J. TODD FOSTER: Will GOP Continue To Isolate Itself With Vocal Base?

Racism in 2008 doesn’t wear a hooded sheet, or come with a shaved head and jack boots. It’s not a “whites only” sign above a public water fountain or a fire hose aimed at civil rights marchers. It’s not a burning cross or the n-word.

Racism today is latent, subtle, insidious. It disguises itself as intolerance wrapped in gullibility and packaged in Internet lies bandied across the ether. Or maybe it’s the parroting of empty bumper-sticker slogans like “Socialist” or “Terrorist.” Or it’s a fabricated room-service receipt for $447 from the Waldorf Astoria with a forged Michelle Obama signature below a list of such items as lobster, Iranian caviar and champagne.

In the past few months, as the most critical presidential election in many of our lifetimes reached its crescendo, millions of Americans – some who read this newspaper – shamed themselves. They shed any semblance of the critical-thinking skills they were endowed with by our creator and took the easy way out: passing around rumors or false Internet attacks they could have debunked with a few clicks of a computer mouse.

In Washington County, Va., 6-year-olds armed with the angst, fear and ignorance of their parents, teased other children – and worse – for voting for Barack Obama in mock elections.

On the eve of the real election, social worker Misty Workman Funk e-mailed me.

“... I am turning to you to express to you my disgust and disappointment with some people in our community who are Republicans teaching hate and hostility to their children while using Jesus as a smoke screen to justify their hateful ignorant words and behaviors. My son is a first grader ... in Abingdon. On Friday they had a mock election at school … . My son returned home with a confused and hurt tone in his voice informing me that … other six year olds in his class said to him “BARACK OBAMA KILLS BABIES,” “OBAMA DOES NOT BELIEVE IN THE BIBLE,” “OBAMA DOES NOT BELIEVE IN GOD” AND “OBAMA SUCKS” and even his school bus driver made a comment in agreement with a statement made on the bus.”

Her e-mail continued: “I teach my son to be compassionate toward all people and to stand up for the weak and yourself.

“What we do for others and having compassion for others is what makes us better persons and community. But why are these other parents teaching these kids these things and saying anything to them about babies being killed to a six year old? … Rich, ignorant or just plain mean no one will influence my child to spout hate or hostility.”

There were other such e-mails and anecdotes from parents whose children were victimized with Obama slurs by children of so-called evangelicals, whose lives are nowhere close to being as Christ-filled as Obama’s.

There were two moments late Tuesday that illustrated the tonal differences in the presidential campaign like no other fleeting image from this laboriously long march to the White House.

In Chicago’s Grant Park, as the hour bore down on midnight Tuesday, 200,000 Obama supporters fell silent and respectful in a split second as a mammoth television screen flashed the image of John McCain, who was ready to concede from Arizona. When Obama, during his victory speech, spoke of McCain’s honor, the throng again shut off the mighty volume of its celebration as if it were tied to a spigot. It was an ode to an American hero and noble opponent.

Contrast that to McCain’s supporters, who booed at their candidate’s mere mention of Obama’s name. Even McCain looked ashamed as his stiff arms – the byproduct of North Vietnamese torture – tamped down a sea of sore losers.

The Republican Party has lost its way and is now at a crossroads. Tuesday was a come-to-Jesus call.

Will the GOP be the party of Palin – intellectually incurious, parochial, vacuous, George W. Bush – or a new party that rejects the politics of hate, intolerance and narrow-mindedness?

Will the GOP continue to isolate itself with a small but vocal base out of step with the rest of America, or will it pitch a bigger tent and welcome back moderates such as Colin Powell?

If it goes the route of the former, GOP faithful had better brace for a long slog as a distinct minority in both houses of Congress and in the executive branch.

This newspaper in mid-October gave its institutional endorsement to McCain. It was tepid at best – owed to McCain’s iconic past and blunted by Obama’s promise and masterful campaign. On Tuesday, I got to cast my own personal vote outside the shadow of an editorial board.

As my not-yet-4-year-old son, Jake, stood hand-in-hand with me in a short line of voters at Washington County’s John Battle High School, the significance of the moment hit home. I slipped off the little wool gloves Jake insisted on wearing even though the morning broke warm.

We walked up to the computerized voting machine, and I hoisted Jake up to the screen. I took his little right index finger and tapped the glass.

Fifteen years from now, when Jake is a young man and able to grasp history, he will learn that the box he checked on Nov. 4, 2008, helped elect the first black president in the history of the United States.

Jake was 90 minutes behind his 6-year-old brother, Tyler, who cast the same vote while in the arms of his mother, a lifelong Republican who would love to return to the GOP fold. But first it must change. And embrace the hope and promise of Reagan – and yes, Obama – instead of the fear-mongering of Karl Rove and Sean Hannity.

J. Todd Foster is managing editor of the Bristol Herald Courier and can be reached at jfoster@bristolnews.com or (276) 645-2513.