t's that time of year again - scary tricks time. No, I'm not talking about Halloween. This October, it's the Democratic race-baiters - not the ghosts and goblins - who are attempting to scare the American people.
Desperately afraid that Al Gore might lose the election, and knowing that a strong voter turnout among African-Americans remains critical to a Democratic win, Gore's supporters last week released a supposedly independent advertisement that gives new meaning to the term ''race-baiting.''
The ad is as powerful as it is vicious. It starts with a grainy black and white picture of a pickup truck dragging a chain behind it. Viewers can't see what the chain is dragging, but the implication is clear. Then, a voice. It is the daughter of James Byrd, the man dragged to death in Jasper, Texas. She says, ''When George Bush vetoed hate crimes legislation, it was like my father was killed all over again.''
Wow. I guess this is what is known as ''energizing the base.''
The tactic is not new. In 1998, Democrats ran radio advertisements which suggested that anything other than a vote for the Democrats was a vote in favor of church burning. The new pickup truck commercial sends an equally demagogic message - that a vote for George W. Bush is a vote for racial hatred.
This, of course, is ridiculous. Reasonable people, including liberals, can and do differ on the wisdom of expanded hate crimes legislation. (After all, two of the barbarians who murdered Byrd were sentenced to death. The other received a life sentence. What would a hate crimes law have added?) But Gore and his supporters are not interested in a reasoned dialogue on the issue. They are interested in winning an election. And so, in order to get out the vote, they resort to scare tactics that fan the flames of racial mistrust.
Unfortunately, this is not the first time that Gore or his surrogates have suggested that opposition to the left's social agenda indicates implicit approval of gruesome crimes. Indeed, in a 1998 speech to the NAACP, Gore demanded to know what opponents of racial preferences thought about the brutal murder of a black man in Virginia by two white men - as if, somehow, they were responsible for the crime, or otherwise approved of it.
Gore used a similarly divisive tactic against his primary opponent, former New Jersey Senator Bill Bradley, during their debate at the Apollo Theater. In that encounter, Bradley legitimately asked why Gore had not persuaded President Clinton to outlaw racial profiling by executive order.
Rather than address the question, Gore blamed his opponent, hollering that ''Racial profiling practically began in New Jersey, Senator Bradley.''
This past January, a controversy erupted when Gore campaign manager Donna Brazile suggested that General Colin Powell and Representative J. C. Watts are Uncle Toms. Powell wrote to Gore to express his offense and to urge the vice president not to ''play the polarizing race card.'' But Gore stood by Brazile, telling the ''Today'' show that he only ''regretted the way [Powell had] heard Donna's comments.''
Even before he had launched his campaign in earnest, Gore was known for his contempt of anyone who dared to question the liberal line on racial issues. He has repeatedly mocked critics of affirmative action, suggesting that their use of the term ''color-blind'' is a code-word for a return to Jim Crow.
In a 1998 speech to a mostly black audience, Gore took poetic license with the song ''Amazing Grace,'' bellowing from his pulpit: ''We see through your color blinds! Amazing grace also saved me! Was color-blind, but now I see!''
Gore's visible contempt for those who disagree with his positions on hate-crimes legislation and government quotas stands in sharp contrast to his willingness to cozy up to black racists. He has met privately with Al Sharpton and refuses to condemn the hate-mongering of this infamous demagogue. Indeed, when asked during one of the Democratic primary debates whether he would condemn Sharpton's extreme views, Gore stated that he ''would not be so quick to completely dismiss what [Sharpton] has to say'' about issues of race in America.
Considered in this context, perhaps the hateful pickup truck advertisement should come as no surprise. For it is, in fact, part of a pattern and practice of racial demagoguery by a man who seeks not to heal America's racial divide, but to exploit it for personal gain.
Jennifer C. Braceras is an attorney and research fellow at Harvard Law School. Her column appears regularly in the Globe.
