Is "Magic Negro" CD Helping Saltsman In RNC Race?
The RNC chairmanship race, with its new controversy surrounding a CD with a song entitled "Barack The Magic Negro," appears to be calling into question just how able the party will be to effectively oppose the first black president without coming off as racist.
The Politico reports that some RNC members appear to be rallying behind chairmanship candidate Chip Saltsman, after he sent all of them a gift CD that included the racially-charged song. Committee members from Oklahoma to Alabama and even Maine are now going on the record defending Saltsman, and some observers think current RNC chairman Mike Duncan and Michigan chairman Saul Anuzis may have damaged their candidacies by denouncing the CD.
Stuff like this really does bring us back to a strong possibility of what the GOP's prospects could be in the coming years. They may just be going through one of the classic cycles of a governing party that is kicked out in a landslide: The overall party base has shrunk, and the people left over prove to be the least fit candidates to actually clean up the mess. If this is true, the GOP is facing a long time in the wilderness.
Hey Eric, just put a big red bow on this post and call it a Christmas present from you to all of us.
December 30, 2008 9:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
Blue. A big _blue_ bow ;-)
December 30, 2008 10:01 AM | Reply | Permalink
Wow, how out of touch can you be with the rest of the country, quite astounding. Oh well, not to offend any Southerners, but quite glad I don't live among that type of mind set.
December 30, 2008 10:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
The Civil War never ended down there ... it's been on an extended cease-fire while the South regroups.
December 30, 2008 10:38 AM | Reply | Permalink
The south doesn't exactly have a monopoly on prejudiced white dumbasses and the north doesn't have a monopoly on smart people.
However, the south does have a long tradition of excessive touchiness about damnyankees who talk like every person from south of the Mason-Dixon line and/or who has a southern accent of some kind is an imbecile.
December 30, 2008 12:00 PM | Reply | Permalink
Not all of us Southerners are like this, not even all conservative Southerners. But the GOP leadership is a real good ole' boys club down here.
We should be grateful though, it's effectively crippled the national party.
December 30, 2008 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
I base my experience in Mobile during the 60's. I saw it up front and personal.
December 30, 2008 11:57 AM | Reply | Permalink
Mobile in the 1960's was a long time ago.
I was born in the 1960's into a white, southern, conservative Republican family. And everyone in my family who still lives in the South that I've talked to in the past 6 months is beyond disgusted with the current racism on display.
December 30, 2008 12:48 PM | Reply | Permalink
"If this is true, the GOP is facing a long time in the wilderness."
We can only hope.
December 30, 2008 10:28 AM | Reply | Permalink
What? Is the term Negro no longer appropriate or something?
I mean, everyone around me uses gook, spic, wop and kike. I just assumed Negro was just fine.
And, don't you try and tell me I've been in a coma or something for the last 40 years and just woke up either!
December 30, 2008 10:36 AM | Reply | Permalink
So the new GOP base will be more racist George Wallace in the 60's? I guess racial equality was just my imagination.
December 30, 2008 10:42 AM | Reply | Permalink
Good points! Damned if the do and damned if they don't.
December 30, 2008 10:52 AM | Reply | Permalink
They're in a pickle. If they condemn it, they're calling a lot of their supporters (who sing along like good little dittoheads) racists, if they don't condemn it they're further alienating their party into their all-white country club.
December 30, 2008 10:48 AM | Reply | Permalink
By the way, ever notice the more someone is religious, the more racially intolerant they are? Strange but true fact about American religious types. And they all live in Palin's Real America too!
December 30, 2008 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
"...ever notice the more someone is religious, the more racially intolerant they are?"
No.
December 30, 2008 10:59 AM | Reply | Permalink
Co-sign.
December 30, 2008 11:18 AM | Reply | Permalink
For some reason the name "Rev. Martin Luther King Jr" is popping into my head right now, but I am sure that is totally beside your point...
December 30, 2008 11:02 AM | Reply | Permalink
Rev King wasn't into promoting his view of God as to taking sides. His view of God saw no color.
