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Herman Cain's rise as a presidential contender was supposed to prove that race didn't matter in the Republican Party. Cain is fast making it the only thing that does.
The black conservative is trying to navigate around allegations that he sexually harassed at least three women, implying that the accusations surfaced because he is black.
Hours after the claims were reported, Cain's supporters branded his trouble a "high-tech lynching."
That's the term coined 20 years ago by another black conservative, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, after his confirmation hearings for the court were rocked by allegations of sexual harassment.
Cain's supporters have pinned blame on a white GOP presidential rival, on liberals afraid of a "strong black conservative" and on mainstream media interested in "guilty until proven innocent."
But by playing the race card with the Thomas precedent, his backers belied the "post-racial" America that President Barack Obama was said to have brought about in the United States — and that they, too, promote.
It's not a post-racial world, "it's a partisan world," said Merle Black, an Emory University political science professor and author of "The Rise of Southern Republicans."
Cain's success in Republican straw polls was considered by many, especially black conservatives, proof that America was finally ready to consider candidates according to ideas, not race.
Obama was elected the nation's first black president in 2008 behind a strong vote from minorities, liberals and independents.
Few of them are affiliated with the GOP, the party of Abraham Lincoln that lost favor with minority voters behind its 1960s "Southern strategy" of wooing white voters who were unhappy over civil rights legislation.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap...AjAvuQ?docId=78730d78e19f4c75b4410bdc29414aa0
The black conservative is trying to navigate around allegations that he sexually harassed at least three women, implying that the accusations surfaced because he is black.
Hours after the claims were reported, Cain's supporters branded his trouble a "high-tech lynching."
That's the term coined 20 years ago by another black conservative, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, after his confirmation hearings for the court were rocked by allegations of sexual harassment.
Cain's supporters have pinned blame on a white GOP presidential rival, on liberals afraid of a "strong black conservative" and on mainstream media interested in "guilty until proven innocent."
But by playing the race card with the Thomas precedent, his backers belied the "post-racial" America that President Barack Obama was said to have brought about in the United States — and that they, too, promote.
It's not a post-racial world, "it's a partisan world," said Merle Black, an Emory University political science professor and author of "The Rise of Southern Republicans."
Cain's success in Republican straw polls was considered by many, especially black conservatives, proof that America was finally ready to consider candidates according to ideas, not race.
Obama was elected the nation's first black president in 2008 behind a strong vote from minorities, liberals and independents.
Few of them are affiliated with the GOP, the party of Abraham Lincoln that lost favor with minority voters behind its 1960s "Southern strategy" of wooing white voters who were unhappy over civil rights legislation.
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap...AjAvuQ?docId=78730d78e19f4c75b4410bdc29414aa0