Two weeks ago this writer wrote that an African-American was the last and best hope for the GOP. That meant picking an African-American to head the Republican National Committee. And I said that that African-American had to be former Maryland Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele. For its sake, someone in the GOP didn't listen with a metallic ear and picked Steele as the new RNC chair.
The Steele call was really an easy call, indeed the only call to make. This was the only thing the party could do to avoid being shoved to the outer margins of national politics. Steele said as much in his terse acceptance speech when he vowed to make the GOP a party of inclusiveness. That's a word that the GOP forgot how to say, spell, let alone put into any semblance of practice since Bush loudly declared that it was going to be the party's watchword in 2000.
The Steele choice had nothing to do with race guilt, Steele's compelling political charm, or even a panic choice to capitalize on Obama's smash White House win. Steele was chosen for a simple reason. The country's fast changing ethnic vote demographics will spell future doom for a party that's widely perceived as an insular party of nativist bent, Deep South, rural and, non-college educated blue collar whites.
In the decade and a half between Clinton's presidential win in 1992 and Obama's win in 2008, the number of black, Hispanic, Asian and Native American voters soared to nearly one quarter of the nation's electorate. At the same time, blue collar white voters shrunk from more than half of the nation's voters to less than forty percent. Obama handily won the Hispanic and Asian vote and crushed McCain with the black vote. He split close to even with McCain the votes of college educated whites. In the next four years, the number of non-white and youth voters will continue to climb and the white electorate overall will continue to decline.
The numbers tell only part of the story of why the GOP had to pick Steele. He is about the most moderate, centrist Republican that anyone could imagine to head the RNC. One of his other four opponents for the job was stuck so deep in a time warp that he thought it was hilarious to lambaste Obama with the infamous "Magic Negro" parody ditty, and when he got some mild flack for it not only defended it but bristled at the thought that others might not laugh it up too. Too many in the GOP, not including the outgoing RNC chair, didn't utter a peep of protest. Meanwhile, the Democrat's expanding core base of voters, like Steele, is more moderate, socially active, and mildly pro government; the diametric opposite of what the GOP purports to stand for.
Ultra conservative talk show shock jocks and a narrow band of Southern GOP politicians loudly protested that the GOP should resist all talk of reversing political direction and touting diversity and inclusion. Other GOP purists screamed that race should have nothing to do with picking a new RNC chairperson. That would fly in the face of the decades old sacred credo of a color-blind America.
This is nothing but PR political bluster. Race politics has always been a major part of the GOP's political calculus. The Southern Strategy typified that. The strategy was simple; say and do as little as possible about civil rights, talk God, country and patriotism, use racially tinged code words and furiously court white males. The strategy worked like a political charm for four decades. It was the path to the White House for Nixon, Reagan, Bush Sr. and W. Bush.
W. Bush, and then political kingpin Karl Rove and RNC chair Ken Mehlman, bought some insurance. They nakedly played the GOP version of the race card and dumped millions into a campaign to court Hispanic and black and Hispanic conservative evangelicals, and younger black business and professionals. It worked in Ohio and Florida. Bush modestly bumped up the percentage of the black vote he got in those must win states. He got more than forty percent of the Hispanic vote and an even bigger percent of the Asian vote nationally. That helped seal the White House for him.
The RNC and Obama's Republican rival John McCain couldn't pull that this time around. In fact, neither one really tried. African-American voters turned the Obama campaign into a holy crusade, and there was nothing the GOP could do to slow down the crusade. The Steele pick won't either. However, it does send the message that a kicking and screaming GOP finally figured that to keep doing political business the old way is a prescription for oblivion. The GOP finally got something right with Steele.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. His new book is "How Obama Won" (Middle Passage Press, January 2009).
