Are reparations McCain's last hope?

[JohnnyRingo]

He hasn't pulled that card from the Republican fear deck yet, but he's come close. I've been expecting to hear it all along, but it hasn't happened.

I began thinking that perhaps they're afraid of a negative backlash for such an overtly racist attack on Obama, then it occurred to me.... They are using a modified version of reparations to rally their working class base to get out the vote. We see Palin do it every day.

Since I was young, back in the '60s, the fear of many hard working whites was the welfare state. Conservatives pounded home the stereotype of black people on welfare driving a new Cadillac to stoke the racial fires of division. It seems cartoonish now, but decades ago it was a standard tactic to bolster the white middle class to a cause.

The back then was that while "Joe the Plumber" had to work 10 hour days to feed his family, those on welfare could afford to drive a new luxury car that the working man couldn't buy on his take home pay. Of course back then they threw food stamps in as a caveat to this perceived "life of Riley" on the common man's dime, but that Cadillac was symbolic of unearned entitlement.

When Palin or McCain's audience hear "redistribute the wealth" they aren't thinking that money will be taken from the rich, they think they'll be taxed, and the money "spread around" to the welfare class. They fear the day that people who don't want to work will be financed by their hard earned dollars. (I know plenty of white people are on welfare, but you can bet those supporters at the rallies assume they're "just down on their luck".

It's a form of reparations to these closet racists to imagine all the African Americans who would benefit from Obama's social programs, and "Joe The Plumber's" views cement the image of that white working man who would give up his lifestyle and dreams to fund minorities who don't try to help themselves.

I guess using Archie Bunker would be too obvious.