Recently, a question was asked on Yahoo Answers about whether the Republicans are ignoring the fact that there are significantly more African Americans registered as voters than ever before. Here is my answer:
The mere fact that someone raises the question indicates that whatever the Republicans are doing, it's not effective. The fact is, the Republicans are not ignoring the fact that there are more black voters than before. However, as the question indicates, the efforts being made by the Republicans to address this are not working. Furthermore, the Republicans are somewhat hindered in those efforts by the vitriolic conservative talk show hosts. The result is that unless something dramatic happens we will probably see minorities like the Hispanics community and the African American community continuing to support President Obama in large numbers in the next election.
Fact - the Republican Party has tried to address the issue of race with the voters. After the last election, the Republicans named Michael Steele, an African American, to be the Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Since then, Mr. Steele has been very visible and vocal. Another example, when President Obama gave his State of the Union Address, the Republican response was delivered by Gov. Bobby Jindal, who is an Indian-American.
Unfortunately, the Republicans have not been very effective in their efforts. Personally, I don't think Mr. Steele has been very effective as a spokesman. Second, Gov. Jindal's speech was poorly received. The Republican Party has further been hampered by stupid acts, like Congressman Wilson's yelling "You Lie" during a recent speech by President Obama on health care reform.
Furthermore, the Republicans are being lumped together with the fire-breathing talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. On the one hand, that's not accurate as the Republican Party has people with very diverse views (example: Sen. Olympia Snow who voted for the Stimulus package and was the only person of either party to cross sides to vote for the health care reform bill in Committee).
However, there is some legitimacy to the charges, as the Republicans at times seem to follow the same agenda as the talk show hosts. For example, the opposition to the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotamayor simply because of one badly worded comment by the Judge.
Unfortunately, when the Republicans did have power in previous years, they proved to be just politicians willing to pander to the public interest in the hopes of getting re-elected. When the Republicans had a clear set of principles (example: the Contract with America in 1994; example: the Family Values theme used during the 2004 election) they failed to follow up on the promises made to voters after the elections.
Today the Republicans are floundering because they do not have any clear position of what they stand for and, if they do establish one in the future, the public will legitimately wonder whether they can believe what the Republicans are saying. In the meantime, the public's image of the Republican party is being shaped by conservative commentators. The result is going to be that if the Republicans don't come up with an answer in the next few years, President Obama will probably get the same strong support from minorities that he got in the last election.
The mere fact that someone raises the question indicates that whatever the Republicans are doing, it's not effective. The fact is, the Republicans are not ignoring the fact that there are more black voters than before. However, as the question indicates, the efforts being made by the Republicans to address this are not working. Furthermore, the Republicans are somewhat hindered in those efforts by the vitriolic conservative talk show hosts. The result is that unless something dramatic happens we will probably see minorities like the Hispanics community and the African American community continuing to support President Obama in large numbers in the next election.
Fact - the Republican Party has tried to address the issue of race with the voters. After the last election, the Republicans named Michael Steele, an African American, to be the Chairman of the Republican National Committee. Since then, Mr. Steele has been very visible and vocal. Another example, when President Obama gave his State of the Union Address, the Republican response was delivered by Gov. Bobby Jindal, who is an Indian-American.
Unfortunately, the Republicans have not been very effective in their efforts. Personally, I don't think Mr. Steele has been very effective as a spokesman. Second, Gov. Jindal's speech was poorly received. The Republican Party has further been hampered by stupid acts, like Congressman Wilson's yelling "You Lie" during a recent speech by President Obama on health care reform.
Furthermore, the Republicans are being lumped together with the fire-breathing talk show hosts like Rush Limbaugh and Glenn Beck. On the one hand, that's not accurate as the Republican Party has people with very diverse views (example: Sen. Olympia Snow who voted for the Stimulus package and was the only person of either party to cross sides to vote for the health care reform bill in Committee).
However, there is some legitimacy to the charges, as the Republicans at times seem to follow the same agenda as the talk show hosts. For example, the opposition to the Supreme Court nomination of Sonia Sotamayor simply because of one badly worded comment by the Judge.
Unfortunately, when the Republicans did have power in previous years, they proved to be just politicians willing to pander to the public interest in the hopes of getting re-elected. When the Republicans had a clear set of principles (example: the Contract with America in 1994; example: the Family Values theme used during the 2004 election) they failed to follow up on the promises made to voters after the elections.
Today the Republicans are floundering because they do not have any clear position of what they stand for and, if they do establish one in the future, the public will legitimately wonder whether they can believe what the Republicans are saying. In the meantime, the public's image of the Republican party is being shaped by conservative commentators. The result is going to be that if the Republicans don't come up with an answer in the next few years, President Obama will probably get the same strong support from minorities that he got in the last election.
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