Because There Are No Racists...

The GOP's house intellectual opens up:

Republican Newt Gingrich told a Georgia audience on Friday evening that the 2012 presidential election is the most consequential since the 1860 race that elected Abraham Lincoln to the White House and was soon followed by the Civil War. 

Addressing the Georgia Republican Party's convention, Gingrich said the nation is at a crossroads and that the re-election of Democratic President Barack Obama would lead to four more years of "radical left-wing values" that would drive the nation to ruin. 

Gingrich also blasted Obama as "the most successful food stamp president in modern American history."

Clearly an attempt to tag Obama as an effete, latte-sipping liberal. Or foreign. Or Clintonesque. Or something. Anything but race. 

Move along...

More: Some context for the Gingrich quote, from The Washington Post:

Gingrich sought to lay blame for the recession, as well as the economic and social upheaval in Detroit, on Obama and his policies. "President Obama is the most successful food stamp president in American history," Gingrich said. "I would like to be the most successful paycheck president in American history."

This changes nothing for me. But I want to make sure everyone sees the quote in context. I don't want you to think I'm twisting Gingrich's words.