Really? I heard that too. And you know what, it may be true. Ron Paul has said and done a lot of things for black people. And while the things he says to defend himself are hard to reconcile with the terrible statments made in his newsletter, there's a perfectly reasonable reason that a man who doesn't hate black people would say those things.
He cares more about being elected than he does about black people.
You see, it's true that he didn't write many of the terrible things he published, but we shouldn't for a second believe that he didn't know they were there. Many were written by members of his staff, and the headlines of individual editorials are clearly racist. So let's not pretend that he didn't know what was going on.
The reason that he was willing to publish such terrible things is that he was perfectly willing to engage in race baiting to raise his political profile. Those articles were written specifically to appeal to racist conservatives and to convince them to support Ron Paul.
Think about that. He didn't do it because he hated black people - he did it as a strategy to get support from people who did. He was happy to put his name on things he didn't believe if it would win him money and votes - and power.
And you know what? That's worse. That kind of calculated attempt to encourage divisions among people is much more troubling than, for instance, Rick Perry's family staying at a camp called "N***erhead." That's racist. But it's the kind of ignorant, behind-closed-doors racism that we've come to expect from Southern politicians. This use of race as a strategy is someting very different. It's not just some unreconciled Southerner who is tone-deaf to racism. This is somebody willing to encourage people to get guns to be ready for a race war (literally), if it means more money in his campaign budget and more votes in the ballot box.
So before you begin your letter-to-the-editor about what was in Ron Paul's heart, take a minute to think about how heartless he really is.