(updated below - Update II) In the post below , I referenced an angry defense of the McCain/Palin campaign from Politico 's Jonathan Martin, who mocked accusations that the McCain campaign was exploiting racist themes as nothing more than the by-product of "the outrage industry, ever on the lookout for any sign of racism and quick to pounce even when it's not there." To do so, Martin dismissed a truly vile and overtly racist newspaper article (.pdf) written by Bobby May -- McCain's County Chairman in Buchanan County, Virginia and former GOP County Treasurer -- as nothing more than "one isolated piece from a low-level party activist in a rural paper." Today, Time 's Karen Tumulty reports on what she heard after being invited by the McCain campaign to observe its "ground game" in Southern Virginia. Tumulty reports on a speech she heard delivered to gathered McCain volunteers by the Chairman of the Virginia Republican Party, Jeffrey M. Frederick -- no "low-level party activist" he: With so much at stake, and time running short, Frederick did not feel he had the luxury of subtlety. He climbed atop a folding chair to give 30 campaign volunteers who were about to go canvassing door to door their talking points — for instance, the connection between Barack Obama and Osama bin Laden: "Both have friends that bombed the Pentagon," he said. "That is scary." After noting that this is "not exactly true," Tumulty described how that accusat ...
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