Are 'tone-deaf' Republicans ignoring mainstream voters?

GOP candidates are focusing almost exclusively on ultra-conservative talking points, potentially alienating the independents they desperately need to beat Obama In a "fiercely combative" debate Wednesday night, the four remaining GOP presidential candidates zealously touted their conservative bona fides, focusing on far-right favorites like immigration, abortion, and earmarks. Meanwhile, Mitt Romney, Rick Santorum, Newt Gingrich, and Ron Paul barely discussed the lackluster economy, which most voters consider to be the most pressing issue facing the country. The debate reportedly left some Republicans worried that focusing on the fringes could undermine the party, which needs an inclusive message to appeal to independent voters in November. Did the debate hurt the GOP's chances against President Obama?

The GOP is crippling itself with Hispanics and women: The GOP is increasingly "talking to itself," say John F. Harris and Jonathan Martin at Politico, and candidates are slipping into "tone-deafness." Romney, for example, strongly praised Arizona's controversial immigration law — an applause line with Republicans, but a loser with Hispanics, who comprise the country's fastest-growing voting bloc. And the candidates' "extended back and forth on contraception" could turn off "independent suburban women," another crucial voting demographic.
"GOP fears rise over 2012 tone, message"

Huh? Candidates should offer more conservative red meat: Sadly, Wednesday's debate was run by the mainstream media for a mainstream audience, "not by the GOP for GOP voters," says Hugh Hewitt at his blog. Conservatives want to hear GOP candidates talk about "the president's dismal record" on bankrupt green energy giant Solyndra, the "Fast and Furious" gun-running debacle, recess appointments, and other issues important to the Right. If anything, these debates aren't conservative enough.
"The debate and a reply to Conor Friedersdorf re Mark Levin"

SEE MORE: Wednesday's season finale of American Political Gladiators

Let's face it — conservatives have hijacked the party: The GOP's problems are much deeper than focus and messaging, says Booman Tribune. The real issues "stem from an increasingly unpopular agenda." Many of the conservative activists deciding the GOP primaries want to eliminate entitlement programs, criminalize abortion, ignore climate change, and essentially return America to the 1950s. Most mainstream Americans "want no part of their actual agenda." It's no wonder the GOP establishment is concerned.
"Rhetoric won't save you"

View this article on TheWeek.com Get 4 Free Issues of The Week

Other stories from this topic:

Like on Facebook - Follow on Twitter - Sign-up for Daily Newsletter

View the original article here

Whitney Houston Critics Called Her ‘Too White' -- Black Republicans Can Relate

Whitney Houston died at the age of 48. Most articles about her death said something like, "Houston struggled with drug and alcohol problems for years ..."

But Houston also struggled with something else that black Republicans and black non-Democrats can understand: ridicule and ostracism for "selling out," or "acting white," or not being "black enough."

Ebony, the black monthly magazine, wrote about the then-27-year-old: "Black disc jockeys have chided her for 'not having soul' and being 'too white.' ... She was booed at the Soul Train Music Awards. ... It's enough to drive a good Christian girl to drink, drugs or at least to cursing. But not Whitney. Though it hurts her deeply, she handles it all with aplomb."

Did she?

After Houston's marriage to Bobby Brown, and after years of Houston's erratic behavior and rumors of drug abuse, I spoke to singer-actress Della Reese, a longtime Houston family friend. Reese and I were in the greenroom of a television studio, and we talked about Reese's career. I told her that my mother remembered having seen a young Reese at a Washington, D.C., nightclub called either "The Cave" or "The Cove."

She laughed and said, "The Cave."

We talked about then-current Whitney Houston/Bobby Brown headlines. "I have a theory about Whitney Houston," I said. "I've been called 'Uncle Tom,' and I know how that feels. I think Whitney was so hurt by being called a 'sellout' and 'acting white' — and crap like that — she wanted to change her image. What better way to do that than to marry a bad boy? And the drug abuse makes her a flawed person fighting to overcome her demons. Makes her relatable."

