In an appearance on the Fox Business Network Tuesday night, former Alabama Democratic Rep. Artur Davis, who is considering a run for the U.S. House in northern Virginia, reacted to remarks by Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in which Reid seemed to speculate that Republican opposition to the president’s agenda may be based on race.
Davis likened Reid’s most recent comments, and others he has made in the past, to the late-1970s, early-1980s Life cereal commercials featuring “Mikey,” who will eat anything.
“You know, the first thing I thought about, Neil, when I heard Harry Reid’s comment, remember that old commercial they used to have on the air, when we were kids, where the older brothers would take the cereal they didn’t want and they give it to the younger brother, Mikey,” Davis explained. “And they’d say ‘give it to Mikey. He will eat anything.’ Well, Harry Reid is the — give it to Harry, he will say anything guy of American politics.”
Davis noted Reid’s lengthy history of making outrageous statements, including some about race. Mark Halperin and John Heilemann said in their 2010 book, “Game Change,” that Reid described Obama as a “light skinned” African-American “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one.”
“Let’s not forget that last year, Harry Reid was running around the country spreading unsubstantiated rumors about Mitt Romney’s taxes, refusing to put forward any evidence for it,” Davis continued. “Let’s not forget that in 2008 Harry Reid was making unsubstantiated smears about John McCain’s character. This is what this guy does. And, of course, it’s especially outrageous when he does that in the context of what continues to be a serious subject in America… race. But this is who Harry Reid is — this is a guy who will say anything and then run from it — and, of course, let’s also not forget that seven years ago, this is the guy who said that Barack Obama was notable because he was the rare African-American politician who did not speak in Harry Reid’s words, quote unquote, ‘Negro dialect.’”
According to Davis, the opposition to Obama is much more nuanced than Reid is willing to admit, particularly with regard to the president’s 2010 health care law.
“Let’s put this in perspective — 50 percent of the country right now disapproves of the job Barack Obama is doing,” Davis explained. “And if you go to that 50 percent of Americans who represent every strand of the spectrum from conservative Democrats, who are looking at ObamaCare and realizing it is not doing anything it promised to do… to younger Americans who are having to try to find the job in this very stagnant economy, to all kinds of Americans who don’t see this administration keeping its promises in issue after issue — If you ask that 50 percent of Americans, ‘Jeez, do you think you are racist for not approving of the job the president is doing?’ Obviously, they don’t buy that.”
“So, Harry Reid doesn’t say these things to persuade people,” Davis said in conclusion. “He says these things to put Republicans on the defensive, and he says these things to make Republicans have to back paddle and have to get defensive about these things. He is not trying to persuade a single human being.”
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