IIRC, there are still a lot of Greeks and Italians in Illinois (my family being one of them) so I really don't understand what Kirk thinks bashing Greeks and Italians is going to get him other than an ass-kicking in November.

Alexi should invite him to lunch at Gino's East, and present him with a copy of "My Big Fat Greek Wedding" and a b ottle of Windex

Doesn't Illinois, especially Chicago, have a lot of ethnic voters? Southernm Europeans and such? Seems like a dumb strategy.

"an argument that's so unusually dumb it's hard to believe so many conservatives make it"

Correction:

"an argument that's so unusually dumb it's hard to believe MORE conservatives DON'T make it"

Mobsters? Italian accents? The Sopranos! If Kirk can't even get an ethnic stereotype about the Greeks right, this campaign is going to go even further downhill.

Doesn't Illinois, especially Chicago, have a lot of ethnic voters?

Except that as close as 60 miles away from the city, you might as well be in Iowa. There are residents of the Kankakee area who are literally afraid to drive into the city.

The fear card plays with a substantial fraction of Illinois voters and downstate is just entrenched R as the city is D.

It's not your imagination, Steve. In case it isn't abundantly clear to everyone at this point, Republican strategy for the midterms has been "all xenophobia, all the time" for the past several months. They have no new policy ideas, and their old ideas caused The Great Recession, so they're running as dog whistle race hucksters.

Think about it. The Arizona immigrant law. Shirley Sherrod. The New Black Panthers. Beheadings on the border. The ACORN pimp videos. Beck's "Martin Luther Who?" rally. The Park51/Cordoba House insanity. Barack Obama's a Muslim. Anchor babies and the 14th Amendment.

It's the Angry White Götterdämmerung.

It was not so long ago that it was a matter of dispute as to whether Greeks were, in fact, "white" here in the United States. Only somebody named Kirk (Scotch?) would think to question it now. That's the GOP slogan "Guarding the boundaries of Whiteness for 50 years"

America for Americans!

(And you know what I mean!)

Ok, since people might be afraid of the city, how about debates at diners throughout the state--and let the voters ask the questions?

And maybe a discussion between them over lunch--you know the house special, "Greek Salad".

Of course Kirk is playing on anti-ethnic fears. And Paul Dirks is correct: those play really effectively downstate.

But the mobster thing isn't related to Giannoulias's ethnicity -- at least, not wholly in the way that Kirk is using it. The GOP is playing the mobster card because Giannoulias's bank did business with Chicago Outfit guys. That's something that hasn't gotten a lot of media play outside of Illinois, but it's a big thing to people here.

Um, am I the only one here who remembers the campaign Bush 41 ran against Michael Dukakis? "He opposes making school children say the pledge of allegiance! Why does he hate our flag?" "He let a scary black man out of prison on furlough! Willie Horton, Willie Horton, Willie Horton!" And in the charming words of Tammy Wynette (I think) or some other country singer who introduced him at a campaign event, "As fer that other fella that's runnin, ah cain't even say his name." Yes, Greek heritage will do if you're trying to paint someone as not quite American enough, and it's not by any remote stretch of the imagination a new strategy.

in kirk's defense, at least he hasn't done a mashup of rushbo's "grab your ankles," and "lookout, he's greek!"

Kirk's strategy may work downstate (which has always gone Repub)
but I don't think it's going to get much traction in Chicago, where the votes are. And he's totally lost the Greektown vote.

Have very fond memories of Greek restraunts in Chicago. Lots of good food and drink.
Is there any minority that the GOP won't attack?

Am I reaching, or is "Greek" also intended to imply "homosexual?" The list of codewords for gay is as long as the list for foreign or black, you know.

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"Unrelated to ethnicity?" You mean, ads with guys in Hollywood versions of Italo-American dialects talkin' about the guy with the Greektalian (whatever) name as a "wise guy" and comparing him favorably to "Tony Soprano" (a fictional mafia character on a long-running show that celebrated America's conflation of Italian-American families with organized crime).

'Ey, I laugha so hard I spitta my spaghetti all over the keyboard.

"Unrelated to ethnicity?"

As I said, not wholly related to ethnicity.

Regardless of the bigoted intention behind these ads, Giannoulias gave them an opening by doing business with Outfit guys. That's a problem for him here, even (and sometimes especially) among people with Italian surnames. Don't kid yourself that it's not.

No one in Illinois thinks Giannoulias isn't a sleaze. Our hope is that enough people will realize that adding to the insane and lockstep obstructionist GOP caucus is far more dangerous than voting for the shady Democrat.