Reese, a close friend of Cissy Houston, Whitney's mom, said: "I know the family well. And there's a lot of truth in what you're saying." Reese gave me permission to discuss our exchange, as long as I made one thing clear. Reese said: "The human voice is very forgiving, and Whitney is working things out. And she will come back."

Black Republicans can relate to the name-calling.

A black St. Petersburg Times columnist wrote this about black Republicans: "Some creatures are just plain strange, making us do double takes because their compositions or habits or appearances defy our sense of logic and our way of viewing reality. Take the wildebeest, the warthog, the hyena, the brown pelican, the Shar-Pei. These animals, seemingly wrought by committee, make us laugh or shake our heads.

"Another such creature, of the human kind — and perhaps the strangest of all — is the black Republican. ... Black Republicans fail to understand that white Republicans will never accept them as equals. Although they will not acknowledge the truth, white Republicans, like most other whites, view black Republicans as strange creatures."

The 27-year-old Houston, in Ebony's 1991 interview, admitted being called "too white" hurt her: "'Picture this,' she says. ... 'You wake up every day with a magnifying glass over you. Someone always is looking for something — somebody, somewhere is speaking your name every five seconds of the day, whether it's positive or negative. ...

"'And don't say I don't have soul or what you consider to be 'blackness.' I know what my color is. I was raised in a black community with black people, so that has never been a thing with me. Yet I've gotten flak about being a pop success, but that doesn't mean that I'm white. ... Pop music has never been all-white.'"

Black Republican Michael Steele was a lot older than 27 when, during his 2002 Maryland campaign for lieutenant governor, he was derided as "Simple Sambo" and depicted as a black-faced minstrel. At a gubernatorial debate, Oreo cookies were distributed by the opposition. The Washington Times later wrote: "Delegate Salima Siler Marriott, a black Baltimore Democrat, said Mr. Steele invites comparisons to a slave who loves his cruel master or a cookie that is black on the outside and white inside because his conservative political philosophy is, in her view, anti-black."

You don't have to be black to demean a black Republican.

The tea party supported Rep. Allen West, R-Fla., a black man who denounced Barack Obama, Nancy Pelosi and other Democrats, and urged them to "get the hell out of the United States of America." Rep. Jim Moran, D-Va., a white man, said that West is "not representative of the African-American community." About West, a former Army colonel who saw action in Iraq, Moran insultingly said: "(West) just seems clueless now that he has climbed aboard ship. He's climbed this ladder of opportunity that was constructed by so many of his ancestors' sweat, sacrifice, blood. You know they did everything they could for his generation to be successful. But now that he's climbed on board ship, instead of reaching down and steadying the ladder, he wants to push it off. You know — 'I'm up here, if you're not with me, too bad.'"

So, a white Democrat — whose party hasn't carried the "white vote" in nearly 50 years — tells West, a black Republican, that he is not "representative of the African-American community."

Bet Whitney could relate.

Larry Elder is a best-selling author and radio talk-show host. To find out more about Larry Elder, or become an "Elderado," visit www.LarryElder.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2012 LAURENCE A. ELDER

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

View the original article here

Why Republicans should lay off China

Pete Hoekstra sparked a media firestorm with his racist "yellowgirl" ad. Sadly, he's hardly the only Republican trafficking in xenophobic Beijing-bashing Earlier this month, lucky Michigan viewers of Superbowl XLVI were serenaded with a political attack ad that is, to borrow a word from the ever poetic Mitt Romney, "severely" stupid. It takes the game of China-bashing to a new level, just as Chinese President-Select Xi Jinping arrives in the United States for a friendly visit.

