In a bit, I will be leaving Orlando, heading home to New York.
The Republican Governors Association was also in the Sunshine State last week. At the top of their agenda: how to get the GOP out of the hole it has dug for itself.
Predictably, some Republicans fret about not getting their, er, message out. Their wannabe savior Michael Steele, former lieutenant governor of Maryland, told a group of conservatives meeting at the Breakers Hotel in Palm Beach:
The cause of the conservative movement in this country is alive and
well. It is strong only if we let it be strong, only if we acknowledge
its principles only if we prepare to go into the town squares and the
halls of America and speak truth to power. If we are to regain the
trust of the American people and restore the credibility of our ideas,
we must break with that which went wrong and once again stand for what
is right.
But Prof. Michael Fauntroy, author of “Republicans and the Black Vote,” writes:
Did you see the crowd shots during speeches at the Republican National Convention in St. Paul? It resembled
an America that no longer exists. The Census Bureau issued a press release in the summer of 2008 that projects that by 2042, the United States will no longer be a White majority nation. Of course, you would have never known that by watching the Republican National Convention. African Americans, for example, comprised just 1.5 percent of the delegates to this year’s convention. Relying on a graying base of a shrinking demographic to win elections is a losing proposition when the other side is collecting virtually all of the groups that are growing…If the GOP doesn’t get serious about diversity, then it will have to write off sections of the far west. How can a party win a national election if it’s not competitive in the northeast, mid-Atlantic, or far west?
Fauntroy adds:
The Republicans have a bigger problem than they think. Continuing with the same ideological leadership and ignoring the demographic reality facing the country will only make things worse. While I do take a bit of a perverse delight in the current state of the party, I also understand that two parties competing for the center of the electorate is, ultimately, better for the country than one. The GOP is so far out of the mainstream and riven with delusion about how they got there that a reality is necessary. Let’s hope someone is listening.
Fauntroy expects Republicans will ignore his advice. That’s a safe assumption. I was a national vice chair of the Republican National Committee’s New Majority Council and they didn’t listen to me. Perhaps if they had, they wouldn’t be facing the abyss.
