Diversity, Tea Party Style
My Wall Street Journal colleague, James Taranto, wonders who really is the party of sad old white males these days...
Now, let's see how yesterday's primary results comport with this image of the tea-party movement as a bunch of racist, sexist, superannuated scaredy-cats.
"Republican voters in California left no doubt who they prefer to take on three-term Democratic Sen. Barbara Boxer in the general election--Carly Fiorina," RealClearPolitics.com reports.Official returns show Fiorina, a woman, with 56.5% of the vote, beating out white men Tom Campbell (21.8%) and Chuck DeVore (19%). Fiorina is 55, Boxer is 69.
Also in California, "Meg Whitman, the billionaire former chief executive of eBay, easily won the race for the Republican gubernatorial nomination," the Associated Press reports. Whitman, 53 and also female, has 64.2% to just 26.9% for the only significant white male candidate, Steve Poizner. The Democratic nominee is Jerry Brown, a septuagenarian Caucasian dude who first ran for governor as a legacy (his father held the office, 1959-67) when Gerald Ford was president.
In Nevada's GOP Senate primary, tea-party favorite Sharron Angle, a woman, beat Sue Lowden, also a woman, 40.1% to 26.1%, according to "unofficial results" at the "only official primary election results reporting website." Democrats are "already attacking Sharron Angle as an extremist," reports the Reno Gazette-Journal. One thing they won't attack her as is a white male--unlike the incumbent and Democratic nominee, Harry Reid, who has a long history of racially insensitive remarks about blacks. At 60, Angle isn't a spring chicken, but she's almost a decade Reid's junior.
Nikki Haley ran far ahead of all other contenders for South Carolina's Republican gubernatorial nomination, though the official returns give her 48.9%, just shy of a majority, which sets up a runoff against Rep. Gresham Barrett, who got 21.8%. Haley is a woman. She is 38. She is Indian-American, which by some lights makes her nonwhite (although South Asians are "Caucasian" in the traditional racial taxonomy.) We witnessed an amusing moment on Fox News Channel last night when Juan Williams observed that Haley would be "the first native American governor." It was left to host Bret Baier to explain the difference between Indian-Americans and American Indians, and also to point out that Louisiana's Gov. Bobby Jindal (also a 38-year-old Republican, albeit a man--hey nobody's perfect) is in fact the first Indian-American governor.
You could almost call this "the year of the woman"--except that designation was already used when Barbara Boxer was elected in 1992 (along with Dianne Feinstein, Carol Moseley Braun and Patty Murray). So how about, in honor of Fiorina's brilliantly zany ad, "the year of the sheep"?
Michael Barone notes that "the leader in the Republican primary for the open South Carolina 1 seat relinquished by retiree Henry Brown is Tim Scott, who may be the most conservative and assuredly is the only black Republican in the South Carolina legislature. He led Paul Thurmond, son of the late Governor and Senator Strom Thurmond, by a 31%-16% margin; in third place with 14% was Carroll Campbell, son of the late Congressman and Governor Carroll Campbell." Scott is far from a sure thing in the runoff two weeks hence; the Associated Press reports that the Campbell kid has endorsed the Thurmond boy.
The list of counterstereotypical results is impressive, though we suspect that liberals like Chernow will prove too hidebound to reconsider their prejudices any time soon. It's funny that those who claim to deplore racism, sexism and all the other isms turn out to be obsessed with race and sex, to the point that they really don't have much to say other than expressions of bigotry aimed at white men.
More at http://online.wsj.com/article/best_of_the_web_today.html
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Comments :
May '10
Re: Diversity, Tea Party Style
I really hope the GOP doesn't tout this sort of stuff. Voters can recognize on their own which is the party of identity politics. When liberals call us racists and sexists and whatnot, we should ignore them like the mindless pests they are.
Re: Diversity, Tea Party Style
Speaking as a sad, old white male -- and I include you in that group, McGurn -- I'm happy to see this trend. Time for someone else to have a go at running the store.
May '10
Re: Diversity, Tea Party Style
Rob Long read this.
Tim Scott the SC first district congressional primary winner referred to above is another JC Watts !
A guy everyone of us can be proud of. Please interview him next week before run off. He will be a leader in the incoming freshman class, hes got it all.He will be a National figure.
Re: Diversity, Tea Party Style
See also this silly article up now at The Daily Beast. Yes, it's ridiculous for the GOP to count 62 year olds among its "Young Guns." But is the answer a lecture from a fifteen year old "pundit"?
I hardly think it's been a "horrible" job. In the 80s the phrase "reach out" was used only in telephone commercials. But to underscore Rob's point, if you don't like the people your party's putting up, boys and girls, don't become a pundit. Become a candidate. It worked for Bobby and Nikki, and it'll work for you, too.
Re: Diversity, Tea Party Style
Re: Diversity, Tea Party Style
For liberals, diversity means people of different races who believe exactly the same thing. I fear that Tim Scott will get the same vile treatment as Clarence Thomas, Sarah Palin, and others who don't ahere to the orthodoxy of "identity politics."
And speaking of orthodoxy, I'd also recommend the op-ed in today's WSJ by Joel Pollak, an Orthodox Jew running as a Tea Party Republican in Illinois. No doubt he'll be attacked by Jewish Democrats for his lack of authenticity.
Re: Diversity, Tea Party Style
"I really hope the GOP doesn't tout this sort of stuff," Aaron Miller writes above. "Voters can recognize on their own which is the party of identity politics."
You know what? Aaron's right. After today--just this one day, Aaron--I'll quit pointing out that the GOP ticket in California now includes two women and and African American.
Re: Diversity, Tea Party Style
But I'd like to keep pointing out that McGurn is a sad old white man, if that's okay. Freedman too, if we're keeping score.
Re: Diversity, Tea Party Style
I'm not a sad, old white man, but I like their company.
I think it is good that the GOP has more women and minority candidates. What's most important is what they believe. If candidates believe in free markets, a smaller government, and a strong national defense, then why not put forward the candidates with whom more voters will identify? It may be no mistake that the women and minority candidates are appearing in California -- as Peter points out -- where there is no majority race.
May '10
Re: Diversity, Tea Party Style
Is it OK to go off-topic to say that our Freedman is better than their Friedman?
May '10
Re: Diversity, Tea Party Style
What a funny thread. For a moment I thought maybe I was a sad, old white man, too. I like Aaron's comment, but I think we should still highlight the women and minorities, only in our own subtle and mature ways instead. Certainly not in response to the liberal rants or as our own obnoxious headlines. Maybe give them a little more face time in the media.