"This is the color of the new civil rights revolution"

And he waved a one dollar bill.

Jack Kemp was the one waving the money and making the speech. The year was 1996 and the place was Sylvia's on 126th Street and Lenox in Harlem. The real context is much less inflammatory than the initial trappings would suggest. The luncheon was private, featuring prominent New York and African American Republicans, primarily, with the addition of the types of political figures (local and powerful Democrats, Conrad Muhammad, Farrakhan's New York representative) that such an event would necessitate. Sylvia's son, Van DeWard Woods, was a Democrat turned Republican. And the event was private, with the candidate doing most of his campaigning inside of the restaurant. There was great fear in the Dole Campaign that Kemp's visit would be seen as an offensive affront to a constituency that the Republican Party had "written off" (Kemp's words). Perhaps an angry mob would greet the Vice-Presidential candidate? Raucous protest? Riots? But, no, disinterest more than anything else. The most vocal crowd were New York City Republicans assembled by the party to act as a buffer between their candidate and potential protesters.

McCain's campaign has drawn a lot of attention, especially in light of the growing surety around here that McCain will face off with Obama, for its stated intention to campaign in traditional Democratic strongholds, particularly poor urban areas with predominantly African American populations. The assertion, which is the same one Kemp was campaigning on in '96, is that, while the Republican Party has "written off" African Americans, the Democratic Party has made the worse offense of taking their support "for granted."

And there is all sorts of rampant speculation as to the role race will play in the coming showdown between the oldest white man ever to run for the presidency and the first black man ever appointed his party's candidate of choice. Because, for all the talk in McCain land right now about new Republican voters and independents and braving new political constituencies, I believe when the dust settles, both of these men, both victorious in the race for the green, will end up using the green in the exact same way their parties have for a century: to do everything within and marginally beyond the law to press the other candidate's face in the mud and take the entire campaign right down with it.

Because that's where the entertainment value is. Because on that day in Harlem in 1996, had there been riots or some event more spectacular than an innocuous luncheon, I think Kemp and Dole would have been back in the inner city begging for the controversial P.R. and trying to point out that this was what a Democratic presidency had created. Look at what the 1968 Democratic Convention did for Nixon. Instead, in 1996, the Dole campaign had lunch and never came back. Disinterest doesn't occupy a lot of time on CNN.

But Kemp was wrong. Green is not the new color of the civil rights revolution. It's merely a newly acquired weapon. The battle is still the same. And once we get through the preliminaries and to the prize fight, both sides will bring out every old trick to win.

And we'll be throwing elbows to get closest to the ring.