For those of you who are white and have always lived in the PNW, it may be difficult to hear nuances of racism still 'alive and well' in the south. Memories are long there. Only a couple of years ago, my niece who lives in Savannah felt it necessary to qualify that she was attending a 'white' college when she was telling me she had gone back to school. So sad.

As the last Jim Crow generation dies out, "white guilt" will become a weaker weapon in the liberal arsenal. It will become harder to shut down opponents by shouting "racist!" and daring them to refute it (since, in the liberal world view, attempting to deny the racism in a comment that a liberal has denounced as racist is taken as proof of the speaker's racism). Newt Gingrich is a lot of outlandish things, and he would make a spectacularly bad president, but I've never seen any evidence he's a racist. Just as conservatives saw "a commie under every bed" in the 50s and 60s, liberals see a racist under every bed today. There were commies in the 50s, and there are racists today, but both are thankfully endangered species of collectivist, and the actuarial tables are taking care of them in due course.

The only candidate in the R field who is perceived as a racist is Newt Gingrich, dbreneman.

So I've heard, anorthwood.

The point is then that this is not "a racist under every bed" situation, dbreneman.

Too bad it was Al Gore (whose father voted against the Civil Rights Act in 1964) who first used the Willie Horton case against Dukakis in the 1988 dem primaries. And, of course Obama's reference to bitter clingers to bibles and guns had no reverse racial undertones! Fact is, Obama is the class warfare, divider-in-chief, and growth manager supreme of subsidized school lunches and food stamp usage. The premise that Newt Gingrich is a pseudo-intellectual racist is a boldface falsehood.

My point, anorthwood, is that many on the left are quick to perceive a racist motivation in what might be a totally benign statement on the part of a conservative or Republican speaker. The speaker and his target audience may be completely oblivious that the words they are speaking are regarded as "code words" by the left. Gingrich's comment is racist only if the listener infers that manual labor is the sole purview of blacks. That's a racist inference, but that inference is not based on the speaker's comments, it's based primarily on the listener's assumptions. I'm not saying, as you seem to suggest, that the author pounced on Gingrich's comments because he perceives all Republicans to be racist, but rather because he is hearing racism in what would otherwise be a totally race-neutral statement, in part because his political outlook predisposes him to expect it.

That's your point now, dbreneman. This piece is well-conceived and accurate.

This is a sad piece, revealing more about the author than about the subject. In 1968 there were riots (remember those? the Yippees were not black) and to say that preferring, or promising "law and order" conceals a racist message is foolish if not paranoid. Mr. Locke thinks it is racist because he regards Richard Nixon as a racist and carefully reads Mr. Nixon's utterances to find justification for his beliefs. It seems likely that most people think the race to which they belong is "best". This should not surprise Mr. Locke or anyone else. It is only when a caucasian feels that way that it become "racist".

The "author" isn't just an "author", kieth. He is Dean Emeritus of the Evans School of Public Affairs at the University of Washington (cower, ye unwashed!). And his brand of racism is instilled at our public university (where they teach "what" to think, not "how" to think).

Ah, our resident right-wing troll calling someone a racist for pointing out obvious (and in Gingrich's case it's REALLY obvious) racism.

Limbaugh 101. Humanity fail.

Gingrich is a political street fighter, to whom any means justifies the ends. He may not be racist personally, but he does not mind at all the racist impulses raised by what he only implies, as long as it leads to his winning an election, or at the least gains him an audience. I'm sure that his glee over the political advantage of ripping into the "elite media" during the flap with John King at the SC debate, well overshadowed the personal pain he made a big deal about, as well as his family's.

Republicans calling the President the divider-in-chief think they have the equivalent of liberals shouting "racism" when they shout "class warfare". The basic failure in this belief in the power of this position is that it lacks a majority to hold that position (or at least not advocate for more power and money going to the 1%). The Republicans trapped in their tone deaf bubble are under the impression that they are going on offense when they shout "class warfare", not really realizing and appreciating that the vast majority of people have lost ground on attaining even a middle class economic class, but have flat given up on the illusion that they have a shot at achieving the economic class of the 1%. Letting them eat cake argument ("class warfare", "envy politics") that has been sold by Republicans looked good in the store window for 3 decades, but was never delivered.
There isn't a viable path to be part of the 1%, or even the 4%, the poor white folks that the race bating is supposed to draw to defend the system of declining wages for wage earners and increased unearned investment income into offshore accounts for the 1% just doesn't have the same white power it did in the past.
Anybody that doesn't recognize there there has been class warfare going on for 30 years or more (it's more) is fooling themselves, and apparently, is running to be the Republican nominee for President.

It didn't trickle down, and the job creators that got the tax breaks didn't create jobs that they claimed the tax breaks would do, know why?
Because people really do know how a free market works, job creation requires customer demand, and no amount of transfer of wealth through the tax code has demonstrated anything to the contrary. The argument failed in reality on a global scale.
Absent a meaningful alternative to championing the cause of the 1%, the Republicans need to make people afraid of something other than the stark reality that the economy is rigged in favor of so few.

There have been rioters in the streets, the majority have noticed.

He ought to go town to town in a wagon as the Newt Gingrich Medicine Show.

Survey says:
Roughly three-quarters of the public (77%) say that they think there is too much power in the hands of a few rich people and large corporations in the United States. In a 1941 Gallup poll, six-in-ten (60%) Americans expressed this view. About nine-in-ten (91%) Democrats and eight-in-ten (80%) of independents assert that power is too concentrated among the rich and large corporations, but this view is shared by a much narrower majority (53%) of Republicans.

Reflecting a parallel sentiment, 61% of Americans now say the economic system in this country unfairly favors the wealthy and just 36% say the system is generally fair to most Americans. About three-quarters (76%) of Democrats and 61% of independents say the economic system is tilted in favor of the wealthy; a majority (58%) of Republicans say that the system is generally fair to most Americans.

http://www.people-press.org/2011/12/15/section-2-occupy-wall-street-and-inequality/

Even if the Republicans can put an earlier stop to Newt than would naturally occur with the President of Moon-base Alpha, the alternative embodies an unfavorable product of the system Newt and Willard are advocating for.

Question: is it racist to call a black conservative an Uncle Tom?

If one can answer "not necessarily" to that, then you may well find Professor Thomas Sowell's "Economic Facts and Fallacies" most informative. Where he knows experientially about what he writes, he is outstanding, i.e., "Racial Facts and Facllacies" and "Academic Facts and Fallacies." The latter, only a tad off topic, provides a great dawning on how college got so expensive and, but for Clayton Christensen's "disruptive innovation" is likely to get even worse.

I can't believe people don't think racism is alive and not necessarily well. Also as Mr Baker says there is no trickle down. You can make all the businesses you want but if no one wants it wont work. First comes a need and someone to perceive that need. You may not realize you need it (Face Book) but it is still needed in some form.