Waldo went to school on Republican Party politics in North Carolina in the 1970s, when Senator Jesse Helms taught it new and media-savvy ways to wave the bloody shirt.
So it's no surprise to see NCGOP unveiling a nasty bit of advertising against Obama- so much so that the national party and Senator McCain have asked them not to run it.
The state party, so far, is saying, "Senator who?"
Plans are to start running the ad Monday. This gives the party some time to pull it down, having leveraged it for all it was worth on the Internet and cable news networks. Or to keep running it, signaling that the race card is too dear to the GOP to pass up.
One striking thing about the ad is that if you take McCain's and the RNC's request seriously, they have higher standards than The Clintons. Bubba, in Hillsborough yesterday, continued trying to paint his wife as the barefoot girl from Wall Street come to save the trailer par dwellers of the South from those book-readin', cocktail party goin', NPR listenin' Snobamas.
Another is whether the RNC/McCain request is just a feint. Whether or not the party continues to run, McCain gets to take the high road and benefit from his surrogates taking the low road at the same time.
The sad part is that North Carolina, which has gone so far in moving past its history when it comes to race, is still perceived as susceptible to the argument's charms at election time.
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