CPAC Blames It On the 'Black Guy'

American Conservative Union communications
director Ian B. Walters speaking at CPAC

Well another year has come and gone for the annual gathering of conservative activists and politicians known as the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC).

Co-founded in 1973 by the American Conservative Union, CPAC basically serves as a kind of think-tank platform for a range of conservative issues.

It offers leading conservative thinkers and politicians an opportunity to sound out their policy positions and political views in front of a crowd that embraces a decidedly right-wingy view of America.

It's a multi-day conference that helps to shape the overall message of the Republican Party and influence the legislative agenda of GOP politicians all across America.

For Republican presidential hopefuls, the road to the White House runs through CPAC.

If some of the comments heard there last week are any indication, the Republican Party really doesn't seem too concerned about the broader public perception that it's an organization which is openly unwelcoming to people of color - or even remotely interested in expanding it's membership beyond it's overwhelmingly white voter base.

As Jeffrey Mays reported on Sunday in an article in the New York Times, Ian B. Walters (pictured above), the communications director for the American Conservative Union that hosts CPAC, raised eyebrows at a CPAC dinner on Friday evening while reflecting back on the disillusionment of the Republican Party in 2008 after President Obama's election victory when he observed:

"We elected Mike Steele to be the R.N.C. chair because he's a black guy. That was the wrong thing to do."

According to Mays a number of conservatives, including R.N.C. spokesman Michael Ahrens, quickly distanced themselves from Walters' comments.

Former RNC chair Michael Steele

Comments which can be seen as a not-so-subtle endorsement of the racism and xenophobia of Trump, and his tolerance of white supremacist views evidenced by senior White House advisor Stephen Miller.

The comment also seems to crudely parrot the basis of  Trump's political views - which is to engage in "other-ism" and essentially place blame for the country's problems at the feet of immigrants and non-white Americans.

Steele, the popular ex-Republican lieutenant governor of Maryland from 2003 to 2007, was tapped to lead the R.N.C. after President Obama's 2008 election victory as Republicans tried to come to grips with a brutal election loss.

Bolstered by George W. Bush's unpopularity and anger over the Iraq War, Obama won the African-American vote 95% to Senator John McCain's 5%, the Hispanic vote 67% to 31%, the Asian vote 62% to 35% and the Jewish vote 78% to 21%.

The Republican Party was forced to face the uncomfortable political reality that it had to find a way to expand it's membership and appeal among non-white American voters.

In 2009, Michael Steele represented something of a rarity in an increasingly conservative GOP, a progressive Republican voice who was African-American - one could arguably call him a unicorn.

Pat Buchanan after winning the New Hampshire
primary in 1996

In 1993, he was one of the founding members of the Republican Leadership Council, a political action committee (PAC) that embraced a "fiscally conservative, socially inclusive" political agenda.

The other RLC co-founders included former New Jersey Republican Governor Christine Todd Whitman, former Missouri Republican Senator John Danforth and former Massachusetts Republican Governor William Weld.

The RLC PAC was formed after the backlash from right-wing writer Pat Buchanan's divisive speech at the 1992 Republican National Convention in the wake of his failed bid for the presidency in which he claimed, in part: "There is a religious war going on in this country. It is a cultural war, as critical to the kind of nation we shall be as was the Cold War itself, for this war is for the soul of America."  

I can still recall listening to that speech on TV and getting an uncomfortable chill when he exalted the R.N.C. crowd to "take back America's cities."

The RLC was an effort to strengthen the voices of moderate Republicans in the mold of former Congressman and HUD Secretary Jack Kemp, and reject the rise of the extremist religious zealotry which has now taken root within the GOP.

Now I say all that, in part, because I think Ian B. Walter's comment that the R.N.C. selected Michael Steele as chair in 2009 "because he was a black guy" is a simplistic and incomplete summary of why he was tapped for the position.

It's also an overt attempt to pander to the overt tone of bigotry and dog-whistle racism which Trump has openly cultivated since announcing his candidacy. 

Now I might not personally agree with everything Michael Steele says in the political sense, but he's a pretty shrewd political operator who is not afraid to stand up for what he believes is right - including his criticism of Donald Trump, or his dust-ups with Rush Limbaugh back in 2009.

Michael Steele as R.N.C. chair during the 2011
Winter meeting in National Harbor, Maryland

As a conservative political commentator on MSNBC his comments and insight are always interesting and substantive.

Is it possible that his selection as R.N.C. chair in 1992 was, in part, influenced by a desire on the part of the Republican establishment to change the stiff "country club" perception of their party as an organization for old white Christian guys?

Sure it is, in fact selecting Steele as R.N.C. chair was a pretty savvy move on the part of Republicans in 2009.

