control over their management.

4) Legal platitudes about the sanctity of contracts were notably absent when the Big Three abrogated agreements with the United Auto Workers and other unions. Worst case: unilaterally rescind the contracts and let the executives make their arguments to a jury.

5) Scary as it sounds, bankruptcy is a better alternative for AIG and the zombie banks than endless bailouts with no transparency. For one thing, Chapter 11 filings would allow these corporations to avoid pre-existing contractual obligations to provide bonuses and golden parachutes. It would also allow them to dump their most toxic assets.

6) Barack Obama's adaptive skills are impressive enough that he can quickly clean house, learn the necessary lessons and move on to a more populist model for economic recovery (with a little help from Reich and Krugman, among many others).

And not least:

7) The whole cultural obsession with short-term gain needs to be examined at the deepest levels, from politics (with its focus on "short-term outcomes dictated by the electoral cycle") to the economy. Short-term gain often produces long-term pain, as the AIG fiasco again demonstrates. [To start, here's a minor suggestion: amend the Constitution to allow for 4-year terms in the House of Representatives to promote long-term thinking and reduce nonstop campaigning and fundraising.]

GRAPHIC: The werewolves at AIG (Wikimedia).

[Note: versions of this entry were cross-posted at Obsidian Wings and Lawyers, Guns and Money.]

Missing from the cable news loops

Here's the Reverend John Hagee, the bigot whose endorsement was sought and welcomed by John McCain earlier this year.

In a recent interview on NPR's Fresh Air, Hagee shared his thoughts on divine retribution:

"I believe that the Hurricane Katrina was, in fact, the judgment of God against the city of New Orleans...I believe that New Orleans had a level of sin that was offensive to God, and they are -- were recipients of the judgment of God for that...There was to be a homosexual parade there on the Monday that the Katrina came. And the promise of that parade was that it was going to reach a level of sexuality never demonstrated before in any of the other Gay Pride parades.... The Bible teaches that when you violate the law of God, that God brings punishment sometimes before the day of judgment."

Back in 2006, Hagee succumbed to pangs of nostalgia for the good old days of slavery:

To help students seeking odd jobs, his church newsletter, The Cluster, advertised a "slave" sale. "Slavery in America is returning to Cornerstone," it said. "Make plans to come and go home with a slave." Mr. Hagee apologized but, in a radio interview, protested about pressure to be "politically correct" and joked that perhaps his pet dog should be called a "canine American."

McCain has lately distanced himself from Hagee's most extreme anti-Catholic remarks. A campaign lackey stated:

"While we welcome [Hagee's] support, it shouldn't be seen as a wholesale endorsement of all of Mr. Hagee's views."

Barack Obama has gone a lot further in renouncing Reverend Jeremiah Wright's most inflammatory rhetoric. Yet we don't see CNN or Fox endlessly looping the many outrageous videos of Hagee on subjects as diverse as homosexuality, eschatology and a Christian jihad against Iran. Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and other (in the words McCain once used) "agents of intolerance" also get a free ride. As Frank Rich writes in today's NYT:

Even after Mr. Hagee’s Catholic bashing bubbled up in the mainstream media, Mr. McCain still did not reject and denounce him, as Mr. Obama did an unsolicited endorser, Louis Farrakhan, at the urging the urging of Tim Russert and Hillary Clinton. Mr. McCain instead told George Stephanopoulos two Sundays ago that while he condemns any “anti-anything” remarks by Mr. Hagee, he is still “glad to have his endorsement.”

I wonder if Mr. McCain would have given the same answer had Mr. Stephanopoulos confronted him with the graphic video of the pastor in full “Great Whore” glory. But Mr. McCain didn’t have to fear so rude a transgression. Mr. Hagee’s videos have never had the same circulation on television as Mr. Wright’s. A sonorous white preacher spouting venom just doesn’t have the telegenic zing of a theatrical black man.

In case there's any question, here's how a President McCain's religious views will influence his political appointments (hint: Jews, Muslims, Buddhists, atheists, Catholics and non-Baptist Christians need not apply):

Denver's perfect storm

During the tense weeks following the 2000 election, every new development seemed to fall neatly into a pattern that would inexorably place the final determination before the Florida legislature or the U.S. House of Representatives. If the result in Bush v. Gore had been different, that "perfect storm" might've been realized. [1]

And so it seems once again, seven years later, as the cumbersome nominating machinery grinds toward a possible contested Democratic convention in Denver starting on August 25th.

