Holding noses and winking presidents (10-24-12 links)

1. This is the best response I've read yet to this year's round of 'hold your nose and vote for the Democrat' arguments. It even takes down the 'what about the Supreme Court?' gambit. I find it utterly convincing. But then, I would. More on this soon.
2. Did anyone else read this NYT piece about the President's balancing act on race as a plant? To be clear, I mean 'plant' in the complex way that informs so much big journalism now - the journalists hunger so desperately for access that when some crumb drops from the table of the informed, they gobble it up and (hmm... not sure I want to commit to this metaphor... oh, the heck with it) and excrete a slightly mediated missive from the powers that be. And the powers are good at dropping crumbs. Then again, it could be an example of good old-fashioned, Judy Miller-style court stenography. Anyway: The "complex calculus on race and politics" that Jodi Kantor reports on Obama's behalf has in part to do with deciding how and when to signal to American Negroes (I use the term advisedly) that I really am one of you, I really am thinking of you, I'm just bound by my circumstances, just wait, I'll do right by you, I promise. And one way to do that is to have someone remind us all just how conflicted he is, and how hard it is to balance negro-dom and POTUS-hood. There should be a name for this move. We've got the sister-souljah move - what happens when a politician publicly demonizes black folks to signal his or her independence to the revered swing voter/middle American. But what should we call this? Having just finished teaching Cathy Cohen's work on this very topic (see chapter 6 especially), I think I'll call it the 'nudge nudge wink wink.'