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DEL.ICIO.USThe GOP considers its own Obama moment
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Politico has this take on the contest for chairman of the Republican National Committee, which comes to a head this week:
…And with race permeating the electoral landscape, all six contenders are competing to present themselves as the most minority-friendly candidate, the one most able to open up the party to new voting groups.
“I have heard all the candidates talk about it,” said Illinois Committeeman Pat Brady. “That’s where we got killed in the presidential.”
Though Republicans captured just 4 percent of the African-American vote in the last presidential race, two black candidates are vying to lead the GOP: former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell and former Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael Steele.
Steele and Blackwell have not framed their bids in racial terms, and members of the committee say they won’t cast their votes based on a candidate’s race. But to some GOP leaders, the moment looks ripe for a black chairman — especially given the challenges of countering Barack Obama, the nation’s first African-American president.
“If the nation can celebrate the first African-American president, I would think the Republican Party would celebrate if we had the opportunity to celebrate an African-American national chairman,” said Florida Republican Party Chairman Jim Greer, who supports Steele.
Comments
By Copyleft
January 22, 2009 8:43 AM | Link to this
I see the Republicans are still as clueless as ever about “how those weird darkie folks think.” They’ll never understand that blacks don’t simply vote for “the black candidate,” they vote for the candidate who best represents their interests.
You know, just like “regular” Americans! And black Americans know all too well which party always looks out for the rich whites first, and tells everybody else to pound sand.
Want to get some black-voter support? Start addressing issues that matter.
By Grumpy
January 22, 2009 1:37 PM | Link to this
Ken Blackwell’s a crooked a55hole who shouldn’t be put in charge of anything involving money or the dispensing of power. Look what kind of a job he did as Ohio’s Secretary of State. Heaven help the GOP if they place him in any kind of leadership position.
By JLR
January 22, 2009 5:24 PM | Link to this
I agree with Copyleft. The GOP’s problem in attracting non-white votes is that they run their national campaigns from a racist platform:
Why is Bob Jones University a necessary stop on every GOP Presidential hopefuls’ calendar? Because it prohibited interracial dating until 2000. 2000! When the GOP aligns with that, can they really think that any amount of window dressing will help? Saxby Chambliss didn’t even veil the fact that he only wanted to win white votes in the last election.
Or how do they expect to win latino votes (e.g. so they don’t lose the entire Southwest) when their party is busy forming posses for the extrajudicial hunting of children (e.g. the Minutemen)?
The answer is they don’t. They will lose big any time there is major turnout, because their base is getting smaller proportionally by the day.
By MrLiberty
January 23, 2009 12:04 PM | Link to this
I watched part of the debate on CSPAN of these gentlemen vying for the GOP leadership position. The one thing that struck me about both of these gentleman, and one in particular, was that they said they represented the disaffected republicans and that they wanted a serious change in what otherwise is a dysfunctional party.
The rest all talked about a bunch of marketing gimmicks, and here you are even talking about electing a black GOP leader as if some sort of Marketing Stunt will win over voters. Yes, the american public is stupid, but just exactly how stupid is a matter of contention.
When the subject of Ron Paul came up, the hands down opinion was that his followers were taken by his charisma, etc. As one of his supporters, I can tell you that what Ron Paul has is not charisma. He is ok on the charisma scale, but what he has are PRINCIPLES.
The GOP is a failure because they have no principles. They, just like the democrats, have no moral, legal, or otherwise principled foundation to operate from. They have a party platform but nobody every adheres to it(except maybe Ron Paul - and his principles may differ in many places from the official platform).
If the GOP ever hopes to win again, it will need to realize that marketing gimmicks don’t work. Yes, Obama won because he is black. The usual guilty liberal whites who feel back because they have succeeded while all of their government programs to help have failed certainly came out in force, one need only look at the Chambliss race in this state to see that typically non-voting blacks came out in droves to support Obama, but couldn’t even trouble themselves to cast a vote down the ballot in support of other democrats.
Yes, socialism is a bit of a marketing gimmick, but it is also a philosophy that appeals to those who covet their neighbors possessions and have been led to believe they cannot succeed on their own without government help. That group is HUGE. But socialism ultimately is a failure, both economically and morally.
If Republicans would actually abide by their own rhetoric and actually support small government, stop handing out welfare to their corporate friends, and reign in the empire they helped to create, the argumant against socialism would be much easier to make and the elections might actually be won for a change.