The 30-second ad, put out by Michigan Republican Senate candidate Pete Hoekstra (who hopes to take on incumbent Democrat Debbie Stabenow in the fall), opens with a Fu Manchurian clang of a gong, followed by a young Chinese woman riding a bike leisurely down a narrow dirt path lined by rice paddies. Sashaying to a stop, she delivers a beguiling Anna May Wong smile, and speaks in a sweet voice peppered with just enough grammatical errors to bite like salt on a fresh wound: "Thank you, Michigan Senator Debbie Spend-it-now. Debbie spends so much American money. You borrow more and more from us. Your economy get very weak. Ours get very good. We take your jobs. Thank you, Debbie Spend-it-now." The scene then cuts to an avuncular Hoekstra summarizing the moral of this tale about faraway places: "I think this race is between Debbie Spend-it-now and Pete Spend-it-not." Zing.

SEE MORE: China's 'Year of the Dragon' baby boom: A guide

America has plenty of problems that need fixing. Pretending they're the fault of some menacing Red threat won't help us solve them.

For decades, Michigan has sadly watched the decline of its prized auto industry — a loss that has led to racially-driven anger and sledgehammers smashing Japan-made cars. It all culminated in the tragic death of Vincent Chin in 1982. Chin was beaten to death with a baseball bat by a Chrysler plant superintendent, after being mistaken for someone of Japanese heritage (as if that would have made it okay). Considering that history, the racial insensitivity of running this ad in Michigan of all places, and dubbing it "yellowgirl" in the HTML code on Hoekstra's campaign website, is simply beyond the pale.

SEE MORE: China's 'amazing' construction of a 30-story building in 360 hours

What Hoekstra didn't realize, apparently, was that the setting and costume used in the ad is identifiably Vietnamese, not Chinese. Indeed, the ad has drawn attention in China not for its Sinophobic content, but for its comical misidentification. 

Of course, the "yellowgirl" ad is not a single, standalone incident of China-bashing, but one of the many we have seen and will continue to see in political campaigns as well as media coverage. The disturbingly long list includes the infamous "Chinese professor" ad put out by Citizens Against Government Waste during the midterm elections in 2010, Rush Limbaugh's ridiculous mimicry of the Chinese president's speech ("ching chong, look see"), and countless attack ads in state-level elections that flash an opponent's unflattering headshot with the words "China" and "jobs" looming in the background.

SEE MORE: China's economic growing pains

Among the many perils of China-bashing is that it leaves voters misinformed. But it also unfairly and xenophobically blames the "other" for America's abundance of self-inflicted problems. Case in point: As a member of Congress, Hoekstra voted for the $700 billion bailout of the financial system in 2008. He voted again and again for budgets with big-time deficits — trillions of dollars worth, over time. That's not exactly the fault of our "yellowgirl." Forget "Pete Spend-it-not." This big-spending Republican is more like "Pete Hoe Extra."

SEE MORE: The $1.2 million Rolls-Royce that's selling out in China

The truth is, blaming China or any other country for the loss of American jobs focuses on symptoms rather than disease. In our global economy, capital, given its greedy nature, flows to wherever it can reap the best profit. It is incumbent upon national governments to create attractive environments for investment. As for trade imbalance, the root cause is not currency manipulation, but economic ideology. As long as our national economic life is fixated on finance — and Americans are more focused on buying mutual funds than on growing apple orchards in their backyards —the traditional mode of production will take a backseat. Take GM. Prior to the banking crisis, the financial arm of the company, GMAC (now Ally Financial), had grown so big that its revenue exceeded the actual car-making business. When an automobile company makes more money in finance than in manufacturing, should we really be surprised to see the flight of manufacturing jobs?

The miraculous turnaround of GM — it rose from near bankruptcy to become the No. 1 auto company in the world — is not only a powerful testament to the importance of government and industry working together to create jobs. It also sheds light on the futility and irresponsibility of politicians who continue to bash China. It wasn't politically-motivated scapegoating of foreign automakers that fixed GM.

SEE MORE: Is China really on the verge of surpassing the U.S.?

