Republicans are not wild about Harry

There's a saying that a "gaffe" is when you say something true that no body wants to hear. That seems to be the case for Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, who the Republicans are going after for saying President Obama's had a better chance of winning because he was light-skinned and spoke standard English.

Since I'm not a politician (but I am a political scientist), my reaction to the Reid "gaffe" was, "Yeah, so?" It seems so obviously true to me that I can't see what the fuss is about.

I'm pretty sure that African Americans voters in Nevada would also see this statement as an obvious truism.

Republicans seem to think this will increase the odds they can knock Reid out of office in November (his senate seat from Nevada is up this year). They think this "gaffe" will depress African American turnout in Nevada, and tip the scales towards a candidate of the Nevada Party of Marital Infidelity (see, for example, Nevada Governor Jim Gibbons, or Nevada's junior Senator, John Ensign).

I think this is exactly like the James Carville-character on Saturday Night Live said last week: ". . . like a fat girl in a malt shop--Grasping at straws."

I think the standard English

I think the standard English part helped him the most.

I guess what Reid said was kind of racist, or just really blunt, but, why should it bother African Americans?

The majority didn't think a Black candidate could even get nominated, when the campaigning started.

Reid identified that the standard of "electability" had moved, but he was being too simplistic. Obama's not just any light skinned African American who lacks a "Negro dialect". There are plenty of those.

And it's not some "Negro dialect". It's a Southern accent.

[I've deleted my original beer post. It meandered.]