Paul Ryan’s Black Ex-Girlfriend Garnering Attention In Blogosphere

Paul Ryan’s black ex-girlfriend is gaining attention among bloggers and journalists as race relations begin to take a quiet but growing role in the 2012 election.

The issue of Paul Ryan’s black ex-girlfriend was raised by Keli Goff, a political writer at TheRoot.com. Writing an article titled “Does Paul Ryan’s Black Ex-Girlfriend Matter?”, Goff went on to compare Paul Ryan to other conservatives with ties to loved ones of color, including CNN’s Lou Dobbs, who has a Mexican wife, and former Sen. Strom Thurmond, who fathered a daughter with a black servant.

Goff wrote:

“For the record: No, I am not calling Ryan a racist. I am saying, however, that if you want to know where a politician’s heart lies when it comes to a particular community, it may be best to look at that person’s policies — such as his or her record on civil rights — rather than personal relationships.”

But simply by bringing the issue up and taking Paul Ryan’s ex-girlfriend in comparison to Dobbs and Thurmond — who have both at points been accused of being racially insensitive — Goff is indeed making race an issue, writes Derek Hunter, a writer for the New York Daily News blog The Rumble.

Hunter says that the simple answer to Goff’s rhetorical question of whether Paul Ryan’s black ex-girlfriend has any bearing on his policies is no. “But to race-obsessed liberals the simple answer has no place in politics,” Hunter says.

He adds:

“This pointless piece ends up taking the long way around to implying Ryan is bad for black people and may not like them much, despite the fact that he has a black sister-in-law and a black ex-girlfriend. He’s bad, but probably not a racist.”

Do you think Paul Ryan‘s black ex-girlfriend has any bearing on the 2012 presidential race?