Republican Identity Crisis

With the Census Bureau projecting minorities will one day be the majority, some Republicans believe they have a branding problem. As if things couldn't get any worse for the GOP, the Pew Research Center claims White voters are more likely to identify with the Democratic Party. The numbers of White voters calling themselves Republicans have been dropping for the past four years. And there are some Republicans who believe the party needs its own Barack Obama, a political star who can transcend race and party lines.

Source

The GOP has a problem. I'm not sure I would call it a branding problem, exactly. I'm equally uncertain the resolution lies in finding the perfect African American candidate as the text taken from and Essence.com article implies. I maintain that politics shouldn't be about race, but more about the qualifications for the position. Obviously, many people disagree with me since we elected the most under qualified and liberal candidate in US history.

The problem with the GOP isn't about the lack of minority representation. The problem is the GOP does not stand for anything anymore. They can't decide whether they're going to be conservative, moderate or as in John McCain's case, liberal. I believe that there are far more Conservatives in the country than Liberals, but the Liberals have learned to make more noise than the Conservatives do. The Liberal strategy has been brilliant in making people so afraid of being politically incorrect that Conservatives are petrified to stand for anything that was once considered a core value.

The GOP has to do a better job of reaching out to their base. John McCain did not represent their base. His campaign was stale and lifeless until he named Sarah Palin as his running mate. Governor Palin breathed new life into the GOP and it would serve the GOP to take notice of her characteristics, her values, and her message which resurrected and energized a fallen party.

The article from Essence.com goes on to talk about another rising star in the GOP, Michael S. Steele. He is the former Lt. Governor of Maryland. I don’t know much about him, except that he is a conservative. I have seen him many times as a commentator on Fox News, and I like the message I’ve heard from him. He is seeking the leadership of the Republican National Committee. For sure, anyone who receives this coveted position must clearly define the core principles, values, and the mission of the Republican party or there will be no future for the party. The Republican party is not going to prevail by seeing which candidate is the blackest African American and I hope they don’t use race as a determining factor in appointing leadership for this monumental task of defining what the Republican party is and will be.

I’m the author of Your Moral Compass and I approved this message.