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In four score and seven years.

He'll be dead by then.

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But when they reanimate him, it'll be just like a trade.

If this is Real, Rick Santorum is Done. Doesn't really matter what he meant to say, a gaffe like this could be insurmountable.

March 29th, 2012

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"I have had craps that make my leg feel like it is being torn off
by a pack of angry chihuahuas, lets hope that is all it is...." -wart57
"Good lord. This is a family site." - G Keenan

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Doesn't sound that way to me at all. Sounds like "anti-war, government-nik". Awkward phrase, and he stumbled right over it, but in the context the n-word doesn't make much sense. And again it doesn't even sound to me like that's where he was going.

Here's the whole speech:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nzyvo8SKa0M

That bit happens around 34:30. I wouldn't be shocked if he did that to try to tap into some of the sentiment that was carrying Newt in South Carolina while being short enough to plausibly claim that wasn't what he meant to say.

But nevertheless, on what planet is being "antiwar" is a bad thing?

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My trouble with things like this is that white people in white-only gatherings don't go around dropping the n-word in my experience. I've lived and worked many different kinds of places and the only environment I've ever heard it used was when I worked at my friend's Dad's business where we restored and delivered pool tables, jukeboxes, vending machines, etc... most of the employees were southern lower-income working-class people. Two or three of them would drop the term with some regularity. I've lived and gone to school with the children of white Republican, country-club types. Hung around with them and their parents. Been around my mom's family who are all lower-middle class southern white people. Been around my dad's family who are lower to middle class white midwestern people. In all those places I never heard the n-word, aside from my mom's dad who was unquestionably racist. (if he saw MLK on tv, he said "pfft"). I heard him use it twice in the same awful joke about watermelon, and my Mom scolded him for it. It's just not something people say in my experience, and I tend (i'm a little sad to say) to be pretty non-confrontational about these kinds of things so I doubt anyone covered on my account, except maybe when I was a kid. I have certainly heard and still do hear racist and bigoted statements (though I'd say much more often about homosexuals than any other group), but epithets have been extremely rare to non-existent outside one very particular circle. It's partly why I'm doubtful about that Zimmerman guy saying "coons" which is an odd thing for anyone to say in 2012, never mind someone of his relatively young age.

Point is, my tendency is to doubt suspected slips of the tongue like this one. Maybe others can report different experiences though.

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I think the more pertinent point is that candidates at this level don't say this sort of thing. They may use straw-man arguments and allusions and various "dog whistles" that appeal to their constituents, but even undisciplined candidates at the national level don't drop the n-word. I think Santorum's description of Obama as outside the American mainstream appeals to the full range of voters he wants to reach. Hunting for Freudian slips that aren't even there is pointless.

Zimmerman's instance is quite different--not a moment of political rhetoric or casual confrontation, but of aggression. While I'm sure most people in all-white gatherings don't utter slurs, and don't actively fret about such things, I attended overwhelmingly white schools from kindergarten through graduate school. In elementary school, I and my two brothers were the only minorities. Slurs were directed at me in the Francis Park neighborhood several times, and it was precisely when people thought I had no business being in the neighborhood or attending one of the schools there, or because I was an easy target of derision. I particularly remember being invited to a friend's house near St. Gabriel School about the time of my high school graduation, and playing basketball on a court when a teenager aggressively came up to my twin brother and me and asked "What are these ****** doing here?", as if he were the self-appointed guardian of the neighborhood. My brother and the guy nearly began fighting right there, and my host friend was clearly very embarrassed.

Although I rarely hear such slurs in public, I was on the streets in northern Manhattan in May and heard a Hispanic teenager use the n-word loudly and repeatedly while talking with friends, and with no sense of being aggressive to anyone on the street. When I was younger, friends let the word slip out accidentally when telling a joke or describing something--again, referring aggressively to somebody or some group. I heard the term "coon" used several times to refer specifically to poor blacks. I think region and situation dictate its use.

I don't care much for psychoanalyzing via Youtube video. However, I've heard slurs used in such situations of escalating aggression, though. You don't even need to utter a slur for there to be a clear problem.

Yeah, that's a good point sigh. I've been lucky enough to not be around that sort of aggressive situation. I've never heard it used directly against someone at all. As I'm typing I just remembered hearing some redneck truck driver over a friends cb radio, but that was more a case of someone screaming at the void.
Worst situation I was in was at a dorm where a bunch of black students were in the big common room and I walked past a white guy who asked if there was a convention, and a black student had also just walked by and they got into it.

In Zimmerman's case "coons" just seems like a very old-school thing to say. But I meant to say before I haven't heard the tape, and I do suspect race was a big factor. I don't think a white girl prompts that phone call.