The tone of the 2008 presidential race took another harsh tack over the weekend with news that Barack Obama was depicted in a racial stereotype on boxes of frozen waffles sold at the Value Voters Summit in Florida.
The racially-tinged incident came at the same time that cable news networks aired an ad featuring one of John McCain's former fellow prisoners of war questioning McCain's fitness to lead the nation.
McCain "was well known as being a very volatile guy," McCain's fellow war prisoner, Robert Butler, says in the ad. "He would blow up and go off like a Roman candle. John McCain is not somebody that I would like to see with his finger near the red button."
The ad was created and released by the independent, but partisan group Brave New Films, and Democracy for America, a Democratic political action committee run by party chairman Howard Dean's brother, Jim.
In Florida, Values Voter Summit organizers cut off sales of Obama Waffles boxes, saying they had not realized the boxes displayed "offensive material."
The gathering was sponsored by a group of conservative Christian organizations. Republican Party stalwarts Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney were among speakers at the forum, which officials said drew 2,100 activists from 44 states.
The box was meant as political satire, said Mark Whitlock and Bob DeMoss, two writers from Franklin, Tenn., who created the mix. They sold it for $10 a box from a rented booth at the summit sponsored by the lobbying arm of the Family Research Council.
David Nammo, executive director of the lobbying group FRC Action, said summit organizers were told the boxes were a parody of Obama's policy positions but had not examined them closely.
The image plays off the old image of the pancake-mix icon Aunt Jemima, which has been widely criticized as a demeaning stereotype. Obama is portrayed with popping eyes and big, thick lips. Another image shows Obama in an Arab-like headdress, a play on the false rumor that he is a follower of Islam, though he is actually a Christian. And other image shows Obama in stereotypical Mexican dress, including a sombrero.
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