Indiana mayor makes racially-charged accusation against Obama camp

On the surface, it is an innocent, almost feel-good story:

Gary officials said they were busing in hundreds of high schools students to vote in advance of the May 6 primary as a learning experience.

The Times of Northwest Indiana reported today that Gary high school students are culminating a unit of civics education by participating in early voting in Lake County, Indiana.

But thanks to the comments of Mayor Thomas McDermott, Jr. of Hammond, Indiana about the experience -- a  mayor who was re-elected in a city of 100,000 with only 4,500 votes last November -- the story takes an ugly, seemingly racist twist.

"To me it seems like an orchestrated effort on behalf of the Obama campaign to take kids who should be in school learning to read and write, instead giving them a day off and telling them to vote for Obama.

"When you corral kids together and ship them to polling places, it's completely unethical. I think Sen. Obama should distance himself from this type of behavior," McDermott said.

McDermott, Jr., who has vocally endorsed Hillary Clinton and hosted her March 28th visit to the city, is white. He is assuming, because these kids are from Gary and mostly African-American, that they are being told to vote for Obama.

What McDermott obviously didn't know is that many Gary students have been casting votes the same way for three years now.

Personally, I find his statement repulsive and disgusting. Earlier today, The Times of Northwest Indiana had another quote from Mayor McDermott about Gary schools underperforming to state standards as another reason these kids should not have been take to cast votes, but it was edited from the article. Hammond's high school graduation rates, by the way, range from 36% to 70%, below the state average of 76%.

The Indiana Obama campaign provided The Times with a reply to McDermott's charges:

Kevin Griffis, a spokesman for U.S. Sen. Barack Obama's Hoosier campaign, responded, "Those comments don't reflect the facts and shouldn't we be applauding our schools for encouraging our children to get involved in their civic duties?"

What would the American Federation of Teachers, who have endorsed Hillary Clinton, think of Mayor McDermott's comments?

What would Hillary Clinton think, who had this to say to a group of Haverford (Pa.) College students last week?

"I want to thank you for caring enough to skip a class," she said to cheers and applause.

"I went to Wellesley, and as soon as it got warm enough, we just blew it off," she said to more laughter and applause. "We just figured, you know, there had to be a higher calling."

There are nearly 200 reader comments attached to the story, in less than one day garnering at least twice as many comments as most stories ever get over the course of a week or two.

Clinton's Indiana campaign needs to answer for their surrogate's insensitive remarks. Granted, there are many racists in the area who will vote for her because of Mayor McDermott's comments, but if the world could see what was going on here, perhaps they'd take some positive action.