Rasmussen Racism Results

Senator McCain's "Celeb" ad, which debuted to much controversy last week, features Senator Obama along with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton. The ugliest charge regarding the ad is that it is racist, using images of the two celebutantes to dredge up negative emotions about interracial dating, or whatever absurd point Bob Herbert was attempting to cobble together in his excuse for an op-ed on Saturday.

The charge that showing Senator Obama in an ad with white females is racist got little traction, but just enough to make it onto the Sunday talk shows. It was also part of a recent Rasmussen poll, which shows the American public isn't buying it.

Sixty-nine percent (69%) of the nation's voters say they've seen news coverage of the McCain campaign commercial that includes images of Britney Spears and Paris Hilton and suggests that Barack Obama is a celebrity just like them. Of those, just 22% say the ad was racist while 63% say it was not.

This doesn't mean that people liked the ad, or that the celebrity angle worked. What it shows is that most people don't think putting Senator Obama's image next to white women was racist. The results varied along demographic lines, with 58% of polled African-American voters who saw the ad calling it racist.

The poll also gauged reactions to Senator Obama's comments that John McCain would try and scare voters about his not resembling the other Presidents on the dollar bill.

However, Obama's comment that his Republican opponent will try to scare people because Obama does not look like all the other presidents on dollar bills was seen as racist by 53%. Thirty-eight percent (38%) disagree.

This, too, varied along racial lines, but not as much. Forty-four percent of polled African-American voters who heard the remarks considered them racist.

Senator Obama's comment that Senator McCain was using racist attacks against him has, for the most part, backfired. He has not convinced a large chunk of voters that McCain is racist, but has managed to convince a large chunk of voters that he pulled the so-called "race card." Perhaps in the future, the Obama campaign will wait for something racist to actually happen before leveling the charge.