Racism in the Presidential Election? Hardly.

Ruben Navarrette has written a piece for CNN.com in which he claims that Hillary Clinton's recent comments to USA Today are evidence of racism in 2008 election:

At least in West Virginia, Clinton chose her words more
carefully than she did last week when she blurted out to USA Today that "Sen. Obama's support among working, hard-working Americans, white Americans, is weakening again" and how whites who had not completed college were supporting her.

Clinton sounded less like George Washington and more like George Wallace. Imagine a presidential primary where, after more than 16 months, almost two dozen debates, hundreds of speeches, millions of dollars, and countless chicken dinners, the rationale for electing someone boils down to this: Vote for me. I'm white. I can win because other whites will vote for me.

Why, this could be the new affirmative action. Whatever happened to merit?

Navarrette's logic is not only faulty, it is unprofessional. Hillary Clinton never once said that she was electable due solely to her support among white voters. What she said was that Sen. Obama was unelectable in a general contest due to his weakness among white voters, working-class voters, and older Americans in the primaries. I don't know if I necessarily agree with her logic (both parties will be united come November -- the fight is over independents), but this is hardly the racist rant that Navarrette makes it out to be. Sen. Clinton is merely stating what the exit polls show: the majority of white primary voters favor her. Pointing out that fact is no more racist than Sen. Obama pointing out that he has the support of over 90% of black voters, along with well-educated Dems and young people. Since when did the voting patterns of white Americans become off-limits, when dissecting the election-day tendencies of black Americans and Hispanics have become commonplace.

It is hard not to view Navarrette's contortion of Sen. Clinton's comments into racism as somehow an attempt to rationalize the fact that many people are not voting for the media's anointed candidate. He is so perfect, their logic goes, why could anyone not vote for him? It must be racism!

This point is further hammered home by the lip-service that Navarrette pays to the idea of "merit" in American politics. If he had merely made his point about Sen. Clinton's comments regarding race, and proceeded to discuss the need for an election based on merit , I would have lauded his commitment to such an ignored issue. Yet, like many Obama supporters, Navarrette ends his column by engaging in the same type of racism that he attached to Sen. Clinton:

Over the decades, black Americans have had plenty of opportunities to vote for white people for president. And they have done so. But this is the first time that white Americans have a chance to vote for an African-American with a shot at the presidency. And what are they doing?

Many are responding quite well. Obama won the votes of many -- to borrow a phrase -- "hardworking white Americans -- in Wisconsin, Minnesota, Iowa, Nebraska and Wyoming. But, elsewhere, as Obama said in a recent interview, people may need to get their head around the concept of an African-American even seeking the presidency, let alone winning it.

That's understandable. There are places in this country where white Americans are still raised to think of black Americans as inferior. And then comes someone like Obama who has performed off the charts -- from Harvard Law School to the U.S. Senate and now, possibly, on to the White House. It's going to take some time to get used to all that, especially for people who never thought they thought they'd see the day that an African-American would be elected president.

"Responding quite well" to what? Is it merit? Yea, right. From what I can tell, Navarrette is making the argument that many Obama supporters have: that Sen. Obama's potential to be the first black presidential candidate should be a decisive factor in the minds of voters. How is that merit? Voting based upon the color of one's skin or how warm and fuzzy a particular candidate's ascendancy to the White House would make you feel (i.e. by assuaging your white guilt) is truly a disgrace. If we were to truly have an election based on merit, there would be no contest among the Democrats. Sadly, as Navarrette's twisted logic shows, that is not the case this year.