McCain Cleverly Made Race Factor: Emanuel

John McCain’s campaign managed to slip the issue of race into the presidential election, Democratic heavyweight Rahm Emanuel said today. “They got it through customs," Emanuel said at a Politico-hosted roundtable, characterizing the Republicans’ tactic of injecting race with reaction to a perceived offense by Barack Obama. "They did a good job bringing up a topic they wanted brought up,” Emanuel continued.

The McCain camp lashed out at Obama for playing the "race card" after he said Republicans would try to point out that he "doesn’t look like all those other presidents on the dollar bills," and so avoided the backlash of raising the race issue directly, Emanuel said. (More John McCain stories.)