FTR, my skim of his speech found exactly one policy proposal - Rand Paul’s immigration plan. And most of the text was dedicated to blather rather than to policy. (Ok, now I see that he also advocates school vouchers, albeit not explicitly. But the argument was pretty hazy.)
(My word counts suggests that about 75% of the speech is blather. To show my generosity, this counts as nonblather:
*We should be proud that so many want to come to America, that it is still seen as the land of opportunity.
Let’s make it a land of legal work, not black market jobs. Let’s make it a land of work not welfare. Our land should be one of assimilation, not hiding in the shadows.* )
So, I’d say that Rachel Maddow’s characterization was accurate, given that it addressed 75% of the speech. That said, I agree it would be best to pull the original cite (the text of the speech in this case) to get the rundown. Maddow is a pundit after all, albeit an intelligent one.
John Mace has a mild case of the “Lefties are no better than Righties” virus. It can lay dormant for long periods, but it flares up from time to time. Just pretend you can’t see the warts and it’s all good.
High Broderism is the defining characteristic of very serious people. Before the Republican Party went barking mad, it was an admirable position, to eschew the biased judgement of partisans.
But Shirley it must have its limitations! Ms Maddow has a swan’s neck, a girlish giggle and a steel trap mind. But not non-partisan. Well, damn. So close.
Weeeeeell, prior to Germany invading Belgium it was just some damn fool thing in the Balkans, one of many, before and since, which usually don’t trigger world wars. But Rand Paul is still an idiot. Stopped clock, and all.
I dunno… France’s Plan XVI dates back to 1909, anticipating a German attack through Belgium. Britain joining a war over Belgium was not anticipated by all. And France had provocatively massed troops in Alsace-Lorraine. It was like these countries were already at war, only the shooting hadn’t yet started. It isn’t clear that any one country can be blamed for starting WWI. Maybe I am wrong about that, but I am not wrong about the GOP’s awkward electoral advances toward minority groups.
Yeah, responsibility for it becoming the war that it became falls on Germany mostly, with Austria and Russia coming in close behind. Germany, both with its blank check promise to back up Austria, and its invasion of, not just the ally of the country that was mobilizing against it, but a country wholly uninvolved with either side, provided the final transformation of the conflict into a nearly Eurasian-wide one, even though it would most likely have turned out that way anyway given Russias mobilization.
I’m a little surprised by this Pitting. Yeah, it was a bad speech, and “Hey, party of Lincoln here” was never going to sway black voters, but what was he supposed to say? It probably would have gone over even worse if he’d talked about the areas where the GOP does arguably better represent the black community (“those illegal immigrants are taking your jobs!” and “I hear you guys hate gay marriage too!”)
Let us be grateful that we do not face the kind of choice our ancestors faced: who’s side are you on, Hitler or Stalin? We need only choose between a herd of more-or-less well-meaning doofi or the Forces of Darkness.
Accept that the GOP was the party of Lincoln but acknowledge that it is now the party of racists and race-baiters. Show the audience that he knows the history of the Southern Strategy, how all of the racist Democrats flocked to the GOP after the Civil Rights Act, and the party continues to play white people against minorities by talking about welfare queens and illegal immigrants. Tell them he believes race is still a huge issue in the US, how he knows Obama is getting unprecedented hate partly due to how he looks, and how he supports civil rights over the “right” to discriminate by private businesses because there is a thing call protected class, and a thing known as equal rights, and when one right conflicts with another, we don’t always throw up our hands in futility and claim “states rights” overrules everything. Tell them that no matter what America will always be the land of the free and we’ll never arrest someone for thinking like a racist, but we can and will and should stop someone from acting like one when it impacts other people. And finally, say that as a GOP president, they have nothing to fear from him. He won’t end affirmative action because there is still inequality, he won’t try to secure votes by demonizing those on welfare or food stamps, and he won’t pretend like his fellow Republicans really said “blah people” when they meant “black people”. That’s what he should have said
He might usually get away with that. But he was assuming that students at Howard would be ignorant of black history - and that is both condescending and stupid.
And black people being…well, not as smart as white people…going to Howard, which has an acceptance rate of 54% and is ranked as the 120th best university in the country .probably means you don’t have an eighth grade knowledge of U.S. History. I’m sure statistics will bear that out.
[QUOTE=RTFirefly, post #12]
The GOP needs minorities and young people; that’s the lesson of the 2012 election. Doing what you have to do to survive doesn’t get you points.
[/QUOTE]
Can’t help you with that.
[QUOTE=brickbacon]
How does it even help the party survive?
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They’ve probably maxed out their share of the white vote, so they need to connect with minorities to some extent to survive.
[QUOTE=RTFirefly, post #12]
Romney spoke to the NAACP basically for the purpose of saying objectionable things and getting booed; his real audience was his base who feels that anytime blacks don’t like whites, it’s because they’re racist.
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[QUOTE=RTFirefly, post 36]
Come, come. 2012 wasn’t all that long ago. Surely you remember - it was widely commented on at the time - that Romney kept on feeling the need to shore up his base well after the time when most candidates would have been tacking back to the center.
And the consensus was that the need was real - the base didn’t really trust Romney, so he had to all but out-base the base.
And while they weren’t going to vote for Obama, they could have chosen to stay home in larger numbers than they did. In discussions of electoral strategy, the fact that people can choose to not bother to vote, rather than choose between the candidates, is often overlooked.
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[QUOTE=brickbacon]
Wrong again. Of course they could not vote, but those people are largely not in states that matter
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You’re right: there are no voters in Ohio or Pennsylvania or Iowa or Virginia or North Carolina or Florida that this sorta thing would appeal to.
[QUOTE=brickbacon]
The problem with your logic is not that he didn’t need to take steps to solidify his base, it’s that you think speaking to the NAACP would do that.
Do you really think there are parts of the GOP base that say, gee I was gonna stay home, but now that Romney was booed by the NAACP, I can see he is the real deal.
[/QUOTE]
You apparently think voters approach decisions on who to vote for as if they were David Brooks or E.J. Dionne or somebody like that.
It’s like your entire model of reality is wrong. You’ve confused the GOP base with a race of junior Vulcans.
Hardly the case, of course, but lemme turn the mike over to former Howard student Ta-Nehisi Coates:
[QUOTE=TNC]
Someone should have told Rand Paul he was going to a school where black history and politics are the air. At a university founded by prominent 19th-century Republicans, where every student is subject to an African-American (studies, lit, history, etc.) requirement, you can not hope to surprise them with “Famous Black Republican Facts.” They know this…The lack of someones is particularly telling. It’s not so much that Rand Paul is a Republican that matters, its his obvious lack of either good African-American advisers, or advisors who simply cared enough to do some recon.
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