I should really be participating in the Oslo Freedom Forum, but I can’t take my eyes off American politics entirely — and I am a little ticked. This necessitates blogging.

I see a headline: “Pro-Hagan Flier Uses Lynching Image, Warns Of ‘Obama’s Impeachment’ If Democrat Loses.” (Article here.) The headline relates to the North Carolina Senate race, and the “Hagan” is the Democratic nominee, the incumbent senator, Kay Hagan.

I cannot help thinking of Ellen Sauerbrey, a woman I admire. She ran against Parris Glendening, the governor of Maryland, in 1998. The race was close — until the final days, when Glendening and the Democrats unleashed a campaign depicting Ellen as a racist. Team Glendening was headed by Bob Shrum, that toxic force in American politics, for so many years.

There was a flier. It showed a scene from 1960s Alabama, with black citizens being bitten by police dogs, as white cops looked on.

There were television ads, too, of course. They said that Ellen wanted to “turn back the clock” on civil rights, and that “the real Ellen Sauerbrey” had “a civil-rights record to be ashamed of.”

Let me quote the Washington Post, in a campaign post-mortem (“mortem” being the operative word, for Ellen):

One campaign ad showed a mural of Africa, while stating that Sauerbrey opposed hate crime legislation — without mentioning that the bill dealt only with sexual orientation, not race.
Sauerbrey did oppose a 1992 civil rights bill, but it was killed by the Democratic-controlled Senate, largely because lawmakers said they were concerned that it would have allowed heavy sexual harassment fines on business owners without a jury trial. Glendening’s ads didn’t mention that.

Anyway, they smeared Ellen as a racist, and it worked — worked like a charm. It put Glendening over the top. Black voters marched to the polls, in order to stop this racist woman whom they had heard about.

Later, Ellen said to me something like this — I’m paraphrasing, but closely: “It’s one thing if a campaign lies about an opponent’s view of tax policy or road construction or something. That’s not very nice, but then the election happens, and everybody goes on. Not much harm done. If you lie about a person’s racial views, there’s a lingering effect. The lie corrodes society. It makes race relations worse. It makes it harder for society to heal, after all these years, all these decades.”

That 1998 campaign in Maryland made me an admirer of Kurt Schmoke, the mayor of Baltimore — a Democrat and the first black person to be mayor of that city. After his fellow Democrats began their smear of Ellen, he said, “I will not participate in a campaign to try to persuade people that she is a racist.” He also said he knew the “difference between a political conservative and a racist.”

A stand-up guy. I have never forgotten his comments in the final, despicable days of that campaign.

Back to Shrum for a minute. In 1996, he worked against Ward Connerly’s Civil Rights Initiative in California. You remember CRI: It essentially copied the language of the 1964 Civil Rights Act. And you will remember that Connerly is a black civil-rights leader, incredibly brave, standing up for equality of opportunity and equality under the law.

Naturally, Shrum put up an ad against him showing David Duke (the Klansman) and a burning cross.

This is what Democrats do, and will always do — always. Until the electorate proves to them it doesn’t work.

When will that be?