I've lost any respect I had for David Axelrod.

You know, the campaign for Rahm Emanuel has made me lose any respect I had for David Axelrod.

I had never thought too much about Axelrod, but I guess I had kind of admired him by default b/c of his association with Obama.

Rahm, however, is the worst kind of corrupt politician, who sticks it to the vulnerable like schoolkids and the mentally ill, and then turns around and uses that money as handouts to the wealthy, who give him campaign contributions in turn.

Then, he lies and says he's doing it all to benefit the city, and is able to afford a sizable disinformation campaign to ram his bias through to underinformed voters.

Anyhow, the focus of the Axelrod-directed anti-Garcia campaign is Garcia's competence, and I think it implicitly plays up the fact that he has an accent and is non-white.

Last Friday after chaperoning a student trip, I met a friend for a quick drink, and he was out with a (white) (gay) acquaintance.

We began talking politics - as I shouldn't - and my friend's acquaintance would just parrot the anti-Garcia shit from TV, and no matter how many times I nicely pointed out the great things Garcia had done at multiple levels of politics, the guy was like, "But is he really savvy enough?".

The impression I kept getting is that the ads had played into this guy's racism, and had stoked his underlying emotions that when you really get down to it, any non-white person will never truly be competent.

I said as much to him, and he wasn't happy.

Stepping back, I wonder how much damage Axelrod has done to race relations in the city, through this $30 million racebaiting media blitz.

What a sellout.

And it's even worse that Obama had to endorse Rahm.

He should have sat this one out, and it makes me question his judgment too.