Columnist – John Sammon
Listen to what Tea Party members say when they say they want their country back. What they really mean is they want the U.S. to be like Mayberry in the Andy Griffith Show, the fictional Mayberry, a rural southern town in North Carolina.

The town is always peaceful except for the bumbling Deputy Barney Fife (Don Knotts), or the half-wit gas station attendant Gomer played by Jim Nabors. Interestingly, in a recent retrospective of the show, Nabors said people thought Gomer was dumb, but Gomer was really smart and just seemed dumb.

An interesting theory. How intelligent can Gomer really be if he continually and for no apparent reason drawls out in a thick southern accent “Sha-zaam?”

He can’t be too brilliant.

Neither is the village barber Floyd, who is either dyslexic or stoned on speed.

Guber isn’t any better, with his oxy-moronic-bad-English greeting of “hey Andy!”

Or the town drunk Otis, who arrives and locks himself in his jail cell every night (substance abuse can be fun).

Andy himself has been single for so many years and has never married his eternal girl friend Helen Crump, one might suspect he’s a closet gay stud with a badge. Maybe he and Barney are getting it on. A little badge action, huh?

In addition to Elmer T. Bass, a shotgun wielding hillbilly, one might also be led to the belief that too much inbreeding among closely-related Caucasian relatives had produced a village of idiots.

Wait a minute. Is this is a real southern town, Mayberry? Where are the blacks? Where are the African Americans? After all, it’s in the Rural South. We have to assume they’ve all been driven out of town years before or lynched.

This is what Teabaggers mean when they say “we want our country back.” They want Mayberry, a 1940s-style town, without a single African American, no diversity, a peaceful place, where you know all your neighbors and everything about them, where it’s safe to leave doors unlocked at night, cars too.

Where the biggest thing that happens is Aunt Bee bringing the apple pie to the table, where little Opie (Ron Howard) plays with his pal Johnnie Paul, where children run free without supervision, where no crimes occur.

Because there are no African Americans?

The Andy Griffith Show continues to this day in reruns. It was undoubtedly a comedy success with a huge devoted audience that never missed a single episode. It won the Emmy several years running and is widely regarded as one of the television’s truly great comedies. Even when Don Knotts departed the show because his brilliant portrayal of Deputy Fife had made him a star and the quality of the show declined (the humor to be supplied by the characters Howard and Guber), and even after Griffith departed, it kept a loyal audience.

Despite its success there is something sick about the Andy Griffith Show. The years it was made during the 1960s saw assassinations, race riots, cities burning, the My Lai Massacre in Vietnam, yet Mayberry remained, a tiny oasis of the past, free of all troubles.

I would not have expected the show’s producers in 1967 to make the show “relevant,” but portraying rural southern life in a sanitized way without any of the accompanying ugliness the area was noted for, race hate, ignorance, or poverty, seems somehow to be a longing that is based on what was wrong.

The ultimate irony of the show is that its producers didn’t dare make fun of stereotypical blacks as Amos and Andy had, but mocked the only safe group left to mock, white trash hillbillies. Other shows like the Beverly Hillbillies did the same.

The further irony is that Teabaggers want the very type of America the show mocks, a bunch of ignorant white hicks.

I know it’s supposed to be funny, but I also know that this Norman Rockwell fairy tale portrait is the kind of America the Teabaggers want, an America free of the disturbing, unsettling sight of people who look different, or who act different.

The Andy Griffith Show was immensely popular because it offered a false vision of the kind of country many Americans still want.

This is what the Tea Party wants. This is their America. Mayberry. But they aren’t as funny as Knotts was.

They won’t admit it.

References:

1. Tea Party/Republican Racism.

2. Playlist: Republican | Tea-Party Racism

   By: Donna Brazile
GOPs 2012 game plan is to keep voters home: Across America, Republican lawmakers have talked a big game about cutting budgets, but they also are seeking reductions to something much more fundamental: Americans’ voting rights. From coast to coast, the GOP is engaged in what appears to be a coordinated, expensive effort to block voters from the polls.

The motivation is political — a cynical effort to restrict voting by traditionally Democratic-leaning Americans. In more than 30 states, GOP legislators are on the move, from a sweeping rewrite of Florida’s election laws to new rules for photo identification in Ohio, Wisconsin, North Carolina and more than 20 other states.

