Barack Obama has played the race card and he played it from the bottom of the deck

link via Talking Points Memo
McCain campaign manager Rick Davis said this Thursday on a conference call* with reporters. Doesn't it make the McCain campaign seem kind of inchoate? 'Playing the race card' is an obvious references to a trick game, like Hearts. I think of it like the Queen of Spades. But, dealing from the bottom of the deck is part of, well, dealing. You have a card to want to direct to a certain special someone, so you deal from the bottom of the deck for that person. Or, really, you can see the cards on the bottom of the deck, so you might just deal from the bottom to know what everyone's getting. It's underhanded. Come to think of it 'underhanded' itself may be a reference to dealing from the bottom of the deck, but it's more likely from dueling.

Anyway, the metaphors come from two distinct parts of game play. Mixing metaphors is fine, but these two are so close that the quote just gives you a sense that McCain HQ is sort of falling apart.

* -- I think. It's not actually clear from the story.