The Democratic primaries have failed to produce an early winner even though the whole electoral system was redesigned to avert a long, internecine conflict that might produce a divided party on Labor Day. With two compelling candidates and an electorate that seems evenly split in many states, the delegate selection process could easily produce a nightmare scenario in Denver that may yet deliver the presidency to John McCain. The irony of that result, after two terms of the worst administration in U.S. history, would be overwhelming.

The doomsday scenario for Democrats seems more plausible today than it did on Monday. Hillary Clinton emerged from Tuesday's four primaries with a net gain of only 12 delegates, leaving her behind in the current count by 111 (according to CBS). Yet she has clearly blunted the impressive momentum that Obama has built up after twelve straight wins during the last month. She has exploited vulnerabilities in Obama's resume and, incredibly, argued that only she and John McCain are qualified to serve as commander-in-chief. [2] Obama remains in a very strong but weakened position.

So imagine the following sequence:

1. Clinton wins Pennsylvania on April 22, but not solidly enough to capture the lead in delegates.
2. The candidates split the remaining primaries, but due to proportional voting neither one emerges with anything approaching the 2,024 delegates needed to win the nomination.
3. The superdelegates who haven't yet committed to either candidate agree to withhold judgment until all the primaries are over.
   
4. A nasty fight develops over seating the Michigan and Florida delegates, who would support Clinton and possibly even put her over the top. But neither the party nor the courts are likely to seat delegates elected in primaries that weren't supposed to count. That result would be grossly unfair to Obama and all the other candidates who didn't campaign (or even get on the ballot) in those two states. [Variation on nightmare scenario: a lawsuit captioned Obama v. Clinton that's resolved 4-3 by the U.S. Supreme Court.]
   
5. Florida and Michigan vote again in July but neither candidate wins decisively.
   
6. Obama goes into the convention with slightly more popular votes in all the primaries combined, but the total difference is less than 1%. [Until yesterday, he led Clinton by about a million votes nationally.]
   
7. Obama wins the most states (27 so far), but Clinton has carried the most populous states (including California, New York and Texas) along with several swing states (like Ohio) that Democrats need to carry in November.
8. Neither candidate—understandably, in such a close competition—is willing to withdraw for the sake of party unity
   
9. All the while, both candidates attack each other relentlessly and raise each other's negatives, turning off many voters and demoralizing party activists.
   

Now imagine that you're one of the 794 superdelegates in Denver (and, technically speaking, none of the superdelegates is legally bound to any candidate). Here are your options if this perfect storm scenario exists:

• You could choose whom you'll support based on the total popular vote, but our assumption is that it's very evenly split. (It would be equally complicated if Clinton increases her percentage of the popular vote, or even emerges with a majority).
  
• You could choose based on the number of states carried by the candidate, which would favor Obama but ignore many of the larger states.
  
• You could go with your instincts and vote for the candidate you deem most likely to win in November. Or,
  
• The party leaders could negotiate a deal that results in the withdrawal of one candidate with the understanding that he or she would be the vice-presidential candidate (or perhaps majority leader of the Senate or secretary of an important cabinet post).

Any one of these choices will be denounced as "undemocratic" by loyalists to the losing candidate and a large segment of the voting public, and the mainstream media will have a feeding frenzy over the inevitable smoke-filled-room metaphor.

If there's an upside to all this, it pales in comparison with the dangers. But a few points are worth mentioning:

• McCain and the Republicans won't be able to focus their attack on either candidate (but see item #9 above).
  
• Participation in the primaries could remain very high, with unprecedented numbers of people taking part as voters and campaign workers (item #9 again).
• The candidates will have extended opportunities for free media as public interest in the campaigns remains high.
• Both candidates will be tested to the limit and forced to refine their messages for the fall campaign.
  

With the focus off McCain, he gets something like a free ride (with a few exceptions) while the Democrats spend money attacking each other. And McCain may have relatively little money to spend, thanks to his current dispute with the FEC. Though he wouldn't get as much free media as the Democrats, an adoring press is unlikely to ignore him.

As in 2000, a lot of contingencies have to fall into place in order to produce a perfect storm in Denver. But so far events seem to show an uncanny ability to do just that.

NOTES

[1] As I interpreted the situation back then, the constitutional process would've still produced a Bush victory, and it would've been even more protracted and controversial.

[2] The red phone ad may be counterproductive for Democrats. If the question is "who would you rather have answer the phone at 3:00 a.m.?" a lot of voters might respond "John McCain."