As a result, 11% of Americans — 21 million citizens of voting age who lack proper photo identification — could be turned away on Election Day. And these people tend to be most highly concentrated among people of color, the poor, the young and the old.

Florida’s mess

The Florida Legislature recently sent an overhaul of the state’s election code to Republican Gov. Rick Scott. Among other things, this bill would slash early voting from 14 days down to eight. And it would, according to the non-partisan League of Women Voters, impose fines on voter registration drives for all completed voter registration forms that are not returned to the state within 48 hours — a big reduction from the current 10-day deadline.

Yet another hurdle: Voters who had moved to another county (potentially millions of people) would not be able to update their addresses at the polls on Election Day. Under the proposed law, these voters would have to cast a provisional ballot, which used to be cast when a voter’s eligibility was questioned. Such ballots sometimes are not counted. Do we really want to see Florida’s 2000 election controversy replayed?

In the states pushing for strict photo ID requirements, Republican lawmakers have argued that voter impersonators need to be stopped. Yet in Ohio or Wisconsin — two swing states where GOP legislatures are pushing for mandates — there is no record of this ever happening.

Unnecessary, costly

But not all Republicans support voter IDs. Jon Husted, Ohio’s secretary of state, says “a better way” would be to rely on a utility bill, government-issued check, or bank statement at the polling place — as now permitted in Ohio.

In the largest disconnect from their campaign rhetoric, Republicans ignore the high cost of these laws. In the four years since Indiana passed the nation’s first such requirement, it has spent more than $10 million to provide free state ID cards. The Institute for Southern Studies estimated that a similar ID law in North Carolina would cost $18 million to $25 million over three years — money that could be used to keep cops on the street or teachers in the classroom.

So these voting hurdles won’t improve the integrity of our elections, but they will change the face of the electorate.

President Obama was swept into office with overwhelming support from newly registered voters, minority voters and youth voters. I suppose it’s not a surprise, then, that heading into the 2012 election, these are the groups who will be most affected by these restrictions.

In my career, I have felt the elation of a hard-fought, successful campaign and the crushing defeat of an equally grueling loss. I’ve learned that campaigns are about which side makes the more compelling case to the electorate.This is what makes our democracy great. What the GOP is attempting to do is change the rules of the game, leaving only their players on the field.

About The Author: Donna Brazile, a Democratic political strategist is a university professor, author, columnist, and the Democratic National Committee’s Vice Chair of Voter Registration and Participation. The author of the best-selling book Cooking with Grease: Stirring the Pots in American Politics. She can be seen as a political contributor on CNN and ABC as well as “This Week with Christiane Amanpour.” Ms Brazile is the author of Cooking with Grease: Stirring the Pots in America (See all Biographies & Memoirs). Visit her website at: http://donnabrazile.com/ | Follow Donna on Twitter: http://twitter.com/donnabrazile.

Playlist: Republican Voter Suppression

References:

1. How to Rig an Election: Confessions of a Republican Operative
2. Election Rigging in Ohio, 2004
3. How To Rig An Election In The United States
4. Vote Rigging – Voter Suppression Articles in PA
4. How Bush Stole Florida in 2000
5. Republican governor of Florida Rick Scott signed a controversial voter bill that critics say will disenfranchise voters – The bill reduces the early voting period to 8 days from 14, bars people from changing their address at the polls, and imposes tough new rules on organizations that register people to vote. The news could cast doubt on the outcome of a lawsuit by a Miami-Dade Republican running for county mayor, who says the law if implemented now, could disenfranchise voters. [ READ MORE ]

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GOP Psycho-Siblings, Glenn Beck and Sarah Palin, both spoke at the NRA convention in Charlotte, North Carolina, last weekend — both spewing baseless conspiracy theories — served with fear-mongering fireworks.

High-Schooler Glenn Beck, shed fraudulent tears at the late bigot’s (Jerry Falwell) University, in LYNCHBURG, Virginia — claiming that he dropped out of college after one semester because he couldn’t afford it.

According to Liberty’s account of Beck’s speech, Beck was rendered teary by the distinction of being the guest of honor at the graduation ceremony. The Right Scoop reports that Beck choked up a total of 7 times.

Prior to delivering a lousy “high-schooler speech,” most of it bashing Obama (a constitutional scholar), Baboon Beck’s fellow Republican goons in charge the GODLY university — had awarded him(Beck) …….the sickest, most racist FRAUD and LIAR in media — a Ph.D! LOL!

