Md. Rep. Fires Staffer Over Race Comment Md. Rep. Fires Staffer Over Race Comment

AP story: Md. Rep. Fires Staffer Over Race Comment says that a staffer was fired from Fires' gubitorial campaign. Apparently, he was pushing for people to throw Oreo cookies at his Fires' opponent for governor of Md., Lt. Gov. Steele, who is black.

Jonah Goldberg at The NRO Corner asked what word was missing from the story, and gave a hint that it started with a "D". Fires is, of course, a Democrat, and Steele, a Republican. And that is what is being studiously ignored by the AP - that this was a white staffer trying to play the race card against a black Republican candidate. And, as we all know from the conventional wisdom, it is the Republicans who are the racists, despite the fact that they are the ones running the African-American here, and it was they who were making the racist appeal. Also, there were apparently some anti-Jewish actions also taken by this former Fires' staffer, which just compounded the problem.

That said, what I never quite figured out is why the former Fires' staffer thought that would help his candidate (maybe a Rove plant?) While it might sway a couple of blacks not to vote for Steele, it would likely drive even more Whites to vote for him. After all, the point of the Oreo slur is that Steele is supposedly Black on the outside and White on the inside. Why would the White's mind that? And remember, most of the Blacks would vote Democrat anyway, even if Steele is the only Black in the race. The cost of keeping a couple of potential stragglers in the fold is not likely to compensate for all the White's it sells on the other side. Besides, the most likely affect of Steele's candidacy is that Black turnout is down because they would rather not vote than vote for or against a Black Republican, but White turnout is up, because a lot of Whites think that would show they were not racist.