Black Democratic leaders in Maryland are OUTRAGED over a new radio ad by a black Republican group backing black Republican Michael S. Steele's senate campaign. They're so outraged that Steele himself has become outraged, even though he didn't have any problems with the ad yesterday. Before the outrage.
Why so angry? Because the ad says Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. was a Republican. And that Democrats fought every piece of civil rights legislation for a solid century ... because what else can you expect from the Ku Klux Klan?
You know, the truth ... the kind of thing that confuses the masses! Hear the ad, after the jump.
Our favorite line: "Democrats have bamboozled blacks." Bamboozled! We could almost get excited about the midterms if all candidates started throwing around 10-cent words from the late 19th Century. And having boxing matches at campaign events, and traveling on a beer wagon with a jug band. Top hats, too. Everyone must wear top hats.
Anyway, here's what Steele's campaign has to say now:
NBRA's current radio ad is insulting to Marylanders and should come down immediately. Although they may have had good intentions, there is no room for this kind of slash-and-burn partisan politics in the important conversation about how to best bring meaningful change to Washington, D.C. and get something done for Maryland.God, we're sick of this crap. OK, so when is there room for slash-and-burn partisan politics if not during the campaign?
Maryland Democratic kingpins are hopping mad, too.
"That's despicable. Downright despicable," Ike Leggett told the Washington Post. "To run that kind of ad, to assume we are so stupid to fall for that kind of baloney, to use Dr. King's name in a cheap political ad like that, in my opinion, this will not be something African Americans will fall for."
So let's get this straight. Leggett thinks it's despicable that his fellow black voters find out MLK was a Republican, and the Democrats' concern for blacks and civil rights is a pretty new situation brought on by Nixon's southern strategy of just 35 years ago? How does it make you stupid to hear some basic political history in a political ad?
The Maryland Dems say it's not fair because the parties have since "switched sides." And that's true in some ways. Republicans are now the big-spending bank-busting Constitution-raping nannies, while the Democrats hope they'll get to be the big-spending bank-busting Constitution-raping nannies again come November.
And remember, this is the same Maryland black (and white!) Democratic leadership that -- allegedly and fictionally -- had Steele "pelted with Oreos" and repeatedly called him a "Uncle Tom." Because ... right, because political affiliation is racial in nature. You know, whites are racially bound to eat mayonnaise and vote Republican, while blacks are racially bound to play the banjo and vote Democrat. It's like some kind of heaven for George Allen!
National Black Republican Association
Black GOP Groups Woo Mfume to Back Steele [Washington Post]
Why Martin Luther King Was Republican [Human Events]
'Party trumps race' for Steele foes [Washington Times]
-- KEN LAYNE