Note: According to sources, in 1996, while working for a New Haven-area radio station, Beck was admitted to Yale University through a special program for non-traditional students. Beck took one theology class, “Early Christology,” and then dropped out.

Yep, a lying punk who couldn’t handle the rigors of college work — sending off actual college graduates!!

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Palin Announces Support For Racist Arizona Anti-Immigration Law

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Beck: “[W]hat’s coming is horrific. I don’t even want to speak it out loud”

Beck warns that “your churches” may have been “infiltrated” by “Marxists” pushing “nasty things“

Beck compares economy to the Titanic: “You’ve got to build life boats. You’ve got to prepare your family“

Bonus Video: A Republican Gun-Toting Thug’s (Dale Peterson) Political AD — For Alabama Agricultural Commission!

CBS: For connoisseurs of memorable political ads, there’s simply no place like Alabama – at least in this campaign cycle. (Eat your heart out, Demon Sheep.) The state has already given us an ad in which gubernatorial candidate Bradley Byrne is mocked for believing in evolution, as well as a pair of striking spots from Tim James, another Republican gubernatorial candidate, who proclaims in one: “We speak English. If you want to live here, learn it.” [ READ MORE ]

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Notes: The Poetry of Racist Radio Imbecile Michael Savage

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By GROMER JEFFERS Jr. — The Dallas Morning News

Blacks worry about polls vs. reality in Obama campaign

CHARLOTTE, N.C. — The prospect that Barack Obama is primed to be the nation’s first black president has black voters giddy.

But the better the news gets for Mr. Obama, with bigger leads in polls the closer Election Day draws, the more they fear it’s too good to be true. It’s especially so in the South, where a history of oppression, voter suppression and near electoral victories make blacks more skeptical than most.

“Every day I watch the polls and get excited because I know Barack Obama is going to win the whole thing,” said Corgins Banner, a 32-year-old Charlotte man who works for a bank. “Then it hits me. Something is going to happen. They are going to find a way to stop him.”

The long-running campaign has taken its emotional toll on some blacks who are jubilant one moment and fearful the next, and the mixed feelings were evident in interviews conducted last week.

Many simply don’t believe white voters are telling pollsters the truth about whom they’ll back, though recent elections involving high-profile black candidates, including Mr. Obama’s own primaries this year, suggest polls are fairly accurate. Some voters also suspect something more sinister — malfeasance in the counting of votes come Election Day.

“Racism is still alive and well in this country,” said Washington-based Democratic consultant Ray Strother, who contends that polls don’t reflect some white voters’ reluctance to back a black candidate. “There will be people who go into the voting booth intending to vote for Obama but won’t be able to do it.”

The uneasiness hasn’t shaken black voters’ resolve. Their backing was crucial to him winning several early primaries, and a strong black turnout is expected to boost Mr. Obama in battleground states, including North Carolina.

“He’s so close, and I want to believe he’s going to do it,” said Amber Hinton, a 20-year-old college student from Charlotte. “But it’s hard for me to believe that it’s going to happen. I don’t think America is going to let him win.” … [MORE]

American politics is tribal.

Not in the sense of Kikuyu and Luo and Kalenjin and Kamba and all our competing ethnic groups, but racial and ethnic components do account for the differences in this richly diverse country.

At the most basic level in the nation of 305.3 million people, it is Black and White. Obama Versus McCain.

Then there are the Hispanics, a sizebable group with about 14 per cent of the population compared to about 13.3 per cent that is black.

There are the Asians, who are a distinct minority at five per cent, and the largely forgotten and ignored Native Americans, who make up about 1.5 per cent of the population.

Among the whites, things get very complicated, depending on how people chose to classify themselves in the census.

There are the majority White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. There are Catholics. There are Hispanic whites.

There are religious or ethnic groups like the Jews; and there are the various white ethnicities — Italian, Greek, German, Dutch, Irish and many more that went into the original melting pot.

Within the white community, for instance, political pollsters look not just at the above distinctions but also at sub-genres like education, sexual orientation, region, occupation, rural or urban, farming or industrial, new industry (IT) or old industry (mining, motorplants) and so on.

These are the Tribes of America for whose votes Barack Obama and John McCain are competing to win one of the most compelling presidential campaigns in US history.

