Last month the Drudge Report hyped a video of an African-American woman at an Ohio rally claiming the president had given her a free phone. “Everybody in Cleveland, low minorities, got Obama phones…Keep Obama in president, you know! He gave us a phone, he’s gonna do more.” Dozens of news sites took it upon themselves to explain that the Obama campaign was not in fact operating an electronics-for-votes ring in swing states, but that there is in fact a government program that provides low-income people with free or cheap phones. It started under George W. Bush, not his successor.

Now the Tea Party Victory Fund, a super PAC, has turned the misleading clip into an ad, which will run in three predominantly white Ohio counties. A text overlay reads “have Barack Obama’s policies empowered or enslaved Americans?” The ad also notes that 1 in 7 Americans are on food stamps.





Anyone who’s listened to Mitt Romney’s 47 percent comments will get the obvious implication: Democrats win by hooking Americans on government programs. The Tea Party Victory Fund even sent out a fundraising note connecting the dots: “This commercial is a microcosm of the difference between Republicans and Democrats. The Republicans want to create an environment where free people make their own choices and pursue their dreams. President Obama and the Democrats want to create a dependency on Government [sp] that ensures that Americans will continue to rely on Washington from cradle to grave.”

Left unsaid but just as obvious is that the Tea Party Victory Fund jumped on the ‘Obama phone’ video because it features a black woman. The ad fits into the narrative that minorities are moochers and that government programs transfer wealth from white people to black people. If it shows anything in microcosm, it’s that the Tea Party learned from the Southern Strategy.