***1:00pm Eastern update: Cardin-Steele in a statistical dead heat…***

Here is a very telling campaign moment you won’t read about in the New York Times. Yesterday, Democrat Rep. Ben Cardin, the Senate candidate in Maryland, tried to rally black politicians to his side after GOP challenger Michael Steele won huge endorsements from black Democrats in liberal Prince George’s County.

Look at what happened via the Washington Times:

Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin yesterday tried to rally support among black Democrats in Prince George’s County, while Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele campaigned with county Democratic leaders who broke ranks this week to endorse him.

Mr. Cardin appeared with Prince George’s County Executive Jack B. Johnson and about 30 other lawmakers in Hyattsville, aiming to keep a diminishing lead in the polls…

…But the rally turned sour later. State Sen. Nathaniel Exum, Prince George’s Democrat, berated Mr. Cardin for excluding him and other local delegates from speaking or being mentioned.

“You do the same [stuff] over and over again, just ignore us,” Mr. Exum yelled at Mr. Cardin after the rally, which was held in Mr. Exum’s district. Mr. Cardin shrugged off the incident.

“You do the same [stuff] over and over again, just ignore us.” That about sums up the last 40 years of the relationship between the Democrat Party and black voters, doesn’t it?

Contrast that scene with the dynamic campaign event we attended yesterday in Annapolis, where Steele received full-throated endorsements from a diverse group of mostly registered Democrat pastors:

Watch the whole thing.

Steele has tapped into bubbling discontent among independent-thinking minority voters–a phenomenon ignored by MSM elites intent on smearing him as an Uncle Tom, sellout, or “lawn jockey” and pandering to the tired, old liberal establishment. Investor’s Business Daily gets it:

Leading black Maryland Democrats, including a former NAACP head’s son, endorse Republican Michael Steele for the U.S. Senate. That giant sucking sound you hear is the wind leaving the Democrats’ sails.

If the GOP holds on to the Senate on Tuesday, it may be due to a November surprise that smashes the carefully crafted liberal media stereotype of the GOP as the party of David Duke — the victory of Michael Steele due to a black electorate finally refusing to be taken for granted.

There would be a delicious irony in this. The Democratic plan for taking control of the Senate depends in large part on knocking off incumbent George Allen in neighboring Virginia by exploiting his alleged use of the “n” word in college and the racial term “macaca” as examples of GOP insensitivity to minorities.

On Monday, former Prince George’s County Executive Wayne Curry and five fellow black Democrats on the county council endorsed Steele while blasting their party over its lukewarm support for the Senate campaign of former NAACP chief Kweisi Mfume, who lost the primary to 10-term Rep. Ben Cardin.

Curry, who in 1994 became Prince George’s County’s first black executive, said Steele is a “good man with a good plan,” adding, “We’re not puppets. We’re not gullible.”

Trotting out Barack Obama, as Cardin will do today, is not going to allay their dissatisfaction.

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Mary Katharine puts the question to Steele: Smackdown or beatdown?

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Democrat Bob Casey thinks black voters are stupid, too.

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