Watching the parade

For a couple weeks now this site has gone into hibernation or, to be more accurate, an attempted sabbatical from politics after months of cerebral overload. The timing, right before super Tuesday, was dismal.

The result on the 5th, for Democrats, seemed to be a draw. But today's three caucuses, swept by Barack Obama, suggest that Hillary Clinton may have only temporarily blunted, rather than stopped, the impressive momentum that he has developed. He now has a small lead in the delegate count (not counting the superdelegates), with primaries in some major states (Texas, Ohio and Pennsylvania) rapidly approaching.

My friends (who have mostly joined the Obama parade) have been taking pains to assure me that their candidate is a deeply closeted progressive who has to pass himself off as a moderate in order to get elected. More likely, given the dearth of convincing evidence either way, he's a blank screen on which people can project their own expectations (or wishful thinking) about his politics. His proposal on health care either reveals a deep conservative and corporate streak, or (as I prefer to think) it's an aberration.

For years, Hillary Clinton has been depicted in some circles as yet another closeted progressive (have you read her Wellesley commencement speech?). Even more than Bill. Like so many others in her party, the argument goes, she's had to conceal her true opinions due to the conservative marinade that this country has been steeped in for nearly 30 years.

With her longer public record, we can predict with greater confidence what Hillary is likely to do in the White House. But that's precisely her problem: we know what to expect, and many voters don't necessarily like it. On top of all that, she's been trashed so relentlessly and for so long by the political opposition and the MSM that she she can now be written off as too "divisive."

The brain reels from an overload of irony. The only truly gratifying result so far is the complete voter rejection of movement conservatives like Fred Thompson and Mitt Romney.

So voters demand "change," possibly even for its own sake. At the risk of grossly oversimplifying, the Continuum of Change now reads something like this:

• John McCain: the illusion of change, or change for the worse (100 more years in Iraq);
  
• Hillary Clinton: incremental change, assuming she has 60 votes in the Senate to end filibusters;
• Barack Obama: fundamental change of some kind of other, assuming he has the support of his party and 60 votes in the Senate to end filibusters

But the numbers, for now, can't be very reassuring for the Democrats despite two shining candidates who should easily trounce the nominee of a failed party. McCain, not exactly an unknown himself, is highly competitive in the current polling despite his close association with the disasters of the last seven years. The latest national poll for TIME:

Obama 48, McCain 41
Clinton 46, McCain 46

For now, McCain can have it both ways (despite some invective from Limbaugh and Hannity): he's still perceived as a maverick despite years of bellicose rhetoric and his shameless identification with Bush's policies on Iraq and the economy. While Obama has been annointed by the MSM, McCain enjoys a daily miracle of redemption.

The more profound question is whether Clinton or Obama can overcome the deep reservoir of sexism and racism that has percolated through U.S. politics for some four centuries. How many white voters, when faced with that blank ballot, will be unable to bring themselves to vote for a woman or an African American? How will the Republicans craft their campaign to exploit this reluctance? Will the Democrats retaliate by offering innuendo about McCain's age?

Sadly, the arch-reactionary poet e.e. cummings was wrong about most things, including this:

Listen; there's a hell of a good universe next door: let's go.

Too bad that's not an option—at least until November 4th.

NOTES

Full disclosure: This blogger is undecided, and my final decision probably won't mean a damned thing by the time Oregon votes in three month. Lest I sound resentful, extensive reform of the whole ludicrous system of primary elections is long overdue, preferably along the lines recently proposed by the nonpartisan National Association of Secretaries of State.

[A shorter version was cross-posted on Hullabaloo.]

Obama victory speech in South Carolina

If skillful rhetoric turns out to be major factor in the fall campaign, this man should stroll easily into the White (sic) House.

In fairness, if Hillary Clinton or John Edwards makes a compelling speech, I'll post that too.

Call us when you're ready

We admit to small faults only to persuade others that we have no great ones.
--Maximes, Francois de la Rochefoucauld (1613-80)

And so it is with Chris Matthews' lame apology for his outrageously sexist comments concerning Hillary Clinton and other women involved in politics. Since I'm not a regular viewer of his program (which I've briefly endured only once or twice), I've left it to others to establish that his toxic emissions were not an isolated incident or two. In a letter to Steve Capus, President of NBC News, for example, activist Gloria Steinem and Kim Gandy, President of the National Organization of Women, described the following:

During an appearance on the January 9 edition of MSNBC's Morning Joe, Matthews said of Senator Hillary Clinton, “the reason she may be a front-runner is her husband messed around” and that “[s]he didn't win there [New York] on her merits.” Matthews has referred to Clinton as a “she devil,” compared her to a “strip-teaser” and called her “witchy.” He has referred to men who support her as “castratos in the eunuch chorus.” He has suggested Clinton is not “a convincing mom” and said “modern women” like Clinton are unacceptable to “Midwest guys.”

