Michael Steele, The New Face Of The GOP?

I would so like to believe the GOP has changed its ways, regarding their recent election of Michael Steele, an African-American, to the position of Chairman of the Republican Party.

I’m as serious as a heart attack here. I don’t know all that much about Mr. Steele, Maryland’s former Lieutenant Governor, but from what I can tell, he seems qualified, and appears to be a decent guy.

He’s got a helluva tough job ahead of him, if he hopes to somehow re-create the image of the GOP as much more than a dwindling group of white, race-intolerant men, primarily from the South, coupled with that western nation-within-a-nation I prefer to call “WyUtAho.”

One current Republican tactic shows a county-by-county American map, illustrating the counties in red or blue, depending of course, on which direction that particular county took in last November’s election. At first glance, one might be impressed by the fact that there appears to be more red than blue in America. One then realizes that many of the red counties are inhabited primarily by jackrabbits, deer, and cattle, with precious few humans.

Therein lays the rub for the GOP. With the exception of the Limbaugh’s and Hannity’s and their relatively small, but fanatic band of followers, many Republicans now realize they must either dump the Nixon-Reagan-Bush “Southern Strategy,” which for terms of brevity, is good ol’simple, down-home racism, or remain as irrelevant as they became in this last election.

While I have no reason to rain on Mr. Steele’s parade, I fervently hope they picked him because of his political skills, which I have no reason to question.

Someone less progressive than myself might wonder why I am so disbelieving in reference to the GOP’s decision to suddenly “discover” a functional, desirable black man to function as a modern-day Moses, to lead them out of the desert they have most recently found themselves in?

I guess…maybe I just don’t trust them.

Hillary Clinton was the first serious female candidate for president, and came awfully close. I believe her gender was not the deciding factor in failing to capture the Democratic nomination, but rather her inability to admit she made a grave mistake in supporting Bush’s trumped up war in Iraq.

Oh, and that, coupled with the fact that Barack Obama was a transcendent candidate, who simply swept the entire nation with his charisma, his intelligence, and quite frankly, his presence.

Democrats are different, aren’t they? See, they were able to view Obama as a man…not just a black man, but a man of considerable intellect and charisma.

My Republican friends seem unable to get their arms around something like that. When Hillary Clinton looked so strong (and she was), suddenly, out of absolutely nowhere, up shows Sarah Palin. Perhaps they thought, “Hey, if they run a woman, perhaps we need to also?”

There can be little question that moderate Republicans crossed the aisle and supported Obama. Terror at the thought of somebody so inexperienced and so unprepared being next in line for the presidency was simply too unnerving.

Is the GOP really serious that Mr. Steele is who they want in that position? One hopes so, as it would be purely contemptuous, were that not their true motivation.

Their track record on matters of this nature is not encouraging.

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