"One subject that gets barely a mention in 'Double Down' — because it played virtually no role in the 2012 campaign — is race."

"In a book that aspires to be, and largely succeeds in being, the dispositive (or do I mean definitive?) account of the election, that may be the most remarkable fact of all," writes Michael Kinsley in a review of Mark Halperin and John Heilemann's new book (which follows on their "Game Change," about the 2008 election).

Most of the review mocks their idiosyncratic writing style, which apparently inexplicably uses weird words — like "acuminate" and "coriaceous" — when normal words would do and distractingly substitutes nicknames — like "the Bay Stater" and "the Palmetto State" — when normal people would just say Romney, South Carolina, and so forth.

Kinsley also observes that the story of the 2012 election is so much less interesting than 2008. Do you even want to read a book about all the little details? Didn't we bat them around from day to day as they unfolded and while we were still thinking about what to do and in a position to influence others? The "Game Change" approach is a throwback to the old "Making of a President" series. Why do we need that today? Halperin and Heilemann did do a lot of interviews, so they can pass on, for example, lots of things Karl Rove would like to frame for your consumption. And they have at least one new-looking nugget: at least some thought was given to replacing Biden with Hillary on the Democratic ticket.

But I want to focus on this assertion that race played virtually no role in the 2012 campaign. Is that really true? I have a "racial politics" tag — it's one of my most frequently used tags — and I was observing the daily news throughout the years leading up to the November 2012 election. Here are the stories — relating only to the presidential campaigns — that jumped out at me (in reverse chronological order):

"Pre-assembling the excuses for Obama's defeat tomorrow. At Politico (with an 'if')... It all comes back to race..."

"The AP reports an increase in racial prejudice since 2008 (based on research that is at least somewhat scientific).... I'm guessing that AP thinks this material is helpful to Obama, perhaps guilt-tripping Americans into voting for Obama as a way to say I'm not racist."

"'Tragically, it seems the president feels boxed in by his blackness.'... Email from Tavis Smiley to NYT reporter Jodi Kantor, quoted in "For President, a Complex Calculus of Race and Politics."

"Shameful, lowly race-baiting... but who's doing it? So somebody got a picture of the back of a man — no face, no name — in a T-shirt that says — on the back — 'Put the White Back in the White House.'"

"Biden 'will surely take it to Ryan on... his statement yesterday that inner-city kids need to be taught "good discipline" and "character."' Writes John Cassidy, in The New Yorker, observing that tonight's VP debate is high stakes."

"'You’re an unemployed black woman endorsing @MittRomney. You’re voting against yourself thrice. You poor beautiful idiot.' Twitter pushback against Stacey Dash, an actress who tweeted 'vote for Romney. The only choice for your future.'"

"'Just How Racist Is the 'Obama Phone' Video?'... Decent people whose rational minds would reject explicit racial material can be emotionally manipulated. They get their fears stirred up. If this is what Romney supporters think they need to do to get their man elected, I hope they fail."

"'Black Woman Gets Standing Ovation at RNC — Media Silence; Two Bozos Throw Peanuts — Media Frenzy.' 2 incidents..."

"Who's playing the playing-the-race-card card? It's hard to tell who, if anybody, is playing the race card. But lots of people are playing the playing-the-race-card card.

"'No one's ever asked to see my birth certificate. They know that this is the place where we were born and raised.'... I'm seeing some charges that this was a "birther" joke and even that it was racist."

"Romney and Ryan are 'two look-alike white guys with aggressively groomed hair.' Says Robin Givhan..."

"'I’d like to feel sorry for NBC for coming under such a plainly false accusation of racial intent. Except it’s what NBC does to others all the time, including when dealing with Mitt Romney....'"

"'Culture Does Matter,' writes Mitt Romney... pushing back efforts to make it seem racist to say that nations prosper when their culture has certain qualities that Israel has and the Palestinians lack."

"Racializing Romney. The press is."

"The GOP's 'most dangerous' ad: 'He tried. You tried. It’s OK to make a change.'... 'I’ve received more than a few e-mails and tweets from folks complaining that they are branded racist if they disagree with anything the president says or does....'"

"'Mr. President, take your campaign of division and anger and hate back to Chicago.' Romney responds to some sheer idiocy from Biden.... 'Romney wants to... unchain Wall Street,' Biden said. 'They’re going to put y’all back in chains.'"

