Chris Matthews is bracing for a potential Obama defeat next November, and he's ready to lay the blame for an Obama loss on racist white voters who supposedly hold black politicians to a higher standard than white politicians.
In a segment this afternoon with Michael Eric Dyson and James Peterson, the "Hardball" host laid out his theory that "some white voters" will often give a black politician just one term in office but refuse to vote for their reelection unless they do "really, really good" in office.
[Video and transcript follow below, emphasis mine; MP3 audio here]
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Professor Peterson, let me ask you about white votes.
Do you have a sense as you've looked at politics in America that there are some white voters who will vote for an African-American say once? And they will hold that person to a very rigorous standard. Perhaps a much higher standard than they would a white politician.
And they'll give them one shot and then they'll dump them the next time.
I look at this, I look at the Ed Brooke. I look at the senator from Illinois. I think about this--
MICHAEL ERIC DYSON: Carol Moseley Braun
MATTHEWS: Yeah, Carol Moseley Braun. I wonder if this is a phenomenon you professors have looked at analytically at all, this sense of, okay, you've got your shot, but let's see you do it, if it isn't really, really good, you know, you're out of there.
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