For some reason the latest news got me thinking about the race for RNC chair in 2009. It was fun to watch the GOP realize all of a sudden that they might not want to lead the Obama hate with a bunch of old white guys who have a notorious history cultivating racists and racism. The leading candidate at the time, Katon Dawson, mostly made his name for a no-negroes-allowed country club they he belonged to*. Maybe not the best year for that. Instead of Dawson they picked Michael Steele, a wealthy black businessman with some brain-mouth filter issues.
Their plan worked in the sense that Republicans got their freak on without too many mainstream pundits calling them racist. On the other hand Steele called them racist all the time. Pro tip: if you hire a guy to cry racism every time someone criticizes him, do not criticize him.
Steele ran the RNC into the ground, blew through its money, drove its staff to quit and embarrassed the party with one gaffe after another. They could hardly can him (see: touchy about that race record) so instead Republicans marginalized the Committe by shunting cash donations and organizing tasks to state committees and outside groups.
What did we learn from the Michael Steele affair? Either nobody bothered to read his CV, or else they did not care that he stood out enough in a party riddled with bugshit that even a chump like me could guess what happened next. The only explanation that makes sense (and what rightwing blogs more or less said at the time) is that they hoped to can some of that special mojo that makes it hard to attack Obama without looking bad.
Michael Steele constantly talked about how black he is. His silly street talk was about as convincing as saggy pants at Andover. He knee jerked to racism so fast that he overshot his target and sprayed friendly fire all over the place. Hermann Cain constantly talks about how black he is. The first time his campaign faced heat he cried racism like he was holding his breath for the chance to use it.
Of course Obama’s win had nothing to do with being black. I can remember zero times that Obama brought up the subject of race, except in his book (where he could hardly avoid it) and the rare times an interviewer asked about it. As far as I could tell his sales pitch for the nomination or for the national race did not mention race at all. If anyone knows one time when Obama has cried racism I would love to hear it.
Obama’s mojo comes from who he is, not what. He is a squeaky clean guy who somehow keeps his people in line as well. He acknowledges his flaws, has good instincts, charisma and a Reaganesque knack for communicating, especially (frustratingly) when the heat is on. In short he is good at politics. You can’t steal that.
(*) A problem strictly in the sense that it gave the misleading impression that the GOP is a party of cultural neanderthals and Civil War sore losers.
4tehlulz
SEXY
Hawes
And we have a winner!
MikeJ
You don’t remember the big speech on race? No he didn’t go around calling people racists, but he did mention race.
Omnes Omnibus
Misleading?
Villago Delenda Est
Fundigelicals.
Guys who wave the Confederate battle flag.
The Rethug base.
Cluttered Mind
I’m convinced that Michael Steele was just in it for the money and the laughs. You don’t get to where he got to in life by being as stupid as he would have liked us to believe he was. He knew he was the token black conservative and milked that for all it was worth. He was able to exploit the RNC and be the right man at the right time to take the Republican Party for a joyride and have them foot the entire bill for it. I disagree with pretty much all of his policies, but if as I suspect he knew what he was doing the whole time and it was all intentional, I still have to admire the cleverness of his plan. He got to have the time of his life and troll the entire country for a couple of years and stuck a bunch of old white racists with the bill for it, and all he had to do was swallow his pride and act the part of the fool. Not a bad deal.
MikeJ
@MikeJ: The Obama race speech. No, it wasn’t the reason to vote for him, but he didn’t ignore the issue.
glasgowtremontaine
It’s hard not to read race as at least a massive subtext of this quote:
Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
marcopolo
OT but the Kentucky Gov race has been called for the Dem in a landslide. Not that that explains the rest of the state’s politics.
cathyx
@Cluttered Mind: So do you think that George Bush is actually really smart too?
xochi
@MikeJ: That was in response to the criticisms he was receiving about being a member of Jeremiah Wright’s congregation. It was obviously a big turning point in his campaign, but I wouldn’t exactly call it playing the race card. That card had already been dealt, and Obama was just responding. Once that whole issue blew over, he went back to campaigning without calling attention to race as an issue.
