No way can it be said that “all republicans are racists” – because it simple isn’t the case.
But it’s looking more and more like the Republican Party is.
Maybe it’s because they aren’t aware of the fact that you can get to DC from anywhere in the country in a matter of hours.
I’ve always used the “scheduling conflict” excuse when I just didn’t feel like attending a particular event.
I would bet anything that someone somewhere in their leadership has stated that it is a strategic position that they are not even going to try with African Americans. They accept that the Democratic Party “owns” that market. So, they don’t feel there is any value in investing time and effort in even showing up.
What they don’t seem to realize is that there is value in at least not appearing racist.
Right- by giving up on attracting black voters, they’re also giving up on attracting white voters who don’t feel comfortable in a nigh-whites-only club. And that’s a growing segment, I think (anecdotally).
Not to mention that, demographically, it’s a losing move to make yourself The Party For Whites.
It was pretty stupid. Supporting Martin Luther King is hardly a controversial position in 2013. Showing up at the ceremony would have been a no-cost gesture.
Not showing up, on the other hand, sends a message that will be much harder to overcome. The Democratic party might have a strong majority of support among black voters but the Republican party should at least be making an effort.
Wow, talk about poor optics. Almost as bad as that time the GOP-controlled House held hearings on health insurance covering contraception, and only invited men to speak*.
*Of course, Limbaugh made that incident one infinitely worse with the whole Sandra Fluke = “slut” thing the next day.
Well, Bill O’Reilly says that conservatives weren’t invited.
Fuck Bill O’Reilly.
But, can I just say (and this is hard!) I really respect how George W. responded? I don’t have any love for the guy, but his excuse seemed valid (heart surgery) and the letter he sent was really nice.
Remember, to mainstream Republicans today George W. is an immigrant loving Socialist. Who didn’t get invited to the convention.
To clarify, the headline reads: Bill O’Reilly Falsely Claims Republicans Not Invited To March On Washington Event.
As the article notes every member of Congress was invited to attend. Speaker of the House Boehner and Majority Leader Cantor were both invited to give a speech.
The stupidest thing is that it now looks like the Republicans intentionally boycotted the event - which makes them look like dicks.
But personally I don’t think that’s true. I think it’s just that no Republican saw any benefit in showing up so they all chose to skip it. It was a demonstration of indifference rather than malice.
The GOP leadership should have been smart enough to figure out how badly this would look and should have ordered some Republicans to attend.
They could have at least pulled a Mitt Romney and showed up just to piss the people off to show their cred to the tea party.
In order for the GOP to win with black voters, they have to offer them something. By and large the GOP offers little as far as racial attitudes or gov. policy that would appeal to a lot of blacks. So they are reduced to insulting blacks by claiming they are too stupid to realize democrats hate and control them. Point is, the GOP isn’t going to change their policies anytime soon to win black voters.
In fact it’s gone further than that since they’re now trying to reduce minority turnout as well. It doesn’t have to be that way, and just the other day Rep. Sensenbrenner was saying they need to shore up the Voting Rights Act. They really wouldn’t need to rewrite their entire platform to try to become more competitive, but right now they’re not only uninterested, they’re actively alienating black voters. I think it’s pretty big of the organizers to have invited McCain- you may recall he’s one of the senators who voted against making MLK Day a federal holiday.
A problem is gems like this “One Republican aide likened the late flurry of invites to “unvitations,” the “Seinfeld”-inspired practice of inviting someone to an event with the knowledge that they won’t attend.”
A more likely explanation is that when the event’s organizers realized none of the Republicans if had invited in its earlier rounds of invitations were going to attend, it began sending out last-minute invitations in an attempt to get some Republican who would show up.
The Republicans can try to spin this as some partisan plot but the fact is that a lot of Republicans were invited and the invitations went out at the same time as the ones to Democrats were sent. It just appears that Republicans chose not to attend. And now that their lack of attendance is making them look bad, they’re apparently trying to turn it around by claiming they weren’t invited hard enough or something.
And doubling down on lying as well… Fine… even Colin Powell has walked away from them… leave Ron christie on his own… looking like the lawn jockey he’s treated like… GOP has decided to go the route of preventing minority voting… rather than enticing minority votes…
That is unexpectedly classy. I tip my hat to the man.
Speaker Boehner is on a bus tour shoring up support for “loyal” republican house members that are facing Tea Party opposition in the upcoming primaries. Minority Leader McConnell is actually getting nervous about his own senate race. In both cases, they are more afraid of the Tea Party than they are of Democrats. It’s getting more and more difficult to make any other conclusion than that the Tea Party JUST MIGHT BE RACIST and would punish any Republican who showed up at the event.
In purely political terms, the Republicans should have been knocking people down in their race to get their faces in front of a camera at this event. The talk of invitations or lack of them is a total red herring. They needed to have been there. They needed to have their staffs ensure that they were there. They needed to make the phone calls to get themselves the most visible seating and placement. If they had any intention whatsoever of appealing to the black community, they would have taken the initiative, just as they invite themselves to Iowa, New Hampshire, and gun rallies.
They did not. Worse, they deliberately tried to create the appearance of being the side that was wronged.
This will never be forgotten. If it weren’t so deliberate, I’d say it was the most incredible political mistake of the century. Since it was deliberate, they deserve everything that will be coming to them in the future.
That’s the whole problem with this country: “What’s in it for me?” I’m sorry, but to the GOP? Your mommas aren’t here to tell you the right thing to do! You’re supposed to be mature adults. Out of respect to the achievements of MLK, Jr… the GOP’s top officials SHOULD HAVE SPOKEN AT THIS EVENT - PERIOD! It was a total insult and flagrant display of ignorance to have blown off this monumental commemoration.
Yet, another occasion where the GOP has turned their collective back on the social issues in this nation. Democracts excel on social issues, but are weak on foreign policy; GOP is diametrically opposite - to a tee! Yet, if the two schools could only learn from each other, they’d complement each other nicely. Then, Congress might actually accomplish something, but we CANNOT have that. Afterall, this is America! 