Forget whether you like the candidate or not – isn’t this offensive on a level that transcends politics?

Mitt Romney went to a black neighborhood in Philadelphia yesterday, reaching out to African-Americans and talking education. Here is part of the response he got.

A few dozen protesters met him with chants of “Get out, Romney, get out!”

Madaline G. Dunn, 78, who said she has lived there for 50 years, said she is “personally offended” that Romney would visit her neighborhood.

“It’s not appreciated here,” she said. “It is absolutely denigrating for him to come in here and speak his garbage.”

Sorry – the only garbage being spoken is that coming out of the mouth of Ms. Dunn.

This is America. Any American can go to any neighborhood in this country and speak freely on political issues. That Dunn (and others) would seek to suppress the message and keep it from being heard is offensive.

And you can bet what Ms. Dunn would say about a white woman making the same statement about Barack Obama appearing in her neighborhood. She would label such words offensive, racist, and un-American – and be right on at least two of the three points.

And you know what is particularly pathetic about folks like Ms. Dunn? Folks like her regularly label Republicans as racist when we don’t make an all out effort to get the votes of a constituency that regularly votes 95% Democrat. But when a Republican does make an effort to reach out to the black community – appearing in a neighborhood to talk about an issue as crucial to the black community as education – it is the Madaline G. Dunns of the world who take offense at the effort.

Rather reminds me of a certain race-baiter here in the Houston area who some years ago who said of a certain white politician (now talk radio host) “you ghetto pass has been revoked,” but who would have called down the fury of heaven and the federal government if he were told he was unwelcome in a white neighborhood. Such folks leave me in a quandary – are they reprehensibly hypocritical or hypocritically reprehensible?

I applaud Mitt Romney’s effort to reach out to the black community, because I believe that the GOP is the natural home of every American of any race who believes in freedom. On the other hand, folks like Madaline G. Dunn (an activist with a history of shilling for the Democrats) are quite welcome to continue to serve the interests of the party of slavery, Jim Crow, and the KKK.