Matthews’ sexism is hardly limited to his comments about Clinton; such rhetoric is just the latest in a string of sexist attacks he has made against prominent female political figures.

[...]

In November 2006, shortly after the Democrats took the majority in Congress, Matthews asked a guest if then-presumptive Speaker-elect Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) was “going to castrate Steny Hoyer” if Hoyer (D-MD) were elected House Majority Leader.

During coverage of a presidential debate last spring, NBC News chief foreign affairs correspondent Andrea Mitchell was compelled to remind Matthews that Sen. Barack Obama's (D-IL) wife, Michelle, is a Harvard-educated lawyer after he focused obsessively on her physical appearance.

Repetition of epithets like "she devil" and "witchy" tend to have an overwhelming cumulative effect, creating the perception that the "devisive" Clinton is "unelectable" due to the extreme hostility and high negatives that she generates in certain quarters. There's a self-fulfilling quality to these attacks, and deliberately so. Clinton ends of battling against a presumption that at least some of the hysterical response she generates is grounded in real character and political flaws. She is truly the velcro candidate, which makes it all the more improbable that she's in such a strong position after the first round of primaries.

The tricky question is: if Clinton gets an early lock on the nomination, will the Democrats face the same dilemma as they did in 2004? Namely, a problematic candidate who's acceptable to the mainstream of the party but too deeply flawed to win a national election.

Those who claim that Clinton is doomed as a nominee point to her high negatives, including the alleged 40% of voters who say they would never, ever, categorically and under any circumstances, vote for her. But the practical question is always: what's the alternative? Hillary does well in matchups with all GOP candidates, with McCain presenting the greatest threat to her and Obama:

A Jan. 10 national poll by CNN shows Barack Obama has a 55 percent favorability rating, John McCain 54 percent, Hillary Clinton 53 percent, Rudy Giuliani 46 percent, Mike Huckabee 38 percent and Mitt Romney 31 percent...

Somewhat surprisingly, Clinton and Obama would not only win if the election were held today but would win handily against Giuliani, Huckabee or Romney. This same trend is seen when respondents were asked whom they definitely would not vote for in November. While 38 percent gave thumbs down to Obama and 43 percent to Clinton, 52 percent outright rejected Huckabee, 55 percent Giuliani and 62 percent Romney. The one person who wouldn't be overrun by Obama and Clinton is McCain. McCain's "no" votes [sic] the same as Clinton's, and in hypothetical national matchups, he's in a statistical dead heat with both of them.

Voter perceptions of Hillary Clinton are not engraved in bronze, and a serious of dismissive articles and vicious attacks in the mainstream media have had the paradoxical effect of generating sympathy and raising her public stature. And, maybe, producing a narrow victory in New Hampshire.

The folks at Pollster.com, an excellent resource for current polling, have launched their own online survey that, among many other things, asks: "Do you think that America is ready for a female president?" They also ask whether "America is ready for an African American president."

What, exactly, does it mean to be "ready?" It's quite absurd, really, that such questions have to even be asked. The other day, someone asked me whether voters are willing to cast their ballots for a woman or an African American—making it clear that she was quite prepared to do so, but doubted that the majority of her fellow voters could stomach the thought.

On one level, it's a legitimate question: are U.S. voters capable of overcoming their presumed sexist and racist legacies, or will it be another generation or so before the country is mature enough to elect a woman or minority president? Also, do polls accurately reflect voter opinion on such matters? After all, polls suggested that the 2006 Tennessee senate race—in which African American Harold Ford, Jr., was the Democratic candidate—would be a lot closer than it turned out to be. Polls can't adjust for those who are too embarrassed to admit their racist or sexist motivations.

