Covering The Coverage: NY Times Shows This Election Is A Race No One Wins

The New York Times is running yet another article about the role race will play in this Presidential election. Only… it’s become more a race between Senator Barack Obama and his cosmopolitan, Ivy League-educated background (Yes, yes, single mom. We know. But was he hunting a flying moose in the tundra with his sister-cousins? Nay.) and Governor Sarah Palin and her down-home, small town, “You Betcha” upbringing. Although many people are still trying to paint this race as Black and White (sigh):

“What you hear around here is, would you rather have a black friend in the White House, or a white enemy?” said John Schuster, a Republican from Wheeling, W.Va., who joined several thousand people here for a twilight rally led by Ms. Palin.

“Most guys I know are for McCain, and a lot of it’s because of race,” Mr. Schuster continued. “Obama doesn’t have the right friends — that Reverend Wright and Bill Ayers the terrorist. The thing is, Obama may be better for jobs. But a lot of us don’t trust him.”

Haha. Cringe. But is this what it comes down to - a matter of a Black man and a White woman? Because, the way we perceive it, it’s more about anti-intellectualism. When Sarah Palin smirks that she’s “obviously a Washington outsider,” she’s, let’s face it Joes, really saying she’s not some “over-educated” suit theorizing away in a swanky office or over a business lunch on Capitol Hill. It’s not even about economic class - Sarah Palin makes bank. It’s about heralding Joe “Six Pack” - who pulled himself up by the boot strings to build a home and hearth for his kin. Despite maybe not being born into wealth or privy to a top-notch education. He’s a doer, not a thinker. Not some “uppity elitist” with all his book learnin’ and whatnots. People “relate” to Palin; they “believe” in Obama. The difference is huge.

Continues the NY Times:

Instead, race has erupted as an issue mostly in ways that seem to confirm how deep the divide remains for some voters — those expressing mistrust over Mr. Obama’s ties to his controversial former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., or those describing Mr. Obama as “uppity” or “elitist.” While Mr. Obama’s advisers say they do not think race will be a factor in the election, the actual extent of the racial divide is likely to become clear only on Nov. 4.

“Obama has been running as a post-racial candidate from the start, and he has been doing it very well,” said Douglas Brinkley, the presidential historian, “but the fact of the matter is that some voters — we can’t know yet how many — will not get past his race. And I very much believe that the McCain-Palin ticket is tapping into that.”

But that doesn’t explain why this race has beomce about Obama v. Palin, not McCain. We don’t deny this is a nation in which racism and xenophobia are deeply entrenched. But what really, truly divides the United States from other nations and Americans from one another, we think, is a pervading sense of anti-intellectualism. But, uh. Not like we read that in a book or anything. BOOGER JOKE.

Race Remains Campaign Issue, but Not a Clear One [NY Times]