ArcaMax

But reading the article makes Murdoch's complaint sound like a humblebrag. If he thinks Obama has worsened our racial divide, as many conservatives claim, he had plenty of help from his ideological opponents.

Whatever Murdoch meant, he apparently realized after hours of backlash on Twitter and other social media that his message needed clarification. "Apologies!" his follow-up tweet exclaimed. "No offense meant. Personally find both men charming."

That's a relief. But since Obama's racial tightrope apparently comes as news to Murdoch, I too have a magazine article to recommend to him: "The Return of the Middle American Radical," a Sept. 8 analysis in the National Journal by John B. Judis. It analyzes the rise of political outsiders like Donald Trump, Carly Fiorina and Carson -- and the challenge their supporters present to today's Republican Party, particularly among white voters.

The "Middle American Radicals, or MARS," first identified as such by sociologist Donald Warren in the mid-1970s, Judis reports, are mostly white. They tend to lack college diplomas and feel shafted by political and corporate elites from above and by minorities, liberals and allegedly undeserving poor from below.

MARS can be more loyal to personalities than parties when a colorful populist like George Wallace, H. Ross Perot, Pat Buchanan or Trump comes along.

What distinguishes them is their ideology, Judis writes. They don't trust corporate power or either party's political establishment. But they also turn very conservative on poverty and race with "an intense conviction that the middle class (is) under siege from above and below."

That's probably what appeals to Murdoch about Carson. Our current black or, at least, biracial President Barack Obama apparently is not "black" or "real" enough for Rupert. A "real black president" in Murdoch's mind would share his very conservative values -- as Carson does.

Taxes? "Simply tithe," says Carson. Never mind that taxing everybody 10 percent would not only disproportionately burden the poor but also grew the national debt.

Obamacare? "Worst thing that has happened in this nation since slavery," says Carson. Never mind the millions of all colors who have health insurance for the first time.

Carson may be a brilliant brain surgeon, but Republicans could do better at supporting black conservative office holders. Sen. Tim Scott of South Carolina, for example, the South's first black senator since Reconstruction, won with mostly white votes. Yet he has been a leader on issues like criminal justice reform and police body cameras that his black constituents in particular care about.

That's how you practice the politics of addition, not division. I eagerly wait for the Party of Abraham Lincoln to practice it again.

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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)

(c) 2015 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.