But look at the GOP presidential field. Mitt Romney wants to wage a trade war with China. Not to be outdone, Rick Santorium simply wants to go to war with China: "I don't want to go to a trade war, I want to beat China. I want to go to war with China." Newt Gingrich has a bold plan for a moon colony, a pipe dream strongly motivated by the Cold War era desire to beat the Chinese. When Jon Huntsman withdrew from the race, Republicans lost the only candidate who had any credibility or capability of dealing with China as effectively as the Obama administration has.

The Obama approach is two-fold: On the one hand, he welcomes the rise of China, acknowledging its benefit to the United States and the world. On the other hand, he continues to chide and pressure China to play by the rules and to improve its human rights record. Criticism and competition are healthy. Bashing and warmongering are not. You can't blame a country for continuing to loan you money, buying up your Treasury bills to sustain your lavish lifestyle of deficit spending. You can't criticize a country for having a poor human rights record when your own companies, such as Apple and Cisco, are helping to fuel the rise of poor, exploitive working conditions at Chinese factories, or assisting to modernize the surveillance technology of Chinese police departments that crack down on the people.

SEE MORE: Xi Jinping: The 'mystery man' in line to lead China

It's time to lay off China. America has plenty of problems that need fixing. But pretending they're the fault of some menacing Red threat won't help us solve them.

View this article on TheWeek.com Get 4 Free Issues of The Week

Other stories from this topic:

Like on Facebook - Follow on Twitter - Sign-up for Daily Newsletter

View the original article here

Aren't Republicans Supposed to Be Colorblind?

"Which of our Hispanic leaders would you consider to serve in your Cabinet?" A woman attending the last Republican debate in Florida asked this of the four Republican rivals.

Oh, for crying out loud! Ethnic-based Cabinet appointees? Do we still need to go out and "seek" people of a certain color or religion to show "fairness and inclusion"? What about considering the best people possible — isn't that the only appropriate answer to that question?

But Republicans go all Democrat, all too often, in front of black and brown audiences. They say things to show how empathic they are, rather than promote their principles as beneficial to all, regardless of race or gender or ethnicity.

Look at the way former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich and former Pennsylvania Sen. Rick Santorum answered this Cabinet question. Obviously anticipating such a query, they spat out practically every Hispanic name they could think of short of the Frito Bandito.

Only one, libertarian Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas, said the right thing. Paul simply said he wanted someone who understands fiscal and monetary policy — "Hispanic or otherwise." And Paul won't be the nominee.

The perception of Republicans as racist is joyfully promoted by Democrats like Democratic National Committee Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz, D-Fla., who said that Republicans "want to literally drag us all the way back to Jim Crow laws." Meanwhile, Democrats have successfully airbrushed away their own sordid racist history. This includes the founding of the Ku Klux Klan, which many called "the terrorist wing of the Democratic Party." This includes opposing the 13th, 14th and 15th Amendments. Yet today, by branding the GOP as the party of the racists, Democrats pull over 90 percent of the black vote in presidential elections.

A Republican elected official once asked me what he could do to improve his poll numbers in the black community. "As a private citizen," the frustrated politician said, "I donated hundreds of thousands of dollars for computers in schools. I make all the rounds at the right places in the inner city." Yet in elections he received little black support.

"I'll give you some advice, but you won't like it," I said.

"Try me."

"OK. Stop condescending. Stop apologizing. You can't out-warmth a Democrat. They're pros at showing minorities how much they 'care' by promising special programs or incentives that either don't work or make things worse.

"Say something like this: 'You are not a victim. Racism, sexism and homophobia are in full retreat in American life. Today, your fate is determined far more by what goes on in your home — rather than what goes on in city hall.' Make the case that we all want clean streets, safe neighborhoods and competitive schools. Make the case that your agenda — low taxes, less regulation and choice in schools — empower individuals, no matter the race, to make their own choices.

"Say: 'I don't wake up saying what black or brown or white or yellow thing I intend to do today. We are Americans before we are members of a racial group or religion or ethnicity. And, if we want our prayers answered, let's get off our knees and work to make them come true."

The politician said, "I can't say that."

