THE EARMARK

Embattled GOP chairman Michael Steele has spent most of his brief tenure driving people away from the Republican Party.  Whether it’s losing once solidly conservative congressional districts or blaming the recession on gay people, Chairman Steele has been about as welcoming a presence as Newt Gingrich in a union hall.

Well now it’s time to win the people back.  And Steele, apparently drawing ethnicities out of a hat, has decided to begin with African-Americans.  Now for those skeptics who weren’t impressed by Steele’s effort to kindle an “off-the-hook… hip hop” GOP earlier this year, the chairman promises this time will be different.

Because this time, he’s bringing Southern slang and soul food…

Asked what efforts he’s undertaking to include minorities in the Republican Party, Michael Steele, the party’s new chairman, replies, “My plan is to say, ‘Y’all come, because a lot of you are already here.’” He adds laughing, “I got the fried chicken and potato salad, OK.”

While we applaud Steele’s presumed intent — to bring new faces into American politics — we question his methods of doing so.  When your party hasn’t sent a single African-American to either house of Congress since J.C. Watts retired, it’s hard to expect minority voters to disregard this fact simply because they were offered a plate of chicken.

But we don’t think Steele has it all wrong.  The truth is that by offering fried chicken and potato salad, he will draw a certain type of voter who, as Steele himself puts it, is “already here.”  The problem is that this voter isn’t an African-American.  It’s Mike Huckabee.

Tags: Michael Steele, Mike Huckabee