Appearing as a guest on Wednesday's The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC, Time contributor and MSNBC analyst Toure asserted that Republican presidential candidate Herman Cain "serves a massive psychological purpose" for the GOP as he offers a "Herman Cain card" that can be used by Republicans when they are accused of racism.
He went on to charge that Cain is "giving comfort to racism."
Below is a transcript of the relevant exchange from the Wednesday, November 2, The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell on MSNBC:
TOURE, TIME CONTRIBUTOR: But this is a major moment for the GOP because Cain is a really important candidate - perhaps more important than any of the other candidates - because he serves a massive psychological purpose because there's a lot of people in the GOP who have been critical of Obama and have been made to feel that they are racist because of their criticism. Some of it has been racist, some of it's been reasonable, some of it's been business-as-usual Republican-Democrat stuff, okay.
Cain comes along offering salvation, liberation: You're not racist if you support Herman Cain. So now they have this Herman Cain card that they can throw at us anytime they are made to feel racist, so this is like a beautiful thing for them. So they need him to succeed as long as they can deal with him so that they can get their Cain card and make it as valuable as possible. But, of course, this whole transaction is a canard.
LAWRENCE O'DONNELL: In what way?
TOURE: Well, I mean, Cain is giving comfort to racism the way that he purports himself, as we've discussed before on this show, so, I mean, this is not the person that you can hold up as, well, see, I'm not a racist, I love Herman Cain.
