Is using the race card racist?

'Former US President Jimmy Carter says much of the vitriol against President Barack Obama's health reforms and spending plans is "based on racism".
Mr Carter told a public meeting there was "an inherent feeling among many in this country that an African-American should not be president".'

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/americas/8258011.stm

This seems racist to me. Apparently, if Barack Obama was pursuing a fiscally prudent centrist agenda, refusing to intervene in markets with taxpayer money and standing robustly against the governments who hate America and everything it stands for; there would still be millions of white Americans protesting in the streets, yelling stuff at Town Hall meetings and interrupting his speeches. And if he leaned even further right in his policies, he would STILL be getting exactly the same response.

Why is that racist? Because it implies that no matter what Barack Obama does, no matter what his behaviour is, it is of no consequence. He can never succeed or fail on his own merits. His fate is solely determined by his skin colour. That is what Carter the intellectual giant wants us to believe.

In my view, if a white man was doing the same things, he would be getting almost exactly the same barrage of angry outcry. More, probably, as race sensitivity is a factor in some peoples minds when they berate a black politician they don't agree with over policy.

I have seen two or three placards at anti-Obama rallies and town halls so far that I would deem racist. One of the racist placards calls into question Obama's intelligence as a factor of the race he belongs to, and another suggested he become president of Kenya (the implication being he should be leader of black people not white). There was another one, but I forget now what it said, but it immediately struck me as racist. Three out of tens of thousands of placards is a pretty phenomenal record. Imagine the same crowds in Russia, for instance, where black people live under siege from racist lynch mobs. I haven't heard a peep out of Carter about this real racism, but then America is uniquely evil to many progressives.

The problem for the Democrats is that the opposition to their ideology is purely ideological. Its a straight fight between tried and busted socialism and tried and tested small-state capitalism. That's why their anger is so white hot. If the opposition was racist they could legitimately ignore it.