Cain, on the other hand, as is common among Republicans, plays the race card constantly. That, I think, is what Tim F is referring to.
sukabi
@MikeJ: if I recall, he didn’t give it as a campaign speech on race, he gave it as a response to all the racist crap that was going on in the GOP rallies at the time.
patrick II
Of course. Obama’s being black is an impediment to being elected president, not an advantage. What percentage, compared to the percentage of the population, of senators, congressman, and presidents have been black? Few. However, the amusing thing is that many republicans just can’t understand why a socialist, government loving, choice supporting candidate can fairly win an election. They think there must be some other reason — perhaps voter fraud. But, in the case of Obama, race.
So they look for “their” black guys to share the many “advantages” of being a black politician and end up promoting or voting for the only black guys cynical or inept enough to be both black and republican. So they end up with Cain and Steele.
Narcissus
I learned the phrase ” Slammin’ and Rammin’ ” from Michael Steele, so I’ll always appreciate him for that.
Davis X. Machina
@marcopolo: Beshear? He’s a Dem the way Velveeta is cheese.
Davis X. Machina
@cathyx: “Low cunning” is a kind of smart….
Bubblegum Tate
It’s worth mentioning that it took them a long time to get there–several rounds of bitter, acrimonious voting before the Dawson side finally capitulated.
johnnybegood
Obama gave his speech on race during the lead in to the Pennsylvania primary when the press was hounding him about statements made by Wright and his opponent started using those statements against him. His speech was a brilliant political strategy. It was well written and well delivered too.
Rick Massimo
@glasgowtremontaine: Yeah, but that’s not “WAAAH! They’re picking on me because I’m black!”
scav
@marcopolo: Ganesh must be pleased.
Steve
I was pretty shocked that Michael “the air was thick with Oreos” Steele would ever play the race card.
Obama did have a few moments during his campaign, times when he preemptively brought up how the Republicans would say he didn’t look like all those other Presidents, etc. I’m surprised anyone would forget those moments because the GOP noise machine predictably went to 11 every single time.
It’s also hard to deny that race was a major subtext of Obama’s campaign in terms of the historic nature of his candidacy, although he tended not to spell out what he meant (unlike Hillary who had the same pitch but was usually quite clumsy about it).
Cat Lady
Barack Obama has what Buddhists call a stable mind, and it’s an unusual and remarkable thing. He is preternaturally calm and knows who he is. That’s why he’s made everyone who isn’t stable, crazy, by being nothing more than himself. It’s been really fun to watch.
Spaghetti Lee
I believe he had a website called ‘What Up?’ I don’t know how qualified I am as a white guy to use this term, but…minstrel, anyone?
On the other hand, I can’t get too mad at someone who cut the Republican Party’s checkbook into little paper dollies.
PeakVT
Ohio results.
ETA: Maine results.
MikeJ
OT, but the Plain Dealer has wingnuts writing their twitter feed? “Ohio voters saying “No” to forced health care: early results in on Issue 3″
lamh35
I guess that “Hispanic outreach” ain’t working for the GOP:
New Poll Puts Obama Far Ahead of GOP With Latino Voters
Well what is it that Hispanic voters have against the GOP? Well I guess Marco Rubio as VP will change their minds /snark.
General Stuck
thanks for this and what I been preaching for three years now, along with others known as the Obots. And he has needed every bit of those smarts inheriting a deeply ill economy that wasn’t going to be fixed overnight, and is more likely to be a decades long effort, if then. And most impressive is his keeping the dem senate in voting line in the face of a thoroughly obstinate GOP, to get some big bills passed. And doing it all while black.
a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q)
@Omnes Omnibus: Snarkometer in for a tuneup, sir?
OT- very heavy turnout here in OH; exceptional in an off year.
Mnemosyne
Hmm. I wouldn’t say that Obama avoided race, exactly, but he did seem to present it as an aspect of his persona rather than the sum total of it. Like he was saying, “Yes, I’m black, now can we talk about the deficit?”
Steele and Cain’s personas really seem built around being Black Republicans (or Black Conservatives). Take that identifier away and there’s no there there, as could be seen with Cain’s multiple flip-flops over abortion.
Villago Delenda Est
@MikeJ:
Link above shows 3 passing by a wide margin, but 2 is getting the living shit kicked out of it. 1 not doing so well, either.
