Reply #81: I don't believe it is accomplishing much of anything

[NMMatt]

They certainly are playing Rovian with this, sure. It is also true that there are many whites in PA who probably react positively to this kind of thing. The best description of PA I've ever heard is that it is Pittsburgh and Philadelphia with Alabama inbetween (I think it was Carville who said this). However, anyone who is currently feeling sympathy for Ferraro over this is almost certainly someone who would go into a voting booth and be unable to cast a vote for Obama regardless. Obama's appalachian vote, after all, has been consistently low even in VA and MD. These weren't voters who were thinking of voting for Obama, then all of a sudden because of Ferraro, became resentful of him being black. They likely had these feeling all along and never would have voted for him anyway.

The critical difference in Rove playing the racist card and this is that the typical approach is to appeal to racists by smearing a white candidate with some kind of racist association (think McCain in South Carolina). This will only backfire on the Clintons by alienating the African American vote further and likely alienating other ethnicities who are turned off by their tactics.