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I find myself in disagreement with you again. Michael Steele is a chicken hard at work for Colonel Sanders:
"The Washington Post reported that on election day the Steele campaign arranged for buses of low income people from Philadelphia to distribute fliers at polls. The flyers contained incorrect information, including a statement that Michael Steele was endorsed by prominent state Democrats and African American leaders who had not, in fact, endorsed him. The homeless people were falsely identified as volunteers although they were paid, and the campaign funds used for this purpose of hiring the homeless were not timely or properly reported or attributed to the campaign".
Then, "Just prior to beginning his campaign Steele defended former Gov. Bob Ehrlich's decision to hold a $100,000 fund-raiser at a country club that did not have any non-white members, saying that the club's membership's policies were "not an issue" because "I don't know that much about the club, the membership, nor do I care, quite frankly, because I don't play golf.'"
Steele hasn't made any presentation of his whole agenda and already people want to place him with the old party agenda. I'm an Rep. AA who is 24. I don't agree with everything that the party stands for (for that matter either party) but I do agree with this selection. I voted for President Barack Obama in 2008. I would do it again because of the platform that Mccain/Palin was running. Micheal Steele should be giving a chance to try and evaluated on the basis of performance.
p.s The REP. in the House and Senate need to stop acting like big kids. They are causing a bigger divide by not voting for anything that President Obama is asking for(nominees and bailout).
http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/2009-01-29/news/the-bird-documents-randy-pullen-s-smear-of-lisa-james-and-hobnobs-with-democrats-and-republicans/
Good points BUT if you're the GOP, you can't fish out someone other than Steele? Someone who didn't run essentially as a Democrat to confuse voters? Someone who didn't liken stem cell research to Nazi experiments? Admittedly, the cast of characters who are African-American in the upper tiers of the G.O.P. includes other time-bombs like Ward Connerly and Alan Keyes, but it is a definite sign of the reluctance to get behind a qualified African-American candidate that a J.C. Watts or even a well-known business executive like Richard Parsons could helm the G.O.P.
Don King is also a Republican. If he could only do for the Grand Old Party what he did for heavyweight boxing, the Democrats could be in power for a hundred years.
"I am glad these traitorous leaders of the Republican Party appointed this Black racist, affirmative action advocate to the head of the Republican party because this will lead to a huge revolt among the Republican base. As a former Republican official, I can tell you that millions of rank-and-file Republicans are mad as hell and aren’t going to take it anymore! We will either take the Republican Party back over the next four years or we will say, “To Hell With the Republican Party!” And we will take 90 percent of Republicans with us into a New Party that will take its current place!"
Racism, like a snake, seeks to do its most harm by disguising itself as something else, as not to frighten away those things it seeks to destroy.
The only reason, I remain so skeptical of the gist of this move, is because in order for the GOP to follow through and make the Steele selection work, would take a herculean effort to confront openly their tactics in using race to win elections. Many whites, both in the Dem and the republican ranks are reluctant to begin a discourse on race, and while some Dems do make efforts in this direction, the republicans language on race is dsyfunctional and no less different than when it had Helms and Thurmond as its spokesman.
The GOP is fooling themselves if it thinks it can outsource a discussion on race to its base using a black guy.
You spoke too soon. Today, Steele did a 180, turning his back on inclusiveness.
Under Steele's leadership, the GOP will go the way of the dodo.
They won't be missed.
Just because he is an AA it doesn't make him the RIGHT AA, in the same way that just because Palin is a woman it didn't make her the RIGHT woman.
In the same way Palin is an embarassment to women everywhere, Steele is an embarassment to the AA community .................. Sure he's learned, and well spoken, but his ideologies go against the very grain of the concern and care that the AA community (and all minority communities) need from political leadership.
Steele would have been palatable if only he is going to be an RNC chairman who is allowed to think for himself and could make decisions..................... But he will tow the line, dutifully take orders and relay the talking points of the REAL leaders of the party .................. OLD GREY HAIRED WHITE SOUTHERN MEN.
What's the point of being a leader in name only, and being just a male model for a photo-op which has the sole purpose of pandering to constituencies which the Republican party could care less about and ignore, except for the few hours on a November election day, when they need those votes in order to gain/retain political power?