December 30, 2008 11:55 AM | Reply | Permalink
"His view of God saw no color."
I think that was the point. There are lots of religious leaders who are the exact opposite of racists.
Folks are disagreeing with your premise that religious=racially intolerent.
December 30, 2008 12:17 PM | Reply | Permalink
I do not see quite what this observation has to do with your original point. You claimed that "the more someone is religious, the more racially intolerant they are." If that were true, then it would follow that all racially tolerant individuals would be people of weak religious conviction or no religious conviction at all. Given that Dr King was both 1) religious and 2) racially tolerant, it follows that your original observation is off base. Nor is King unique as a counterexample to your overhasty generalization. The Dalai Lama, Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel, Albert Schweitzer, Cezar Chavez and others leap quickly to mind, as well.
December 30, 2008 12:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
...Mother Theresa...
December 30, 2008 1:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Gook, spic, wop, kike,,,,,, what, no limey???? We Anglo-Saxons must protest !!
In any event, looks like unless the voices of reason and sanity prevail, the Republican party will be the olde Solid South/Dixiecrat lobby which after their betrayal by LBJ switched brands to join with their traditiional Reconstructionist foes in the GOP.
December 30, 2008 10:50 AM | Reply | Permalink
I am not sure that "limey" is really to Anglo-Saxon what "kike" is to Jewish, or suchlike. It seems to me that "limey" is more affectionate than pejorative. Perhaps "Sassanach" is what you are really looking for? Or maybe "WASP" (which can be used dispassionately, but definitely has a pejorative sense in other contexts)?
December 30, 2008 11:08 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'd like to share this clip from MSNBC - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/12/29/msnbc-anchor-i-wouldnt-fi_n_154107.html Did she just say that she is defending Rush Limbaugh? Maybe this is why the GOP is standing behind Chip? Their voters (in their home state) follow and listen to Rush and if Rush puts them on his shit list then they might not win local or state elections - it's a stretch, I know. Actually a better reason they are remaining so thick headed is because they have Ken Blackwell on their side and I have not heard a peep out of other Black Republicans.
December 30, 2008 10:58 AM | Reply | Permalink
I'm sure Saltsman cleared this with all the African-Americans on his staff.
December 30, 2008 11:04 AM | Reply | Permalink
When you first reported Saltsman's magic negro thing my response was something like this:
"So? Is anyone surprised? If anything, this blatant racism will probably help him win control of the Republican Party."
Turns out I know the Republican Party:
http://www.thepersonalispolitical.com/2008/12/shocker-blatant-racism-seen-as-good.html
December 30, 2008 11:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
Eric,
Your commentary is well said. I predict in four years the GOP will be obsolete like the Whig party.
December 30, 2008 12:02 PM | Reply | Permalink
Since the dems spent decades wandering in the wilderness and looking for a progressive leader, I suspect the republicans will eventually produce new leaders to meet the changing demands of the party.
I wouldn't go celebrating the end of the GOP just yet. These things tend to be cyclical and most disgruntled republicans aren't just going to join the democratic party out of frustration or disgust.
The more successful Barack Obama is at instituting wide-ranging progressive policies, the quicker the GOP will get its act together, much like the utter disaster that was neoconservative domination these last eight years forced the democratic party to reconnect with its roots.
December 30, 2008 12:22 PM | Reply | Permalink
No, I'm afraid that the GOP will not become irrelevant or completely marginalized. Many people still believe that it represents and supports valuable conservative ideas. Those people are wrong, but they will go on mistakenly supporting the GOP.
There will always be room in this country for the 'non-Democrat' party. Many voters have a negative opinion of the Dems for fair or unfair reasons. The GOP leaders will eventually come to their senses, clean up their act and start being competitive nationally. In the mean time we Dems have to accomplish what we can, try not to screw up and remember what it was like to be out of power. Gloating is optional.
December 30, 2008 12:38 PM | Reply | Permalink
Saltsman has an eerily similar face to another republican, someone from Virginia if I remember, I remember now George Allen.
maybe they are distant cousins...
December 30, 2008 1:00 PM | Reply | Permalink