"Matt Taibbi 'wants conservatives to conceal their views for fear of being seen as racist — to act as if they are guilty.'"

"'[I]f they want more stuff from government tell them to go vote for the other guy — more free stuff.'... This is a Romney quote that is getting a lot of play right now, notably from Matt Taibbi at Rolling Stone, who goes all racial... 'If you live long enough, you’ll see some truly gross things in politics, but Mitt Romney’s work this past week 'courting black support' was enough to turn even the strongest stomach.'"

"Why is the Condi-for-VP rumor being floated?... It helps offset the story about Romney getting booed at the NAACP convention, which conveyed the vague message that Romney has nothing to offer black people."

"Nancy Pelosi says Mitt Romney wanted to get booed at the NAACP convention. It was 'a calculated move.'"

"Why did the NYT publish a very long article on the white people in Michelle Obama's ancestry?"

"Eric Holder 'implies that Jim Crow is on the cusp of a comeback' — why?... 'Mr. Holder's Council of Black Churches address is merely the latest of his election-year moves that charge racial discrimination of one kind or another.'

"NYT digs back 3 years into the photo files to find something super-sentimental... in a touching effort at boosting the Obama reelection campaign." (Photo of Obama bending over to let a small black child feel his hair.)

"'Black Mormons and the Politics of Identity.' Another NYT article about Mormons and the presidential election."

"The NYT accuses American voters of opposing Obama because he's black."

"'Herman Cain Played the Race Card, But Liberals Are the Ones Who Dealt It.'"

"Adam Serwer doubles down on race after WaPo played its embarrassingly weak race card on Rick Perry.... And the Democratic template is to reassure Democrats that the Republicans have a race problem. That's what the Washington Post was doing, and that's what Serwer is doing now."

"'Lots of photos of Perry having nothing whatsoever to do with this story, and not a single one of the rock. Well done, WP!' The first comment at a Washington Post article about how Rick Perry, early in his career, used to host events at a hunting camp where there was a rock that had the word 'Niggerhead' painted on it."

"A 'more insidious form of racism' — replacing the old 'naked, egregious and aggressive' racism — is now undermining Barack Obama. As perceived in The Nation by polisci prof Melissa Harris-Perry.... Harris-Perry, applying some standard political science tests and failing to detect racism, says 'electoral racism cannot be reduced solely to its most egregious, explicit form. It has proved more enduring and baffling than these results can capture.'"

"'Democrats must be in trouble if The Daily Beast is running a headline "White Supremacist Stampede"... Nine white supremacist candidates? In the whole country? With its multi-hundred million dollar endowment, [The Southern Poverty Law Center] only could find nine candidates?'"

"Why did Cornel West call Obama 'a black mascot of Wall Street oligarchs and a black puppet of corporate plutocrats'?"

"The NYT calls the 'birther' issue 'a baseless attack with heavy racial undertones.'"

"NPR exec Ron Schiller on the Tea Party: 'they believe in sort of white, middle-America gun-toting. I mean, it’s scary. They’re seriously racist, racist people.'"

Thought experiment: To fix Obamacare, Obama should bring in Mitt Romney.

Yes, the arguments against this rush to mind:

1. Romney is a member of the opposition party... but that's also a plus: We could have a real show of bipartisanship and of genuinely wanting to make this legislation work for the benefit of the American people, not just to make it look good at the right times and in the right ways to bolster the power of the Democratic Party.

2. When he was running for President, Romney said he wanted to repeal Obamacare...  but he was working with the preferences of the GOP base and needed to win the nomination. He distanced himself from his history of making Romneycare work by saying he'd been Governor of Massachusetts, working with the preferences of the people of Massachusetts. This suggests that he's a practical, able man who understands the task he's been assigned and sincerely applies his expertise.

3. Romney wouldn't want to help Obama, who defeated him in the election... but Romney's image is of a public servant who wants to do good works for the benefit of all. He isn't — or at least shouldn't — want to seem like a guy with a grudge.

4. Romney should stand clear of the spectacular collapse of Obamacare. Really? Isn't this like his signature achievement, saving the Olympics? The magnitude of the disaster and the importance of avoiding it are exactly what should attract Romney. "He saved the Olympics and he saved Obamacare" — wouldn't he want that legacy?