In a piece called "California's Demographic Revolution," Heather Mac Donald describes the result of a March 2011 poll on the unfavorable view California Hispanics have toward the Republican Party: "The top two reasons were that the party favored only the rich and that Republicans were selfish and out for themselves; Republican positions on immigration law were cited less often."

How does the GOP turn that around? Simply saying, "No, we're not selfish, we care," won't work. Make the case for choice in school and private accounts for Social Security. Explain how the liberal feel-good polices — welfare, public housing, urban renewal, assigned government schools, minimum wage laws — hurt the very groups Democrats claim to help. Argue that it is condescending, if not racist, to believe that certain people cannot compete because of their race.

President John F. Kennedy, in 1963, was asked whether "Negroes" should receive special race-based hiring to compensate for slavery and discrimination: "I think it is a mistake to begin to assign quotas on the basis of religion or race — color — nationality. ... On the other hand, I do think that we ought to make an effort to give a fair chance to everyone who is qualified — not through a quota — but just look over our employment rolls, look over our areas where we are hiring people and at least make sure we are giving everyone a fair chance. But not hard and fast quotas. ... We are too mixed, this society of ours, to begin to divide ourselves on the basis of race or color."

Kennedy said that 49 years ago. It's what Messrs. Romney, Santorum and Gingrich should say — right now.

Larry Elder is a best-selling author and radio talk-show host. To find out more about Larry Elder, or become an "Elderado," visit www.LarryElder.com. To read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2012 LAURENCE A. ELDER

DISTRIBUTED BY CREATORS.COM

View the original article here

Are House Republicans Mitt Romney's 'biggest liability'?

Tuesday was a terrible day for Mitt Romney. Conservatives abandoned him in droves for once-insignificant rival Rick Santorum, who won three statewide presidential contests. Still, the former Massachusetts governor remains heavily favored to win the GOP nomination. If (or when) he does, he'll surely be associated throughout the campaign with the one branch of the federal government his party controls, the deeply unpopular House. That may not be good news for Mitt. House Republicans don't seem too keen to moderate their more controversial policy prescriptions in order to help their nominee appeal to a general election audience. Is this Romney's biggest campaign challenge?

The House GOP is "Romney's biggest liability": House Republicans are going out of their way to become "an albatross to Romney's presidential bid," says Jonathan Bernstein at The Washington Post. They're "apparently preparing to dive off a cliff again" by doubling down on Rep. Paul Ryan's unpopular Medicare-voucherizing plan, and fighting a popular tax on the rich that would pay for an extension of the payroll tax holiday. "These are both issues where conservative orthodoxy is on one side, and the bulk of the American people" are on the other. Every time the House GOP brings up its "unpopular conservative positions," Romney is "going to take hits."
"Mitt Romney's biggest liability: The House GOP?"

But at least we'll get a real contest of ideas: "The future of Medicare is on the line," says Cory Adams at Big Think. And thanks to the House GOP's continued focus on Ryan's controversial plan, which Mitt has backed, "a Romney vs. Obama match-up will surely address this contentious issue." In the end, that may hurt Mitt. But we should all be glad that "in an era of record U.S. deficits, the question of individual liberty and the responsibility of the state is coming to the fore in a way that is hasn't for decades."
"Paul Ryan, individual liberty, and the fate of Medicare"

Plus, Romney's real problem is his social squishiness: "Conventional wisdom has long held that the 2012 election would be about fiscal and economic issues" like Medicare and taxes, says Joel B. Pollak at Big Government. But as Santorum's resurgence shows, "social conservatism may be due for a revival." That will be Romney's Achilles' heel: He's a notorious "flip-flopper" on social issues, and "after a year of frustrating compromises in Congress," voters want a man of conviction.
"Will 2012 be about social conservatism after all?"

View this article on TheWeek.com Get 4 Free Issues of The Week

Other stories from this topic:

Like on Facebook - Follow on Twitter - Sign-up for Daily Newsletter

View the original article here