MnIndy Video: McCain supporter says Obama is a “tiny bit African American,” is “steering country to socialism”

During my tour of northern Minnesota with Todd Palin last week, I spoke with Becker County resident Robert Leiseth at a rally in Moorhead. Plastered with “Sportsmen for McCain” stickers, he discussed Barack Obama, a man he won’t refer to by name (“I call him ‘the candidate for president on the Democratic side’”). He says he fears Obama “is steering us into socialism.” On healthcare, he said “we need to leave healthcare alone” before complaining that “we’re paying for the indigents.” He praised Sarah Palin’s experience and decried Obama, who he says received a “free lunch” when he attended Harvard (“Why won’t he admit who helped him through college? I think that’s cheap”).

But his most pointed words were about Obama’s ethnicity. Stating that he served with a “real African American” in the military, Leiseth said Obama is “an Arab who is a little tiny bit African American… His father was an Arab… He was a Muslim and he was also an Arabian, not an African from both sides. You can look it up and decide for yourself.”

Related: MnIndy video: Palin fans saw a subdued ‘first dude’ in Minnesota

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