Errin Haines

The same newspaper that succeeded in felling Sen. George Allen (R-Va.) with its constant drumbeat of the "macaca" kerfuffle and which tried but failed to scuttle Bob McDonnell's 2009 run for Virginia governor with Thesisgate is ginning up its spin operation in service of the Democrats once again, looking forward 11 months into the future with the 2013 gubernatorial election in the Old Dominion.

Witness the November 29 front-pager by Errin Haines and Laura Vozzella entitled "Choice for governor of Va. may be stark." Right off the bat, we have bias by labeling which casts the Republican as an ideologue and the Democrat as a pragmatist.

A search on Travyvon Martin's name (not in quotes) at the Associated Press's main national site at 7 p.m. returned 37 items.

A search on "Trayvon Martin bounty" (also not in quotes) returned one item. Here is the relevant section of the related story by Jennifer Kay and Errin Haines, way down in Paragraphs 13 and 14:

Yesterday, Tim Graham at NewsBusters did an excellent job of addressing a key aspect of a report submitted by Associated Press reporter Errin Haines, who is African-American, of the presidential campaign of Herman Cain, who is also African-American. Haines questioned "voters' ability to look past his skin color and perceive him as a serious candidate."

Herman Cain attended the We The People Convention in Columbus, Ohio this past weekend. He arrived late Friday afternoon, and was greeted by several hundred attendees who were still there after the day's breakout presentations had ended (total attendance was reportedly "about 1,000", according to Joe Hallett at the Columbus Dispatch; I heard a number of 1,100 from a person affiliated with the event). For Errin Haines's benefit, I can attest that every one there looked past the man's skin color and perceives him to be a serious candidate. Cain also was the featured speaker at the event's concluding dinner on Saturday night.

There are three other aspects of Haines's report which I found quite offensive, and I will air them after the jump.

AP reporter Errin Haines couldn't possibly think that being black makes you an un-serious presidential candidate. She's black. But that was the mysterious echo in her (mostly positive) story on GOP contender Herman Cain. Perhaps she meant that a black Republican can't possibly be anything more than a token or a gimmick? Her third paragraph:

Already losing some of his cachet to tea party favorite Michele Bachmann, Cain, the lone African-American GOP candidate, is trying to win over a party that hasn't had a black nominee. Sidestepping race as an issue in his campaign may have helped him gain momentum in recent weeks, but whether he can turn vigor into votes will depend largely on voters' ability to look past his skin color and perceive him as a serious candidate.