McCain dumps racial-joking campaigner

[Ichingcarpenter]

by Mark Silva

The McCain campaign has denounced a racially charged, anti-Barack Obama newspaper column written by one of the Republican campaign's organizers in Virginia, and has removed the author-activist from his post as a member of the candidate's statewide leadership team, our colleague at the Top of the Ticket reports.

"The column by Bobby May appeared in a southwestern Virginia newspaper, The Voice, and drew attention after it was cited in a Sunday Los Angeles Times report about how voters in that mostly white region were reacting to potentially electing the country's first black president,'' the Times' Peter Wallsten writes.

"May, who in July was named his county's Republican representative on the McCain statewide campaign team, offered a spoof of Obama's platfrom and plans in his recent column,'' Wallsten reports


McCain campaign spokeswoman Gail Gitcho, issuing a written statement announcing that the campaign is dropping May from its team, called his attempts at humor "are offensive'' and "insulting. They "have no place in political discourse,'' the spokeswoman said. "Mr. May's comments in no way reflect the views or opinions held by John McCain or his campaign. The McCain campaign wholeheartedly disavows Mr. May's column."

The campaign first learned of May's column from the author himself after he had been contacted by The Times. "The moment the campaign learned of Mr. May's comments, we immediately removed him from his campaign position," Gitcho said. "Mr. May is no longer a part of our campaign organization."


http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2008/10/mccain_dumps_racialjoking_camp.html

[symbolman]

1. But not one word

when they've whipped idiots into a frenzy, so much so that SOMEONE needs to be arrested.

Cute.

[Ichingcarpenter]

5. Don't forget they also removed a Black Reporter in Florida

August 6, 2008 · A newspaper reporter recently became the subject of news when he was thrown out of the press area during a rally for Sen. John McCain.

Stephen Price of the Tallahassee Democrat was one of several reporters covering McCain's stop-over in Panama City, Florida last Friday.

But Price was the only African-American reporter in the press corps that day when McCain's security team singled him out and asked him to leave.

Now, many are asking if race played a role in his removal.

http://www.npr.org/templates/story/story.php?storyId=93344727

[Ichingcarpenter]

6. McCain wrote on behalf of ex-trooper now awaiting trial in civil rights murder

Presidential hopeful John McCain has a connection to a former Alabama state trooper charged with the murder of a man at the height of the civil rights movement, according to documents obtained by The Star.

In the early 1990s, Sen. McCain, R-Ariz., wrote a letter to the State Department regarding James B. Fowler, who was at the time imprisoned in Thailand on narcotics charges.

McCain's State Department letter was dated Nov. 15, 1991. It briefly explains Fowler's situation and asks Assistant Secretary Elizabeth Tamposi of the Office of Consular Affairs to look into his case.

n 2005, The Star published an interview with James B. Fowler who admitted publicly for the first time that he shot Jimmie Lee Jackson, during a melee in February 1965 in the west Alabama town of Marion. Fowler insisted it was in self defense.

Jackson's death a few days after the shooting proved pivotal for organizers of the civil rights movement, leading indirectly to the Selma-to-Montgomery march and, many historians argue, the passage by Congress of the landmark Voting Rights Act in August 1965.

Fowler, whose trial was scheduled to start this month until a judge delayed it Monday, has a complex and varied background. He fought in the Vietnam War, he has said, to avenge his brother's death. He later worked with military prosecutors to expose a murder-for-hire plot in Southeast Asia. He raised a family in Thailand and in Alabama, and for about five years in the early 1990s, he was in a Thai prison cell after being arrested for heroin trafficking.

It was during this time that John McCain came into his life.

The letter from McCain to the State Department briefly explains Fowler's situation and asks Tamposi to look into his case.>>>>>snip

http://www.annistonstar.com/breaking/2008/as-localupdat...

[Curtland1015]

2. As soon as it got too much press... we removed him immediately!

:eyes:

[ej510]

7. They didn't give a fuck until they were outed.

How could any minority be a member of the repuke party?

[The Magistrate]

3. Helluva Note, Sir, When A Man Fires A Mope Just For Repeating His Own Campaign's Talking Points....

[silverweb]

4. Too little too late.

n/t

[msongs]

8. yes classic campaign stuff: spread the dirt then pretend to be against it nt

[alcibiades_mystery]

9. They have a range of racists...they remove the Outright to hide the Insinuators

Fans of the Soprano's may recognize the move as a particularly wretched species of "Disrespectin' the Bing" (i.e., admitting and offering to the lesser offense in order to avoid responsibility for the greater offense).