Race to the Bottom

"With less than two weeks to go until Election Day, "writes satirist Andy Borowitz, " there is a deep divide among Republican leaders over whether to emphasize misogyny or racism as the campaign’s closing theme."

That choice became easier on Saturday with the release of an AP poll which shows that racism specifically aimed at black people has increased in America since 2008, to now infect a majority of the population." In all, 51 percent of Americans now express explicit anti-black attitudes, compared with 48 percent in a similar 2008 survey. When measured by an implicit racial attitudes test, the number of Americans with anti-black sentiments jumped to 56 percent, up from 49 percent during the last presidential election. In both tests, the share of Americans expressing pro-black attitudes fell."
This includes nearly 80% of Republicans who expressed explicit racism.

So the best way to fire up the GOPer base is appeals to racism.  That way you get both genders.

But as Borowitz suggests, why not both?  "Hoping to heal a possible rift with so little time left until Election Day, the R.N.C. chairman Reince Priebus said today that there is room for both views in today’s Republican Party: “Our ‘big tent’ message to voters should be this: come for the misogyny, stay for the racism.”

Behind the joke is the depressing reality: the appeals to racism will continue and intensify in the usual race to the bottom as election day approaches.

Yet there are so many different currents going on.  Polls suggest that almost all the Dem Senate candidates are doing well, including (suddenly) Bob Kerrey in Nebraska, long considered out of it completely.  Nate Silver at the NY Times insists that Ohio polls show President Obama ahead by an average of 2.5 points. "There are no precedents in the database for a candidate losing with a two- or three-point lead in a state when the polling volume was that rich... It is misinformed to refer to Ohio as a toss-up. Mr. Obama is the favorite there, and because of Ohio's central position in the Electoral College, he is therefore the overall favorite in the election."