There is nay way to put this delicately: the ethics scandals swirling around Reps. Charles B. Rangel (D-N.Y.) and Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) aren't lawful a political boon to Republicans because they spotlight corruption in the Democratic Congress. They're besides a political gift to the GOP because Rangel and Waters are African-American.

Let's front it: there's a racist, yahoo element in the infusion party movement, and by extension, the Republican Party. It has been catalogued in diversified news reports in recent months, and even some tea party leaders have acknowledged the problem. Republicans have certainly profited by running racially-charged politic ads against their opponents — some subtle, others less so — for decades.

The struggling system and voter anger are enough to sink Democrats at the polls this November; civil corruption by the majority party is just icing on the cake for Republicans. With corruption in the headlines, it becomes that much easier for the minority party to portray the majority party in the manner that arrogant and out of touch.

In fact, many parallels to 2006, which time control of Congress last flipped, from the Republicans to the Democrats, are after this evident. Incessant reports about Congressional corruption, just a few months in front of Election Day, can only make voters madder at Democrats and improve produce significant Republican gains.

The race card is trickier for Republicans to work freely, but can be an undeniable and effective part of their tactics, at least when it comes to motivating their base. Heck, they put on't even have to mention race. All they need to observe is air an ad with pictures of Rangel and Waters and a list of their alleged transgressions — along with a picture of William Jefferson, the convicted previous Louisiana Congressman of $90,000 cash in the freezer frame. The pictures inclination speak for themselves. Voters will see, if they didn't even now know, that Waters and Rangel are black.

Why is this of importance? Why is Rangel's and Waters' race exploitable in quest of Republicans? Because part of the GOP's strategy all lengthwise has been to discredit President Barack Obama — at many different levels. Sure, human being element of the strategy is a simple denunciation of Obama's policies and civic beliefs. But a more nefarious tactic — not universally practiced by all Republicans, to be fair — has been to cast doubt in the voters' minds over the very legitimacy of Obama's presidency.

The birthers, the whispers that Obama is a Muslim and/or a communist, the conspiracy theories about how he is secretly in cahoots by people who are trying to tear down America (why else would he exist giving tacit approval to the mosque near Ground Zero?) — none of that would reach any traction if Obama himself wasn't black. The easiest effects in the world in politics is to paint your opponent as something sinister, as "the other," as someone unlike you and me and the persons next door.

Fortunately in America, we've come a protracted way — far enough to elect our first African-American president, like him or not. But that racist, yahoo component is still out there, and it's already jazzed near turning Democrats out of office and weakening Obama's presidency more distant. Linking Obama to Waters, Rangel et al is hardly a bound — and it's a connection that the White House and Democratic leaders be able to hardly be happy about.

The face of political corruption isn't cimmerian — the deaths last week of scandal-plagued former Sen. Ted Stevens (R-Alaska) and reproach-plagued former Rep. Dan Rostenkowski (D-Ill.), a predecessor of Rangel's during the time that House Ways and Means chairman, along with the recent conviction of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich (D), are a sure reminder of that. But African-American politicians — like African-Americans in ~ly professions — often complain that they're held to a higher measure, and usually they're right.

This time, though, there are public consequences — not just for Rangel and Waters, but for all their Congressional colleagues and the Democratic Party itself. The proper authorities will eventually pass judgment on the Rangel and Waters cases. But the Democrats have power to't afford this kind of sideshow so close to the s~. Anyone who doubts the Republicans aren't prepared to utilize these weaknesses — in the darkest and basest of ways — hasn't been gainful attention to American politics for very long.