Cracker, a pejorative term generally used to describe Southern rural white people, turned up at least twice yesterday during cable news coverage of the Florida primary.
On Chuck Todd’s MSNBC show Tuesday, Politico’s Jonathan Martin said: “Chuck, a lot of the counties in the panhandle, in North Florida, the cracker counties, if you will, more resemble Georgia and Alabama than they do Florida.”
Later, during Tamron Hall’s hour, guest Rick Wilson, who is a Florida Republican strategist accurately predicted Mitt Romney would win the state, saying, “Ranging from the cracker counties in the panhandle, down to central Florida, down to Miami and the southwest part of the state, I think he will roll out incredibly big numbers.”
Sean Hannity, during his Florida wrap-up show last night on Fox News, called out MSNBC for the use of the term, even though it was the guests, and not the hosts who used it.
So what do you think? Should that term be avoided when describing voters in the rural South?