What do you do when your party got trounced by the other side because women and minorities magically showed up to vote against you, and you just can’t figure out how to get them to stop doing that?
If you’re the GOP, you hold a panel on minority outreach in the “Burwell Plantation” conference room at a hotel in Virginia, where Lee Burwell’s actual plantation used to be.
Genius.
PurpleGirl
It’s hard to see the optics of something (anything) when you’re blind. And these people are very blind.
Machine-Gun Preacher (formerly Ben Franklin)
Where is Django, when you need him?
Roger Moore
Well, when actual minority-friendly policies aren’t an available option, they have to go for optics. Sucks for them that they can’t even get those right.
Warren Terra
So, the Republicans on the diversity-panel-at-the-plantation are three white guys and woman who might possibly be Latina, and who has an androgynous first name and a hyphenated-to-anglo last name? And I’d be willing to be they’re all from a christian background, and are probably all Christians?
OK, then.
Quinne
Also, too, what about the debt and our “spending problem”? Why are they spending money on a retreat? The actual amount might be insignificant, but really! Blind and double-blind.
FlipYrWhig
I live right around where this is going down… FYI, Scott Rigell is a Tidewater-region Virginia Congressman and (natch) car dealer.
BGinCHI
Shorter title: “Hey, who the hell knows how to talk to these coloreds and broads?”
Pro tip to GOP: if you are diverse you don’t have to figure out how it works.
Jim C
This is the true story … of a group of Republicans … who chose spend a weekend … in a hotel … that used to be a plantation … to find out what happens … when they stop putting on a public face … and start getting real.
Roger Moore
@Warren Terra:
Not only that, but they misspelled Jaime Herrera Beutler’s first name. Nothing shows your sensitivity to other cultures like getting their names wrong.
redshirt
I say I say I say I say boy! I could do with a fresh basket of buttered rolls…
BGinCHI
@redshirt: Leave Foghorn aloooone!
Roger Moore
@BGinCHI:
That’s not very helpful. The question is how you become diverse if you don’t already understand it. Unfortunately, the Republicans are going to have a very hard time with the part where they have to listen to people who don’t already agree with them and change some of their policies to make them more like what those people say they want.
dmsilev
This was the same retreat where they had to bring in consultants to offer advice on how to discuss rape without pissing off 73% of the population, right?
FlipYrWhig
Also, FWIW, Kingsmill isn’t really a hotel per se, it’s more of a resort community for country-clubbers. Very fancy golf course attached.
Roger Moore
@FlipYrWhig:
IOW, this is a junket, not a serious attempt at accomplishing anything. What a shock; grifters gotta grift.
Litlebritdifrnt
If ya’ll aren’t following John on Twitter you are missing comedy gold I tell ya
gwangung
…and the key part is “don’t automatically brand them as WRONG WRONG WRONG”.
Tough job. I think they think it’s easier to jimmy with the rules to keep themselves in power.
anonymouse
Agenda:
– Cotton, it ain’t gonna pick itself.
– The vag*na, cave of shame?
– I knew this black guy who agreed with me, narratives for the unfortunately hued.
– Koal faced Klansmen, why blacks voting for Obama is racist.
– Ni*clang* how to get so close you might as well come out and say it.
Mike in NC
Because “Candyland” wasn’t available?
Xecky Gilchrist
This can’t work. The Republicans can’t think of women and nonwhites as people, and until they do, their outreach is going to continue to be e.g. “We know you don’t want to be stupid and lazy, but you can’t control yourself in the face of those sweet, sweet Democrat handouts.”
maya
@PurpleGirl:
. Absolutely. They’re really looking for a one-eyed man to lead them.
johnny aquitard
Rick Perry didn’t see what was wrong with Niggerhead Ranch either.
redshirt
It is some form of progress, though, right? I mean, no matter how poorly executed, they do see a problem that they are attempting to address. If insincerely.
mai naem
Rachel Campos Duffy is the Cuban chick who was on Real World SF. Her hubby is Rep. Sean Duffy , the same Sean Duffy who said out loud during a town meeting that his congressional salary wasn’t all that much and that he was having a hard time living on it. Apparently, she’s become a grifter on the Republicans are, too,friendly to Hispanics wingut welfare gravy train.
AxelFoley
Hollywood, The Enquirer, Weekly World News, The Onion–none of them could make this shit up.
GOP stay failing. LOL
TGC
@mai naem: Her husband was also on the Real World Boston. I remember him because he told his black roommate that the only reason he would have to be in a black neighborhood as a white guy would be to buy drugs. I’d say he had the GOP version of minority outreach down even before he became a Congressman.
Todd
Stayed there once. It wasn’t all that.
carmine
When you live in the south, everything used to be a plantation. It’s called history. What are you gonna do?
red dog
Was there in the 80’s and the entire staff except the front desk and golf pro were black…bet it is still that way. Colonial Williamsburg was a good history lesson though.
mouse tolliver
@mai naem:
Yeah, this is the same reality TV star who likes to have fresh sushi imported from Japan for Christmas parties. Gee, I wonder if that’s why they have trouble making ends meet on a mere $174,000? These are the sort of people who think frugality means putting Bollinger in your morning mimosa instead of Dom P.
Xantar
@mouse tolliver:
They also have 6 kids, so that salary does get spread around a bit. If I remember correctly, they are also devout Roman Catholics which may or may not have something to do with that.
mai naem
@TGC: Boston is when I stopped watching RW. It was too formulaic by that point – the gay, the christian-wingnut/the bitchy female/the angry man-little boy/the persecuted one/the unstable one/the nerd-overachiever.
Alex S.
@FlipYrWhig:
The plantation of yesterday is the country club of today?
kerFuFFler
@carmine: “When you live in the south, everything used to be a plantation. It’s called history. What are you gonna do? ”
Oh yeah, there are no modern hotels or convention centers in the whole South. Give me a break.
Tania Nagamine
My Ponoko parts are being made! I can’t wait to get them and turn them into awesome jewelry for christmas presents.