5. Obama wouldn't want Romney showing up on the scene now as the savior. Obama is too narcissistic, too peevish to call out to the older man for help. Maybe. But Obama would be the President, and he could look very magnanimous and wise. He could finally seem to be doing what a lot of us thought he was about when we voted for him in 2008 — bringing us together.

6. Everyone, right and left, would cry out in horror or at least puzzlement. And what a distraction that would be.

Is the old Obama campaign slideshow "Life of Julia" anywhere to be found on the web?

Back in May 2012, everyone was talking about that graphic depiction of the benefits of various government programs. Remember?

Barack Obama has a new composite girlfriend, and her name is Julia. Her story is told in an interactive feature titled "The Life of Julia" on the Obama campaign website. Julia, who has no face, is depicted at various ages from 3 through 67, enjoying the benefits of various Obama-backed welfare-state programs.

I have something I'd like to say about it, but I can't find it anywhere on the web. It's not at the link everyone linked to when everyone was talking about it, which was at the Obama campaign website. The campaign is over, so I guess there's no obligation to continue to host it, but this was an important historical document, and it shouldn't fall down the memory hole.

"The Life of Julia" has come to be cited — somewhat humorously — for the proposition that the government has lured women away from men, into a dependent relationship with the government, and this has had various ill effects. But I want to take a new look at why the graphic used a female character. Using a female screened out the reality that males rely on government programs too.

I'm annoyed not to be able to find the actual slideshow. (It's less annoying than the way the Obamacare website doesn't work. Is Obama ashamed of "The Life of Julia" or just unable to do internet?)

Bumper stickers in a Lincoln, Nebraska parking lot.

Car #1 (click to enlarge): 3 Pro-Life stickers + "Abolish the IRS."



Car #2: Obama hugs Michelle for "Four more years."

Why didn't Romney... why didn't the Republicans... root out these Obama scandals before the last election?

Why wasn't the opposition party oppositional enough? Where was the supervision? Why did Romney crumple mid-attack in the second debate? Where was the vigilance? Where was the vigor? Where was the outrage? The American people were deprived of a fair election, and the Republicans — who presumably wanted to get the President's hands off the machinery of power — didn't see what was being done or they didn't want to talk about it or — to voice the last and paranoid-sounding option — they were complicit.

Here's a list — to be lengthened — of things that might have happened:

1. The President's machinations were so devious and brilliant and that it was just too hard for the Republicans to uncover them in time to enlighten the voters.

2. The Republicans had good reason to believe that the American people resisted thinking ill of the famously likeable President and so they pursued campaign strategies that allowed people to maintain this treasured belief. Their idea was: He's a nice guy but it would be good to switch to this other person who's also nice and will do an even better job. That's lame, we can see in retrospect, but it was the decision at the time.

3. The Democrats' theme was the meanness of Republicans, and muckracking and mudslinging would have risked reinforcing that theme. It seemed like a better bet to stay clean, especially once the scrappier candidates — Gingrich and Santorum — lost out to the gentlemanly Romney.

4. Obama's prime target was the Tea Party (which had crushed him in the 2010 midterms), and the establishment Republicans were at odds with the Tea Party movement. I'm not saying I believe this, but sober reflection tells us we need to redraw the line between paranoia and vigilance. The theory is that establishment Republicans appreciated the suppression of the Tea Party.

"The same IRS office that deliberately targeted conservative groups applying for tax-exempt status in the run-up to the 2012 election..."

"...  released nine pending confidential applications of conservative groups to ProPublica late last year....  In response to a request for the applications for 67 different nonprofits last November, the Cincinnati office of the IRS sent ProPublica applications or documentation for 31 groups. Nine of those applications had not yet been approved—meaning they were not supposed to be made public.... no unapproved applications from liberal groups were sent to ProPublica.”

"President Barack Obama expressed gratitude last week to former President Jimmy Carter's grandson..."

"... who had a role in leaking secretly-recorded video of Mitt Romney's infamous '47%' comments, James Carter said Thursday on CNN."

"Now the South is becoming isolated again."

"Every demographic and political trend that helped to reëlect Barack Obama runs counter to the region’s self-definition.... The Solid South speaks less and less for America and more and more for itself alone."

Writes some guy from a region where they use umlauts.