Is the Democratic Party Playing the Race Card in the 2012 Election?

State Senator Louise Lucas (D-VA) made a claim that racism is the driving force behind the Romney campaign strategy, reported Sean Hannity, based on comments she made on a radio program. On July 20th, she said on The John Fredericks Show that she “absolutely” believes this is about race and said that Romney is “speaking to that friend out there who do not want to see anybody other than a white person in a leadership position.”

Tonight on Hannity, Congress of Racial Equality spokesman Niger Innis and Fox News political analyst Juan Williams both reacted to the senator’s racist rhetoric. Hannity asked where is President Obama’s moral courage to speak out when one of his surrogates is publicly making horrific statements.

Innis responded that, “People should listen to the full context of that radio interview. The state senator was responding to the fact that Mitt Romney was so close to President Obama in Virginia and in spite of the Bain attacks and in spite of the president’s campaign spending all that money in a state that was supposed to be safe for President Obama. And it was in response to that that the state senator played the race card.”

He went to cite Juan Williams’ own book, “Enough,” about the racial demagoguery of race hustlers and the race card that is being used as a political weapon. Innis said, “That kind of politics has now become the mainstream objective and an agenda and political tactic of the Democratic Party. As recently as last week, the former speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi, accused Mitt Romney of wanting to get booed at the NAACP to satisfy racists. That kind of game playing I know Juan Williams is very much against. It’s an insult to black people.”

Williams said, “Well the president, I think, should stand up on this one. I couldn’t agree more.” He continued, “But what I am saying to you is there is a real conversation to be had about race in this campaign. If you got the first black president seeking reelection, it’s going to come up. And you look at the poll numbers right now, Obama won 42 percent of the white vote back in ’08, right now he’s down in the thirties, and you got to start asking questions.”

Innis shot back against the race card being played in politics, saying, “We should all stand united against it. It’s unhealthy for our country and it’s a betrayal of that state senator that talked about us not being red states and blue states and all this unity talk. Hope and change has become hopeless.”