Democratic candidate Barack Obama was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, the latest stop on a whirlwind tour between last Tuesday’s second presidential debate in Nashville, Tennessee and the final debate set for New York on Wednesday.

Before Philadelphia, Mr Obama made several stops in Ohio while his running mate Senator Joe Biden campaigned in Florida, another key state whose electoral vote could determine the outcome of the election.

Republican candidate John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin have been equally busy in the week or so between the two debates, covering, sometimes together and sometimes separately, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio and Winsconsin.

National opinion polls show Mr Obama increasing his lead over Mr McCain, reaching double-digit 11 percentage points — 52 percent to 41 per cent — according to the latest Gallup daily tracking poll at the end of the week.

The margin was mirrored in the latest Newsweek poll. But outside the major national events like the presidential debates, the campaign is being fought at the grassroots level, block by block, town by town and state by state.

   A pro-Obama campaign march in Nashville, Tennessee earlier this month

What matters in the American political system is not the national popular vote, but the state-by-state popular vote which determines the number of electoral votes through which the electoral college elects the president.

The outcome in some states can already be predicted — New York generally votes Democratic — so the candidates are concentrating their efforts on the so-called battleground states where the outcome is still uncertain.

There is no need, for instance, for Mr Obama to spend too much in California where he already commands nearly 54 per cent of the popular vote to Mr McCain’s 39 per cent.

The Republican candidate would not bother too much about the state’s 55 electoral votes because he has little chance of overturning Mr Obama’s majority.

The reverse holds true in another large state like Texas with its 34 electoral votes where Mr McCain holds an unassailable 51 per cent advantage over Mr Obama’s 38 per cent.

So the campaigns are almost over in California and Texas and in a large number of other states where solid red indicates support for the Republican candidate while solid blue shows support for the Democrat.

But then there are the states where the outcome is still too close to call; they are coloured light blue or pink depending which way they lean.

And there are some states where the candidates are virtually tied; they are marked with blue and red checks.

Almost all the polls now indicate that if the certain states for either candidate are counted, Mr Obama has a clear lead.

If he also captures the states leaning strongly towards him — those where he has more than a five per cent margin — then all the key pollsters including Reuters, Newsweek, Zogby, Gallup, give him an unassailable victory over Mr McCain in electoral votes.

Some estimates already give Mr Obama just over the 270 electoral votes needed to secure victory; most give him a clear margin of between 330 and 350 electoral votes compared to Mr McCain’s 190 to 210.

Mr Obama’s tremendous surge is being attributed to the way in which he has steadily eaten into the regional and demographic groups that have been supportive of McCain or of the Republican party in general.

States like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri and quite a few others were just weeks ago solidly for McCain. Now they are seen as leaning towards Mr Obama or are too close to call.

According to the conventional wisdom of electoral demographics, Mr Obama’s key support comes from non-white groups including blacks and Hispanics; the youthful 18-29 age group; those with postgraduate educations; women; the urban poor, mostly black; and groups that are ambivalent towards religion.

Mr McCain’s strengths have been among whites, other than Hispanic; senior citizens over 65 years; the traditional white Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPS) and whites who attend church frequently or for whom religion is important.

On the demographic map, therefore, Mr McCain’s support base has been in the traditional Republican strongholds, the middle and central United States that are largely agricultural bastions of conservatism; while Mr Obama’s support has been in the big cities on the densely populated East and West coasts.

His support among whites has been limited, as described above, to young, modern, well-educated urbanites.

That is what has changed. I was at an Obama campaign march in Nashville, Tennessee, last Tuesday on the same day the two presidential candidates had their second debate.

Nashville is the home of country music.

Tennessee as a whole is a very white and conservative state; guns, church and ranching are the defining characteristics. It is a solid red state where the 11 electoral votes are all but assured for Mr McCain.

But observing the Obama march around Belmont University, one could hardly have believed it.

The participants were mostly white, as would be expected of Nashville. But they were not just the young, educated and modern white generation generally seen to side with Mr Obama.

The chanting crowd included middle-aged to elderly white men and women of the type that instinctively would be fearful of and hostile to the prospects of an Obama presidency.

That is the demographic that Obama is stealing from McCain in states around the country and the one that might secure him victory.

Article — Originally posted in The Daily Nation on 10/11/08