Omnes Omnibus
@a hip hop artist from Idaho (fka Bella Q): I left it in the car.
aimai
@MikeJ:
As I recall he was pretty much forced to make that speech after horrendous publi accusations that he “hated” his grandmother and his white side. Plus after all the hysteria about how he and Michelle belonged to a “weird” and “angry” bbbbbbbblack church and had actually gone so far as to father two black children. The Race speech was distinctly not in his game plan. It was a great speech but it was considered a huge surprise, was written at the last minute, and sank almost without a trace in the campaign.
aimai
Robin G.
@Cluttered Mind: I can see why you’d think that, but I know people who worked with Steele really, really closely while he was Lt. Gov in Maryland — and yes, he *is* that staggeringly stupid. We all laughed our asses off the day he became chair.
MikeJ
@Villago Delenda Est: Sadly the SoS site doesn’t estimate the percentage that is in. Are the votes 5% counted or 95%?
Spaghetti Lee
@Villago Delenda Est:
Wasn’t the story about 3 that it won’t stand up in the courts, so it’s more of a wingnut chest-beating thing? Or was that something else?
glasgowtremontaine
@Rick Massimo:
No, of course Barack never ‘played the race card’ in that sense, no matter how justified it would have been. (I helped paint over KKK graffiti down at our local campaign office, who chose to keep quiet about it for this very reason.) But it’s naive to say “Obama’s win had nothing to do with being black”. Not because he didn’t win on the merits, but because we’re all playing on a chessboard that is larger than ourselves, and race is an unavoidable dimension of the US chessboard.
MikeJ
@Spaghetti Lee: What I read about it was that it could not stop the federal law, but would prohibit Ohio from passing a Mass like plan of their own.
PeakVT
Mississippi results. Not sure how up-to-date they are/will be.
That’s all of the nationally interesting results I know of.
@MikeJ: Click through on the individual items for details.
Cluttered Mind
@cathyx: No, not at all. Bush was exactly what he appeared to be.
Spaghetti Lee
@PeakVT:
First thing I saw at that link:
Select a catagory from the left
Oh, Mississippi. Bless your hearts.
Cluttered Mind
@Robin G.: Seriously? Wow. I guess affirmative action can produce some pretty hilarious results when applied to the Republican party.
Robin G.
@Cluttered Mind: It’s pretty amazing. They literally had to speak in small words in certain meetings. Dumb. As. A. Post.
PeakVT
@Spaghetti Lee: If only they would, eh?
Cluttered Mind
@Robin G.: I had just assumed Steele was executing a politician’s version of what I call the “William Hung Gambit” (Discover that you can get tons of media attention and money by being a buffoon in public, then five years later no one remembers who you are and you’re rich)
If he actually IS that dumb…well shit, that is pretty scary. I guess I believed what I did because I didn’t want to think someone who genuinely was like that could get that kind of power. I suppose in light of Rick Perry’s recent debate performances I shouldn’t have been surprised at the kinds of people who can get themselves elected.
Southern Beale
Steele ran the RNC into the ground, blew through its money, drove its staff to quit and embarrassed the party with one gaffe after another.
But they still didn’t rescind his card. He shows up on the cable shows ALL THE FUCKING TIME. Which just goes to show you how desperate the GOP is for a person of color — any person of color — to play on their team.
rikyrah
there is a quote that I remember from over at Ta-Nehisi Coates’ blog. this person said that Barack Obama needed every dollar of the 750 million that he raised, because he was fighting against the 350 years of stereotypes of the Black man in America.
Right wingers have desperately tried to minimize Barack Obama’s win as President. One of their favorites is that Black folks voted for Barack Obama because he is Black.
Well, no, Black folks voted for Barack Obama because he was the Democratic Nominee, and since Carter, the lowest percentage of the Black vote given to a Democratic Nominee has been 85 %. John Kerry got 90% of the Black vote. Barack Obama got 95%. That 5% was from BLACK REPUBLICANS. So, if anyone voted for Barack Obama because he was Black, it was BLACK REPUBLICANS.
The blogger Prometheus6 said while Barack Obama was running: Black people didn’t vote for Barack Obama because HE was Black.
