What’s black and white and and read all over? Some members who forgot to evolve as part of their service.

Most of us evolved from monkeys but a few not-so-great apes chose to remain behind. Maybe they got bonked on the head by too many coconuts. Whatev.

If the only way Republicans can win is by appealing to the evolutionary laggards, let them have them all. But as I’m from the poor white trash side of the divide, don’t call me an elitist for being perfectly clear on this point: racists are an insult to everyone, poor role models for their kids and the Republicans can have every last one of them.

There’s plenty of us poor white working class small town folks who don’t buy that shit. Sometimes the Democratic Party leaves us behind economically, but the Republican Party has always done that, always, throughout my life. And I still find a few racist laggards left on our side. I’d rather they leave, even if it costs us elections. The race to a more civilized finish line is by far the most important one to win.

In a professional setting like the Secret Service serves in, the attitude of management should be the same. NRNA: No racists need apply. The vines and cocunut trees will have to suffice.

Update: Bob Somerby’s far better pointing out how the issue of race gets played in the media, for political motives. Which I didn’t really cover well. Throughout the contentious primary season, I considered it absurd to suggest Hillary and Bill Clinton were racists, or that Barack Obama hates women. Sure, via clumsiness that comes from tiptoeing around matters like race, candidates can offend when they’re trying to make a different point, particularly if a campaign supporter has crossed the line from clumsy to clearly discriminatory.

And it’s just as discriminatory to suggest small town or rural or working class whites are all prone to be racists, just as it was wrong when Obama suggested they all turned to side issues out of bitterness and frustration about bigger issues like jobs and wages and war. When he heard his words tossed back his way, he realized how stupid his words were and immediately apologized. Yes, college-educated people say stupid things now and then, like most of us do.

It’s in the repetition of saying that stuff where it starts to become clear who’s really biased and who didn’t think through their words once.

I’ve been around white people poor and rich, at all levels of education and I’ve heard plenty of racism in each group. I’ve also heard great wisdom pour forth from the poorest and least educated, because no group has the corner of the market on that.

As an election analyst, I recognize that demographic divisions do display certain voting tendencies and hateful biases plays a role in some of that. But sometimes it’s more about lack of experience dealing with The Other than it is a deliberate attempt to demonize

I recall my sisters teasing my elderly Mom about the lesbian couple that lived across the street. My Mom instinctively denied that they were as she’d just always assumed her good neighbors were two single middle-aged women and she never considered their love lifes at all. But she eventually could see that my sisters were correct and realized it didn’t matter a bit. They were still thoughtful and considerate neighbors, so who gives a darn? (Yeah, she still prefers ‘darn’.)

And that’s all the challenge Obama really faces in the general election: demonstrating that the ‘other’ is pretty much the same in his value systems. In places like very white West Virginia, that lack of experience with black neighbors creates uncertainty and apprehension, but it’s not some virulent unbreakable racism.

And that’s what too many mainstream media pundits miss… or deliberately distort because of their own racism or political goals.