Ward Room: Joe Walsh Makes Race an Issue

 Ooof! Ed McClelland writing on the website for our NBC affiliate gives me a better title for the earlier post - that had the video - with regards to Walsh's comments. McClelland writes:

It’s an old Republican complaint, but it’s usually expressed less blatantly. Ronald Reagan, for example, told stories about a “strapping young buck” who used food stamps to buy a T-bone steak, and a welfare queen who drove a Cadillac. The race of his subjects was implied, but never specified.

Nonetheless, bashing minorities as lazy may be a sound strategy for the Republicans. They alienated blacks by campaigning against civil rights in 1964, and they’ve alienated Hispanics by proposing to build a wall along the Mexican border to keep out immigrants. The white vote is all they have left. Walsh’s language may be intended to rally insecure whites against the growing population of Hispanics and African-Americans.

This post notes that this video was taken in the suburb of Schaumburg, Illinois. McClelland also wrote that: "His mouth speaks what other Republicans are thinking, but are afraid to say themselves."

Well I take this as another generalization of Republicans. Walsh generalized and so does McClelland here. Of course what Walsh certainly was play to his audience or at least those who believe that the Democrats seek to buy minorities with handouts. That perception is out there amongst the voters. In that regard McClelland is correct, perhaps this is supposed to be a rallying cry.