This is beyond mere incompetence. This shows Steele has no idea what it means to be a Republican:
Why should an African-American vote Republican?
“You really don’t have a reason to, to be honest — we haven’t done a very good job of really giving you one. True? True,” Republican National Chairman Michael Steele told 200 DePaul University students Tuesday night.
Steele — a former Maryland lieutenant governor and seminarian serving as the first African-American head of the Republican Party — offered a frank assessment of the American political system.
It’s not a “frank” assessment, it’s a monumentally clueless one that assumes people need to be courted by political parties — as if the only issue for black voters is whether a party sucks up to them sufficiently.
At least in theory, the Republican Party is supposed to be better because it stands for principles that help all people, including blacks. You want to see what Steele should say? Check out Larry Elder addressing the same issue to a skeptical black correspondent:
Do you know that inner-city parents want vouchers — the right to determine where their children go to school? Do you know most Democrats, including Barack Obama, oppose this? Republicans, for the most part, support vouchers. Where vouchers have been tried, kids appear to perform better, with higher parental satisfaction. You tell me, how many things are more important than a child’s education?
Do you know that 36 percent of babies aborted are black, while blacks make up 17 percent of live births? Do you know that polls show blacks are more pro-life than are whites? Yet the Democratic Party — to which over 90 percent of blacks belong — is the party of Roe v. Wade, requiring states to legalize abortion on demand. Do you know that Margaret Sanger, the founder of the organization that became Planned Parenthood, believed that poor blacks were inferior and that aborting their babies made our society better? Look it up.
Do you know that blacks stand to benefit more than whites through Social Security privatization, a position opposed by Obama but supported by McCain? Are you even familiar with the issue and what a powerful income-generating vehicle it would be for blacks? If not, take a look at the research done by the libertarian think tank Cato Institute and the conservative think tank Heritage Foundation.
Good, huh? He’s just getting warmed up.
You speak of policies that have “proven not to work.” What about the “war on poverty” that began in the ’60s, the policies that Obama and his party want to continue and expand? Do you know that today 70 percent of black children and over 50 percent of Hispanics are born outside of wedlock? The welfare state — which Democrats want to expand — has played a huge role in discouraging marriage and destabilizing families. . . . Compassion is not about making people dependent on government. Compassion is about encouraging personal responsibility, and getting people to understand that life is about making choices.
Read it all at the link.
If Michael Steele can’t think of a reason that blacks should vote Republican, get rid of him and install someone who can.
UPDATE: Dan Riehl disagrees:
By focusing on only one line from remarks RNC Chair Michael Steele made to a group, one has to wonder if some folks don’t have issues with blacks they actually do need to resolve. Slamming Steele for these remarks is not helpful to the GOP because Steele is correct. He isn’t calling for the GOP to change it’s [sic] positions, as many white so called RINOs regularly do. He’s speaking to the GOP’s inability to pierce barriers built up by the Left in his own effort to do that very thing. And for that, he should be criticized? I don’t get it. I really don’t.
I agree, Dan. You don’t get it. You really don’t.
Filed under: General — Patterico
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