Black people voted for Barack Obama because WE are Black, and see Barack Obama as a vote in our best interests.
The consistent insulting of the right-wing, in throwing Black candidates out there, and Black folk would vote for them because they are Black, is bullshyt. Black folk don’t vote for Tea Party ideas, because we think they are ludicrous and not in our best interests – Period.
And, the thought, that Black folk would turn their backs on President Obama for a shinning-and-grinning-breaking-out-in SONG MINSTREL like Herman Cain, only proves how absolutely ignorant they are of Black folk.
Roger Moore
@Southern Beale:
It looks as if the GOP has chosen orange as the most appealing color for their candidates. Or at least it’s the only non-white color where there’s a significant Republican constituency.
Omnes Omnibus
@rikyrah: Come on, John Kerry is pretty black. I mean, he must be, right?
Rome Again
You mean they’re not? Prove it! :P
cckids
@Cluttered Mind:
Yeah, I’m regularly surprised by how articulate & smart he seems now on MSNBC. The odd mannerisms & put-on attitude are gone & you see the personality he must have been before starting that bit of performance art. Don’t agree with much he says, but, compared to most Repub spokespeople, he is positively reasonable.
MikeBoyScout
You want to put an end to sexual harassment and sexual assault?
Well, first you cut taxes. Next, you invade a country. Then you deregulate the financial sector. 9-9-9 bitches! That’s how.
rikyrah
came back to add, I’m from Illinois, so I’m very familiar with Republicans putting up bullshyt Black candidates…remember Alan Keyes?
I’m still mad that they were just that insulting that they wouldn’t run an Illinois Establishment Republican against Obama. They had plenty of times they ran against popular WHITE Democratic candidates, and never ONCE thought about parachuting a candidate FROM OUT OF THE FUCKING STATE TO RUN.
BUT, the BLACK man is the Democratic Nominee for Senate, and lo and behold, there’s not ONE Republican from the ILLINOIS REPUBLICAN PARTY that can run for Senate.
STILL disgusts me.
Montysano
“Don’t matter how stumpy.”
Great post title.
someguy
Democrats don’t have a problem with race. (Racist) Republicans (Racist) don’t (Racist) have(Racist) a (Racist) problem (Racist) with (Racist) race (Racist) either (Racist) – just (Racist) ask (Racist) ’em. (Racist)(Racist)(Racist)
Billy Rae Valentine
i don’t think obama’s speech on race qualifies as the “cried racism” that Tim F. was asking us all about. Tim said this:
As far as I could tell his sales pitch for the nomination or for the national race did not mention race at all. If anyone knows one time when Obama has cried racism I would love to hear it.”
now just before that he DID say that he couldn’t think of a time Obama ever even mentioned race. so you have provided an example (maybe more) of his MENTIONING race. and it was only in a situation where attacks on his character were race-related i.e. they were calling him racist. his speech basically said “i’m not”. so i would say that his sales pitch to the nation did not explicitly mention race. it was inferred by us because it was OBVIOUSLY a thought/preoccupation in virtually every American’s mind. he seemed to understand that mentioning race or seeming to “stand up for the blacks” would be political suicide. he knew to stay the heck away from Sharpton and Jackson who are the most hated black people for right wingers of the last 30 years this side of OJ. so he managed race deftly, perhaps better than anyone i’ve ever seen in such a high-stakes arena. a large part of that was DOWNPLAYING TO THE POINT OF HARDLY MENTIONING HIS RACE. it was key, imo.
hmm. he waded into that cop vs. black college professor thing and that was a huge blunder where i would argue in a sense he cried racism on behalf of his friend(?). so there’s an example, imo.
gVOR08
Remember the scene in Oh Brother, Where Art Thou where the old governor is talking to his son and advisers about the upcoming election? The son says the challenger is doing so well because he’s promising reform, people love that reform, we oughta get us some reform. The governor whaps him upside the head and says we’re the incumbent, you idiot.
I’ve always had a picture of the RNC nominating committee sitting around over brandy and cigars after the ’08 election going – people love that black guy. We oughta get us a black guy. We’re the Republicans, you idiot, where we gonna get us a black guy? …Oh wait, there’s that, what’s his name… Michaele Steele.