Steele won't be accepted by the various minority communities because he is considered a sellout, he won't be accepted by the "white working class", and he certainly won't be accepted by the monied old boy faction of the republican party as an
wrong - steele will further marginalize the party becasue people will see this for what it is.
first it was women, and now the republicans are insulting the intelligence of blacks.
One description here, was that the GOP is the party of "nativist bent, Deep South, rural and, non-college educated blue collar whites." You bet they are. No perceiving about it. It's what they are, born and raised. I know because I grew up there and you just described every card carrying member. Which means you also described my entire family. They won't be impressed by the Steele pick. Some will be deeply offended. Because that Southern Strategy you spoke of worked on them like a charm. Racial fears to spare. The GOP did their work thoroughly over those 4 decades. The GOP told them to be afraid and afraid they are.
As for African Americans and other ethnic groups. Or white moderates. Well see the word above. "Tokenism". I don't think they'll be much impressed. And add another group. White Independents like myself. I'm really not impressed.
And the one who should definitely not be impressed? Michael Steele. But I doubt he's listening. After all he joined a party that told people to be afraid of men like him. Go figure.
Notice the MSM which is always on the look-out for a juicy controversy has seemingly going very meek when it comes to Steele, which is a good clue to the ridiculous nature of the GOP's move. How could the media not be salivating over dealing with a party that has been waging racial war using the very same figure of which Steele represents, and then pretend its no big deal?
The big deal isn't that Steele is black, the big deal is that a party married to racism would pick a black guy---meanwhile the media sleeps.
Much has been made of Obama being the first black president. That isn't why I voted for him. I voted for him because he's a smart man (terrifyingly so) and a decent man. That he's black was a bonus, because it was healing to the nation. How wonderful.
But the Steele pick is not just that he's the first black leader of that party. It's that it's a party that has not only been infused with racism, they are totally comfortable with. They actually made it policy via the Southern Strategy. So the pick if you don't look closely, looks like "change". But it isn't. He goes along with the GOP just as they are, he thinks they're fine. Which means that he was fine with that obscene strategy, too. Is Steele then a racist? What a bizarre situation.
If you were to poll individual leaders in the GOP they would assure you that they are not racist. And they'd mean it. And believe it. But when you go along with something like racism, you are a racist. There's no wiggle room there. And that applies to Steele. And so you're right - that is a story. And it's not being covered. I think the media doesn't know where to step without landing in it.
Earl, you can't honestly believe that African-Americans are going to be persuaded to align themselves with the GOP based on the nomination of Steele?
Moreover, like the GOP, you kind of missed the 800 pound bear in the room and that is the Hispanic vote. The Black population is being far outpaced in terms of population size by hispanics. So given that the African-Americans just aren't going to trust Steele and his party, then they should have made a big play toward hispanics, with whom a lot of the Republicans stated values coincide. However, the GOP had no viable hispanic bench, as it were, and so the Steele nomination will not only get them nowhere, but betrays what an act of politically correct desperation their naming him RNC head is.
It has also largely been Republican business owners who have made illegal immigration a viable option for poor Mexicans and Central Americans (the parents of Bush's Peace Corps head were illegal migrant farmworkers, for example).
The GOP is in a proverbial 'pickle' because if not the racist base, then whom other would they be able to use to divert attention away from the reality that they are a small, narrow band of folks---too few in number, but strong in power and money, to win any further elections. The GOP is highly dangerous and reckless, and much too self-serving to simply die a slow or any other kind of death.
The GOP has no friends, and they would gladly have African Americans and Hispanics play the role the racist white base has been playing---if they could only come up with a formula that would trick them into submission, but this one ain't it.
I'm not saying that Michael Steele isn't qualified, in fact he may be the most qualified person out there, but his pick sure LOOKS like they simply happened to have a black man handy and picked him!