The fundamental problem for Democrats might be their candidate's gender, or race, and not the specific flaws of Clinton or Obama (both of whom are too reflexively centrist for my taste). The Republican attack machine could, and certainly will, make every effort next fall to transform the favorable ratings that Clinton or Obama currently enjoy. We can expect an absolutely vicious assault based on the kind of racial and sexist slurs and innuendo that have only been hinted at so far in national campaigns. Attacks on Clinton will suffer from the law of diminishing returns, since she is already such a known commodity, but we can only imagine what would be inflicted on Obama.

John Edwards is vulnerable on other grounds, of course, including his long career as a trial lawyer and the media's caricature of his compelling grassroots populism. Unfortunately, he seems to have dropped off the radar screen of viable candidates [1], as determined by ABC, CBS, CNN, NBC, Fox, The New York Times, The Washington Post and all the other usual suspects. Call it another self-fulfilling prophecy.

Are we "ready" for a president who's not a white male? There's every reason to fear the answer to that question.

NOTES

[1] Full disclosure: As an Oregon resident, I won't be able to vote in a primary until May 20th, when the nominations will probably be locked up. More than forty states vote before then. As a registered Democrat, I would be happy to vote in the general election for any of the declared candidates—including Obama, Edwards and Clinton (and not necessarily in that order). If I had to vote in a primary tomorrow, it would be a very tough choice indeed.

Geaghan: A homegrown surge

Barack Obama's strengthening candidacy has incited hordes of white racists to discard their inhibitions—if they have any at all—in what Dave Niewert at Orcinus* calls the "new racism." He describes this phenomenon in the following terms:

Today CBSNews.com informed its staff via email that they should no longer enable comments on stories about presidential candidate Barack Obama. The reason for the new policy, according to the email, is that stories about Obama have been attracting too many racist comments.

So far, we have been regaled with the oft-repeated "Hussein" note, the Fox smear of Obama's Muslim background, followed by Limbaugh's astonishing riff on "Barack the Magic Negro". That these reflect a barely concealed racial animus mixed with general white xenophobia should be obvious, and notably, these are all occurring on a national scale, within ostensibly mainstream media sources.

For right-wing audiences, cues like this signal just how far they can take things themselves. So on the public level, the result of this kind of talk is a regular outpouring of old-fashioned racist bile, permission having been granted by leading right-wing voices.

Niewert continues:

This resurgent racism likes to cloak itself in the pretense of rebellious individualism standing up to the oppression of overbearing "political correctness," or else in academic-sounding terms that fling about misinformation regarding the sciences and sociology to construct a pseudo-rationale for what they euphemistically like to call "race realism."

But pull the cloak aside, and the same old, decrepit racism of a century ago is there, festering like a decaying zombie who refuses to die.

And as the summer goes on, and the presidential campaign picks up steam, and Obama solidifies his already formidable position as a front runner ... well, expect to see a lot more of those zombies crawling the streets of our public discourse.

Or, as I wrote last month in reference to the Imus controversy:

Imus is part of a nauseating (and apparently growing) cultural phenomenon founded on an in-your-face racism, sexism and homophobia that proudly flaunt what they call their "political incorrectness." In reality, "politically incorrect" is nothing more a euphemism for language and symbols that are meant to hurt other people, especially minorities and women. When someone objects, they're accused of being "hypersensitive" and urged to get over it.

And we still have eighteen months until the election. If either Clinton or Obama emerges as a nominee, it's hard to imagine how deep the effluent will get between now and then.

Meanwhile, Harvard has put together an online test (the Implicit Association Test) intended to evaluate whether a person has an automatic preference for one race over another. It's free and takes about 10 minutes. While I have some questions for the assumptions and utility of the test as designed, here are the results for the "European American - African American IAT:"


The most important result: 70% of the respondents had a preference for whites that ranged from "slight" to "strong." 54% had a "moderate" or "strong" preference for whites. About 12% showed a "slight" to "strong" preference for blacks, or about the same percentage as African Americans in the U.S. population. Less than one out of five people had "no preference."

The results could be significant, since 732,881 people took the IAT between 2000 and 2006. But who chooses to take these tests, and why? I suspect that overt racists would be less likely to take it, but the data still reflects a 70% preference for whites.

It's not too surprising that people would have a "preference" for those of their own "race" (whatever that is). Still, it's hard to believe that this is a healthy condition in a very diverse society.

NOTES

*Thanks to Digby at Hullabaloo for the link to Orcinus.

NOTE: There are many other types of IAT's available at Harvard's site.


PHOTO: Sens. Barack Obama and Richard Lugar (R-Indiana) tour a Russian base where mobile missiles were being destroyed as part of the Nunn-Lugar program.