Is the McCain campaign racist?

Well, they say they aren't, but security around Huggy Bear has some 'splainin' to do after an incident the other day in Tallahassee Panama City:

Tallahassee Democrat senior writer Stephen Price on Friday was singled out and asked to leave a media area at the Panama City rally of presidential candidate Sen. John McCain.

Price was among at least three other reporters, and the only black reporter, surrounding McCain's campaign bus — Gov. Charlie Crist and his fiancee, Carole Rome, were already aboard — when a member of the Arizona senator's security detail asked the reporter to identify himself. Price had shown his media credentials to enter the area.

Price showed his employee identification as well as his credentials for the Friday event.

"I explained I was with the state press, but the Secret Service man said that didn't matter and that I would have to go," Price said.

When another reporter asked why Price was being removed, she too was led out of the area. Other state reporters remained.

Okay, the campaign says that "access to the senator is tightly controlled," but what reason would they have to kick Price out (and one reporter who stood up for him) and leave the other reporters unmolested?

Huggy Bear campaign advance man Jonathan Block digs the hole deeper:

Block said the area where Price was standing was restricted to members of the traveling national press corps that accompanies McCain on the campaign trail.

"At the end of the day, your reporter was in the wrong place. I do not know why the other reporters were not moved. The rest of the local press should have been moved as well," Block said.

The campaign advance man said there were many reasons that could have prompted Price being asked to move, depending on how visible his press identification was, whether he had a bag and possibly information about McCain's movement, which could have prompted the security person to move people in one area and not in another.

"It's really like a pressure cooker with security," Block said.

Okay, let's assume for the sake of argument that the removal wasn't racist. According to Price, he had all the appropriate identification, and the security people should have and could have said that he did something potentially threatening, or that the area was restricted to national press.

But, either way, the campaign steps on its dick again. Whether it's racism or just hamhanded security, Huggy's campaign continues to show that it's one of the most unfriendly and incompetent in modern times.

It does raise the question, though: how do you think security for Huggy will be at the Sturgis Motorcycle Rally tomorrow?

UPDATE (5:23 pm 8/4/08): As Jennifer reminds me in comments, the incident took place in Panama City, not Tallahassee. I've corrected that above. I knew that -- but I had Tallahassee on the brain, apparently. Apologies.