Sally Atwater is the widow of the Republican Party's most ferocious, hated political fixer. She's running to be in charge of South Carolina's education policy. If votes were awkward right-wing radio interviews on sex ed that turned adversarial, this woman would win in a landslide.

Or, to ask it another way, when did Republicans get so bad at the race-baiting game they invented? Newt Gingrich has retracted his accusation that Sonia Sotomayor is a "racist." The old GOP would've never gotten into this mess.