U.S. Senate candidate Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, a black Maryland conservative, is being subjected to derogatory racial attacks fellow blacks, which Democrats are now trying to pin on the GOP.
One of Steele’s opponents, former Rep. Kweisi Mfume (D.-Md.) and former CEO of the NAACP, doesn’t see anything wrong with the attacks. Mfune’s spokesman said Democrats throwing Oreo cookies at Steele and calling him an “Uncle Tom” were acceptable because the acts were “pointing out the obvious.”
The slurs even spread to New York when Steve Gillard, a black liberal blogger at News Blog, published a doctored photo of Steele as a black-faced minstrel calling him “Simple Sambo.”
Mfume, a potential general election opponent of Steele's, was joined by Rep. Ben Cardin (D.-Md.) this week to dismiss the controversy. Cardin, who is also seeking the Senate seat, said during an appearance at a black church that Republicans were trying to make race an issue in the campaign.
