THE DEBATE over which presidential candidate played the "race card" first - John McCain or Barack Obama - is a distracting sideshow. Instead, the country needs new ways to talk about racial identity.
The brouhaha arose when Obama warned that John McCain and George Bush, lacking solutions for national problems, would instead try to scare voters by saying that he "doesn't look like all those other presidents on those dollar bills." The McCain campaign quickly slapped him for dealing the race card "from the bottom of the deck."
It's a misguided attack on Obama that threatens to shut down legitimate public conversation.
Obama has made similar comments about himself in the past. And he's smart to talk now about the fact that he's different and that conventional American labels don't fit him. He isn't a war hero, or a kid who came from tough urban streets, or part of a prominent political family.
For some people, Obama's exotic name is an obstacle, and so is his skin color. That's an inescapable fact, whether his political opponents refer to it or not. He has to find wise ways to talk about it, to get more voters to look beyond his race so that they can scrutinize his politics.
And Obama isn't alone in speculating about whose face is printed on money. Earlier this year, a McCain campaign ad did in fact flash Obama's face on a $100 bill, as well as on the Statue of Liberty and Mount Rushmore. The voiceover explained that Obama's much heralded call for change is "change you can make in Photoshop." A McCain spokesperson says the ad has nothing to do with race and was made to mock the Obama campaign's use of what looked like a presidential seal.
But even assuming that the McCain campaign's motives are purely jocular, the ad - part of a series that includes the more recent spot deriding Obama's celebrity status - poses an underlying question: Who does this guy think he is?
Mix in perceptions that Obama is an elitist, a bookish Ivy League graduate, and it's easy to hint that Obama is committing the sin of being "uppity," a black person reaching too far beyond his station.
That's worth talking about.
Ultimately, the racial identity of the next president is dwarfed by the far more pressing issue of how the next president will help the country cope with skyrocketing gas prices, rampant housing foreclosures, lost jobs, a daunting federal budget deficit, and international turmoil.
So while it makes sense to find sincere ways to talk about race, both candidates have plenty more to discuss.
