George Wallace Lives: Yet again Joe Conason gets it EXACTLY correct in his Salon.com article "The roots of Rand Paul's civil rights resentment." Link: http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/joe_conason/2010/05/21/racial/index.html

It is oftentimes not the right wing ideological candidate that is the frightening aspect but it is the nature and the essence of those on the right to whom they appeal for votes. I was around during the George Wallace campaign in 1968. It was a frightening spectacle as the man who said segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever thought he had a shot at the presidency. Later he said he regretted his racist politics. But the die was cast and its offspring are seen even to this day most vividly in the tea party movement.

The PHENOMENALLY frightening thing is that the Republican party, a mainstream party, has now adopted this perversion of American politics and appeals to the basest part of the American psyche. Why is this happening?

The easy answer is that electing a black president shocked the extreme right into action. Now it is even more threatening to an aspect of American pre-Civil War history that everyone thought was dead. It's not. It lives.

The Founders brought to this land certain FABULOUS ideals of the Enlightenment. Unfortunately they also brought the vile institution of slavery with them. Like its cousin antisemitism, racism against blacks never truly dies. The embers flicker waiting for the right social circumstances to set them ablaze.

A world-wide recession, staggering unemployment, unbridled national debt, a planet drifting into climatic chaos, a catastrophic polluting of our oceans, the perceived existential threat of radical Islam and oil the prime mover of international politics, the stage is set, the players are organizing and we who elected Barack Obama and Barack Obama himself BETTER take notice. Barack Obama must forcefully emerge as the great leader for whom I THOUGHT I voted. Strong and effective White House leadership is the ONLY way, as I see it, to neutralize this threat.

Yet again, blacks, Jews and humanitarians of all colors and religious or non-religious beliefs MUST walk hand in hand. Each of our interests should be, as it always was, united as one. We cannot rest because those who wish us ill do not sleep. They are a defective part of our nation's DNA. Like a cancer it never dies and without vigilance, unity and effective leadership it will kill.