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The audience is primed to just not be outraged when they hear claims about American racism. They are not primed to behave this way when faced with attacks on this allied group. That's all there is to it.
And yes, it is an attack. Being vague about it won't change it.
Even if they were ignorant of it, there's an entire other side of the political spectrum that reacts very badly to these sorts of claims. They just don't care (or even enjoy their outrage). The same dynamics aren't at play here.
This is where I disagree. I believe that being vague about it would have been more than enough to paper over it to not look like an attack. Perhaps an extra step of vagueness by excluding "blacks" altogether and just saying "Pete polled poorly in key voting blocs we needed," and then deflecting with word salad when pressed on the details would've been needed. But underestimating the ability of motivated voters to fill in vagueness from people on their side with good things for their side and bad things for the other side is something that has burned me too many times to fall for again.
This would almost certainly have averted controversy. Make it sound like you're working really hard to avoid saying "lots of black voters hate gay stuff" and someone like Maddow will undoubtedly help you accomplish that.
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