When they knew they would run the risk of reinforcing the perception of the party as racist simply for attacking Obama politically as president.

But there's no question that Steele was more than qualified for the position based on his track record as a lawyer in the private sector, and for his extensive work both behind and in front of the scenes on behalf of the Republican Party.

This is a guy who earned his B.A. from Johns Hopkins and his law degree from Georgetown.

He was the first African-American elected to statewide office in Maryland when he became lieutenant governor in 2003 and he made an unsuccessful run for U.S. Senate in 2006, eventually loosing to current Democratic Senator Ben Cardin.

So in my view, Steele is the kind of person that Republicans should embrace, rather than try and vilify as if he was some kind of mistake as Ian B. Walters suggested at the CPAC dinner on Friday night.

But given Trump's views on race, and the Republican Party's acceptance of the de facto head of their party being a philandering bigot, maybe this current iteration of the R.N.C. does see a man like Michael Steele as a mistake - rather than an asset who reflected positively on the GOP.

After all, the CPAC crowd enthusiastically cheered Trump's rambling speech on Friday, even though it clearly contained lies and half-truths that have been fact-checked and he read a story about a snake.

And later that evening at the CPAC dinner, ACU communications director Ian B. Walter looked back nine years ago to cast blame on "the black guy." 

So much for those talked-about but never seen Republican Party "outreach efforts".

Dr. Ben Carson Emerges As The Official Republican Black Guy At CPAC 2014

Dr. Ben Carson

There's little question renowned pediatric neurosurgeon and author Dr. Ben Carson is an exceptionally intelligent and accomplished physician, which makes his willingness to be used as a pawn by the right wing conservative movement all the more puzzling.

You may recall Carson made headlines last fall at the Voter Values Summit when he took the stage and compared the Affordable Care Act to slavery.

Republicans absolutely love a black guy who will say crazy $#%! like that; I'll bet you Dinesh D'Souza jumps up, claps his hands and runs around the room dancing a little jig every time Carson unleashes one of those nuggets of extremist nonsense.

On Saturday the good doctor placed 3rd in the CPAC straw poll of GOP presidential front runners with 9% of the vote; Texas Senator Ted Cruz came in 2nd with 11% and Kentucky Senator Rand Paul came in first with 31% of the vote - poor Chris Christie finished 4th with 8% and is realizing Bridge-Gate is a liability to the GOP's chances in 2016.   

Carson used his speech to lambaste the "PC police" and "liberal media" for trying to silence him in the wake of his comparing homosexuality to bestiality while defending the "traditional definition" of marriage as being between a man and a woman in a recent Fox New Interview.

I can't speak for all liberals, but the idea that there's some kind of liberal plot to silence Carson is simply delusional. Nothing improves the chances of another sweeping Democratic presidential victory in 2016 than another right-wing nut-bag like Carson trying to use Christianity as a shield for narrow-minded bigotry - it's his own mouth that's bringing media attention down on his arcane views.

But there's no need to get into his attempt to compare the Trans-Atlantic Slave Trade, one of the worst crimes against humanity in history, with an act of Congress designed to ensure that all Americans have access to decent health care; and remember that's coming from a former brain surgeon who is a professor emeritus at the John Hopkins School of Medicine.

And how is it you operate on the human brain using techniques at the forefront of medical knowledge and technology and claim you don't believe in evolution?

Political views like his are so crazy they're far outside the boundaries of the mainstream political spectrum where the 2016 presidential election will be won or lost. And the sad truth is Carson has nothing original to say.

Instead of standing up and offering a different vision for the country, he just rants on about liberal plots to silence him, misquotes Vladimir Lenin and makes bizarre observations about Nazi Germany.

That fact that this guy placed third in the CPAC straw poll pretty much tells you all you need to know about today's Republican party.

No, liberals don't have to do anything about Dr. Carson, his own extremist views will be the cause of his political implosion in 12 to 14 months when the Republican race gets serious and he confronts the reality that this Republican party will never nominate a black man to be president; just ask Colin Powell.

After a brilliant medical career Carson is content to play the buffoonish and intellectually demeaning role of the "Republican Black guy" the GOP likes to hold up to demonstrate that they're really not the party that actively tries to strip away the voting rights of minorities, fights against a minimum wage hike and openly embraces the bigotry of an idiot like Ted Nugent.

Just give it time, Carson's political flame will extinguish itself and he'll quietly go the way of Allan Keyes, Herman Cain or Armstrong Williams.

Or maybe he'll just wake up one day and have a Michael Steele moment and realize the Grand Old Party was bamboozling him all along.

But for now, hang a sign on the door because the Dr. is definitely in the house.