BCT Editorial – 12/31/08

This page was last updated on January 6, 2009.

Political downsizing; Editorial; Beaver County Times; December 31, 2008.

The editorial subtitle is “GOP runs the risk of becoming a regional party.”

This is simply another editorial from a left-leaning organization supposedly telling the Republican Party what it’s doing wrong.

Below is a detailed critique of the subject editorial.

“Does the Republican Party have a demographic and Electoral College death wish?

“The reaction to a song ‘Barack, the Magic Negro,’ sung to the tune of ‘Puff, the Magic Dragon,’ will go a long way toward answering that question.

“The parody was included in a music CD mailed out by Chip Saltsman, a candidate to be the next chairman of the Republican National Committee. He told The Washington Post that the song and others on the CD were nothing more than light-hearted parodies.

“Naturally, he attacked the liberal media for publicizing the matter.

“Put aside the racial aspects of the song and Saltsman’s sense of humor. Instead, look at U.S. demographics, the Electoral College map and the 2008 presidential election.”

[RWC] Given the song is the focus of this editorial you’d think there would be at least a little space dedicated to how the parody came into being. The reason the editorial didn’t include this info is it would have undermined the editorial. Make no mistake, the Times knows all the facts of the story.

First, the name of the “music CD mailed out by Chip Saltsman” is “We Hate the USA” by conservative political satirist Paul Shanklin. The CD contains 41 parodies of the left and right. Other subjects of parodies on the CD include John McCain, Trent Lott, Hillary Clinton, Al Gore, Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, and others. Second, the full name of the parody is “David Ehrenstein’s ‘Barack the Magic Negro’” and it was first played on the Rush Limbaugh Show about 20 months ago during March or April of 2007. Using the full title is important because the parody was inspired by a Los Angeles Times op/ed piece entitled “Obama, the ‘Magic Negro’” (March 19, 2007). Even worse for the editorial are the facts that the author, David Ehrenstein, is not only a leftist, but also at least one of his grandparents is/was black. As for the parody, listen to it and you find Mr. Shanklin it makes fun of the op/ed piece and other comments by lefties about Mr. Obama by impersonating Al Sharpton to lament how Mr. Obama took Mr. Sharpton’s spotlight. In short, the parody was not about Mr. Obama; it was about the left’s view of Mr. Obama.

“Demographically, the GOP lost the black and Hispanic votes in 2008, with the latter voters being pivotal in President-elect Barack Obama winning several Western states. Also, the United States will be a majority minority nation by the middle of this century. Does using an outdated racial term like Negro make the party more attractive to these voters?”

[RWC] The comment that “the GOP lost the black and Hispanic votes in 2008” is deceptive in that it implies some new trend. As a group, blacks have voted almost exclusively for Democrats for decades. If my memory serves me correctly, I remember an editorial discussing this topic and noting it meant neither Democrats nor Republicans tried to woo black voters anymore. Democrats don’t woo black voters because they’re guaranteed to vote overwhelmingly for the Democrats and Republicans don’t because it’s a waste of time. Regarding Hispanics, they too tend to vote for Democrats though not to the overwhelming extent as blacks. Both blacks and Hispanics voted in the majority for Messrs. Gore and Kerry in 2000 and 2004, respectively.

A “majority minority nation?” Yet another example of idiotic leftyspeak. I’m guessing the editorial meant no single skin color or ethnic background would be a majority.

As far as “using an outdated racial term like Negro,” perhaps the BC Times should take that up with Mr. Ehrenstein and the LA Times.

Finally, when did all the race talk take place? You’ll remember it was during the Democrat primary races.

“In the Electoral College, the Republican Party lost all of the big states except Texas, and the trend could continue. Because of their demographic diversity, these states are going one way and the GOP is going another.

“In the Republican Party’s case, that’s south. Recent congressional elections have seen the party’s power base wiped out in New England, the Mid-Atlantic and the West Coast, and it has taken a brutal beating in the so-called Big Ten Midwest states. No Republican House members are left in New England. And, as Washington Post columnist David Broder noted, ‘they have become even scarcer in New York and Pennsylvania and across the Midwest.’”

[RWC] “[T]hat’s south?” When did states like Montana, Idaho, et cetera become part of the South? Check the electoral map and you find the 22 “red” states form a contiguous group from Georgia and South Carolina in the southeast to Idaho and Montana in the northwest and Arizona in the southwest, plus Alaska.

I’m sure the Times knows this, but northeast Republicans have been RINOs for decades. In general, the more urban an area becomes, the more it leans to the left.

“The result is a GOP that is demographically, politically and ideologically homogenous, and totally out of step with the rest of the nation. That leaves the party with one role in national politics — congressional obstructionism. That might satisfy the true believers, but it does little to broaden the party’s appeal.”

[RWC] When the editorial said the “GOP … is demographically … homogenous,” this is meant to imply the Republican Party is the party of the white male. Of course, that means you have to ignore black Republicans like Ken Blackwell, Michael Steele, Lynn Swann, among others who held or ran for office. You also have to ignore Bobby Jindal, the son of Indian immigrants who won election as Louisiana’s first Republican governor since forever. You also have to ignore that of the 22 Republican governors, three are women. This is roughly the same proportion as female Democrat governors (4 of 28).

As for the “politically and ideologically homogenous” comment, I wish it were true. In a knucklehead move to attract more voters, we have folks like John McCain, Colin Powell, and others who are turning the Republican Party into a “lite” version of the Democrat party. The way to attract more voters is for Republicans to govern as conservatives when elected, not as RINOs.

“[T]otally out of step with the rest of the nation?” Is that why nearly 46% of us voted for the Republican candidate for President, including a razor thin majority of Beaver County voters?

“Some Republicans might think the Obama parody is funny, but their party’s shrinking base is no laughing matter. The party is in danger of marginalizing itself, and that’s not good for it or our nation’s two-party system.”

[RWC] The parody is not an “Obama parody” and the Times knows it. That said, count me as one of those who believe the parody is funny. Funnier, though, is the editorial’s implication the Times is concerned about the Republican Party. Then again, I guess the Times needs someone to blame when all the leftist programs fail.

Ask yourself this question. Given the choice of bashing Mr. Saltsman for sending out a CD full of parodies of persons on both the left and right or taking Sen. Arlen Specter to task for telling Polish jokes at a high profile dinner, why did the Times choose to write about Mr. Saltsman? A search of the Times website indicates the Times didn’t even carry the Specter story in its “news” section. That’s why I had to link to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. I also found no editorials when Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-NY) used a racial stereotype about Mahatma Gandhi when she joked, “He ran a gas station down in St. Louis” (1/3/04). Likewise, no mention was made when VP-elect Joe Biden (D-DE) said, “You cannot go to a 7-Eleven or a Dunkin’ Donuts unless you have a slight Indian accent. I’m not joking.”

Finally, who was it that claimed Mr. Obama couldn’t be elected because of his skin color? It was Democrats during the primaries.