Will there really be a 'white supremacist stampede' in 2012?

A rising number of "white-power" advocates are running for public office in 2012, "pointing to rising unemployment, four years with an African-American president, and rampant illegal immigration as part of a growing mound of evidence that white people need to take a stand," says Eve Conant at The Daily Beast. The list of candidates might soon include David Duke, a former Ku Klux Klan leader and one-time Republican member of the Louisiana state House, who is considering a run for president. Are we really in for a "white supremacist stampede" in the next election season?

No. This is just liberal propaganda: "Ah yes, the David Duke card gets played," says William A. Jacobson at Legal Insurrection. The Daily Beast is trying to give Democrats a boost by saying Neo-Nazis are crawling out of the woodwork to run for office as Republicans. It's getting its information from the Southern Poverty Law Center, which uses "fear mongering as a tool to solicit donations," but still only managed to find nine white supremacist candidates. That hardly amounts to a stampede.

"Daily Beast plays the David Duke card"

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Actually, this is just the tip of the iceberg: "With so many covert white supremacists masquerading as politicians," says Nsenga Burton at The Root, "it was only a matter of time before overt white supremacists would throw their hats into the ring." It's no surprise that self-proclaimed "white civil rights activists" like David Duke would resurface after President Obama's historic election. This "explosion of white supremacy speaks volumes about where we are as a nation on race relations — nowhere."

"White supremacist David Duke considering presidential run"

Don't worry, these crackpots will all lose: Running is one thing, says David Weigel at Slate, but "these idiots aren't winning." Only one of these "racist (or, fine, neoconfederate) candidates" has actually won a race in the last year — "Loy Mauch, a batty neoconfederate in Arkansas" who once protested a statue of Abraham Lincoln. Even "near the peak of his fame" in 1988, David Duke got a quarter as many votes for president as "the decidedly black, female, and odd Lenora Fulani." He'd be even more of a "fringe" candidate now.

"Reportorial qualification of the day"