A New Southern Strategy

When someone says "The Republican National Committee is responsible for the contents of this advertisement," you'd think, well, the Republican National Committee would be responsible for the contents of that ad. But no. Ken Mehlman, the chairman of the RNC says he has no power to pull an ad that's running in Tennessee that is, according to one Republican, "over the top." Mehlman appeared on MSNBC and was interviewed by Tim Russert:

RUSSERT: Ken Mehlman, the Republican candidate in Tennessee has asked that you take that ad off the air, that it is over the top. Former Republican Senator William Cohen says it’s, quote, “overt racist appeal.”

Will you take that ad down?

MEHLMAN: Tim, I don’t have the authority to take it down or put it up. It’s what called an independent expenditure.

The way that process works under the campaign reform laws is I write a check to an independent individual. And that person’s responsible for spending money in certain states. Tennessee is one of them.

I’ll tell you this, though. After the comments by Mr. Corker and by former Senator Cohen, I looked at the ad. I don’t agree with that characterization of it. But it’s not an ad that I have authority over. I saw it for the first time the same time that they did.

This is the same Ken Mehlman who went to the NAACP and apologized for the Republicans' "Southern Strategy" in the 1960's that exploited race as a wedge issue for Southern Democrats and got them to turn to the GOP. So either Mr. Mehlman is an incompetent chairman of the RNC, can't control his own operation, and makes legalistic excuses for not being able to pull the ad, or he's a charlatan of the first order who has no problem using an ad that appeals to racism to win an election. You make the call.

(HT to TPM.)