� Contingency Clown | Main | Beat to the Punch �

July 28, 2005

Steele & The GOP

So now it has happened and the venom is flying. The bigwigs in the GOP have gotten their money and interest behind Michael Steele and that hate is just flying. Mark down the names of these guys because they sound like jilted lovers. How dare the Republicans back a black candidate!

It's almost as if the RNC and I were reading the same page. Just yesterday in the other thread I was saying how much of a no-brainer it is for the right African American candidates to walk into the open arms of the Republican Party. Of course it's no walk in the park for anyone, including Steele, but there is not, contrary to urban myth and Liberal lie, a color bar in the Republican Party. But that's hardly what Steele's ascendancy proves. What it proves is that the class of blackfolks who are Old School, and having met Steele I can attest, are natural candidates for filling in the gaps in the GOP. Steele is neither ideologue nor puppet. He's my kind of people, and I think once again, as with the debut of the Cosby Show, America is in for a pleasant surprise.

I'm going to step out on a limb and stick a big thumb in the face of all the whiners who have been saying, for as long as I've been right-blogging, that black Republicanism was both an impossibility and an oxymoron. The Party is stepping up to the [$1,000] plate and putting some energy behind a serious black candidate. This could very well be the watershed event we've been waiting for. I am very curious to see how far Steele is going to echo the 'Cosby Republican' (which is much of what we've been all about over here) rhetoric to capitalize on the buzz still surrounding that. I don't think that's much like Steele's style, but if he's got Rove behind him, you can be certain that the opportunity won't be missed.

I expect that I'm going to have to suppress a lot of 'monkey' comments that will inevitably issue from haters and idiots. Let's not forget what has been said (and drawn) about our Secretary of State when she ascended to that post. So let the flames begin.

References:

  • Oliver Willis pays no attention to the man himself at all, and dismisses him in a skinny paragraph.

  • The Ascent Blog doesn't give as much as the benefit of the doubt but doesn't condemn. Faint praise indeed.

  • That Colored Fella dismisses Steele as well.

    • So all in all, there doesn't seem to be many folks who are willing to take Steele seriously, despite the fact that I see him as the genuine article, and right smack in the middle of the Old School. From my point of view, he is precisely the kind of candidate who can speak up for both the aggressive business blacks on the right (for lack of a better term) and blacks of the Christian Right. He is too much of neither but comfy with both.

    Posted by mbowen at July 28, 2005 05:36 PM

    Trackback Pings

    TrackBack URL for this entry:
    http://www.visioncircle.org/mt/mt-tb.cgi/4128

    Comments

    Who is whining dude?

    In the state of Maryland, Blacks are talking about the pending race AND Blacks are pointing out how the state Dems are probably putting pressure on other potential WHITE Dem candidates to NOT enter the race so that the white vote is consolidated behind the white candiate.

    I don't get your point at all.

    Posted by: DarkStar at July 28, 2005 06:19 PM

    I thought JC Watts' election during the Newt Gingrich House Occupation was supposed to be the watershed.

    Better be some more blacks in the GOP pipeline, because if Steele wins a significant seat but is a lone ranger for many years, he'll get squeezed dry by the GOP like JC did, and go back to private life.

    Posted by: brotherbrown [TypeKey Profile Page] at July 28, 2005 08:46 PM

    I don't care what color the candidate is so long as they are espousing positions with which I agree.

    Barbara Lee don't speak for me!

    Posted by: PurpleMD at July 29, 2005 12:52 AM

    I really don't know enough about the man, but I am not surprised that the GOP is getting behind him. As Lt. Governor, I think he should be a clear favorite to win the Governorship. What little I did read about him on his official website, he seems pretty cool. Honestly, Cobb, I could deal with black Republicans like yourself, but I find that you are a minority of a minority. Most black Republicans I've heard speak are repugnant and I can't stomach the sight of them.

    Posted by: James Manning at July 29, 2005 10:38 AM

    I'm in the state of Maryland and I will say this with 99% confidence: Cobb is way off base.

    His candadicy is being taken very seriously and he is NOT being dismissed in Maryland.

    It's serious enough that the Democrats in Maryland may be undermining Mfume so that Steele goes up against a "moderate" Democratic opponent instead of a "radical" Mfume. In that way, the Jewish vote and the white moderate vote would go for the Democrat candidate instead of Steele.

    I think Cobb is basking in "victimology" on this one.

    Really.

    Posted by: DarkStar [TypeKey Profile Page] at July 31, 2005 08:20 PM

    I'm just surprised at the lack of response in the 'sphere. Furthermore, when I looked at the headlines, all I could find is crap like Willis was saying - basically that anybody who would ask Rove for help was the same kind of devil incarnate as Rove.

    I don't worry about Steele's political career. I happen to think he'll be better than Obama. It's just rather fascinating to see how the prospect of another black senator is not getting similar prop, not that I'm particularly impressed by the adulation heaped upon Obama.

    Posted by: Cobb [TypeKey Profile Page] at August 1, 2005 01:16 AM

    There's a lack of traffic in the blogosphere on Steele's candidacy for he really hasn't articulated a platform yet. Marylanders, I believe, are expecting him to distance himself from the current governor (who's a good bet to get the boot in '06). My belief is Steele's a moderate sort; an obviously smart person with charisma. Black Marylanders are going to listen to what he has to say, whenever that is.

    If Steele resorts to carrying water for the GOP's power elite, the voters will turn him off. I see a guy who's been actively courting the Af-Am professional class, particularly in his 'hood, Prince George's County. But outside of whatever the party's infrastructure can provide him, Steele's a man with no real constituency. Ergo, his challenge.

    Posted by: MIB at August 5, 2005 09:28 AM