Aren't We Over That Kind of Thinking Already?

I'm trying to figure out how anyone can state with a straight face that the new Harold Ford ad is racist. The YouTube link to the ad is above.

The commercial, which is quite amusing, pokes fun -- among other things -- of Ford's attending a Playboy party last year, which certainly seems to me to be fair game for voters wishing to assess Ford's moral character.

Now the NAACP and others are coming out of the woodwork crying "racism" because the ad ends with a white woman, who says she met Ford at the party, asking Ford to call her. This supposedly "plays to pre-existing prejudices about African-American men and white women" and is "a very serious appeal to a racist sentiment."

What pre-existing prejudices? How does this appeal to racism? I thought our country was so past that kind of thinking.

We live in an era when the most popular program on television is populated by diverse characters who include a black/Asian couple and a black/white couple. And it's just...normal. Not even commented upon, that I can recall. They're people. Which is as it should be. And which is how the Ford ad should be viewed.

I suspect this is only an "issue" in the eyes of politicians who want to make it an issue; it causes me to wonder uncomfortably if the politicians or NAACP members may have some racist feelings deep down themselves, if that's what automatically pops into their heads when they watch the ad.

I suspect the Republican candidate who has made a negative comment about the ad has been pushed to do so by political correctness, as Ford is obviously going to try to use the commercial as some sort of racial wedge to divide voters.

On the other hand, we've also got YouTube video of Ford's father possibly calling pro-life demonstrators "crackers." (There is some dispute over whether he may have said "trackers.") Isn't that racist? Hmmmm.