Republican Party Diversity
The 2009 GOP Leadership Starting to Resemble A Rainbow Coalition
Feb 28, 2009
With a woman and an Indian-American among its presidential candidates and an African-American chairman of the Republican National Committee (RNC), the 2009 GOP leadership has changed dramatically. It may never have had the diversity now shown in the list of "Ten Republicans to Watch" pubished by Charlie Cillizza in the Washington Post . There, among the five Post pictures of GOP leaders, were:
Bobby Jindal is Indian-American Louisiana Governor
- Highly-critized Bobby Jindal, the Indian-American governor of Louisiana. He is still considered a possibility for the 2012 GOP presidential nomination despite his disappointing performance responding to President Obama’s State of the Union speech.
- RNC Chairman Michael Steele, the first black to head that committee;
- Presidential contender Sarah Palin, the controversial governor of Alaska and recent GOP vice presidential nominee.
Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty
The other seven members of Cillizza’s list are Caucasian males
- Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty;
- Former Massachusetts Governor Mitt Romney;
- Commentator Rush Limbaugh;
- Former House Majority Leader Newt Gingrich of Georgia;
- U.S. Rep. Eric Cantor of Virginia;
- Governor Mark Sanford of South Carolina;
- Governor Haley Barbour of Mississippi.
U.S. Rep. Joseph Cao of New Orleans
Steele, Palin and Jindal give the list the kind of diversity Republican leadership has never had. Not on Cillizza’s list, but another sign of the GOP’s new diversity is recently-elected U.S. Rep. Joseph Cao of New Orleans, the first Vietnamese-American elected to Congress..
For the moment, at least, these potential candidates and power brokers represent the GOP’s answer to Barack Obama, who proved that someone other than a white male could win the presidency.
Republican leaders can point to earlier party examples of diversity: former Secretaries of State Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice and Palin’s VP nomination in 2008 But Powell and Rice were cabinet members appointed by President George W Bush, not elected by the party.
Palin was not considered as a presidential candidate at the Republican convention, or even a vice presidential candidate until John McCain surprisingly named her as his preferred running mate.
Michael Steele First African-American RNC Chairman
The GOP has never had an African-American as RNC chairman. Some might consider Steele’s appointment as a party attempt to lure blacks away from their traditional Democratic home, but Steele has solid credentials of his own as an elected official.
He was Maryland’s first African-American lieutenant governor and then its first African-American governor. For a while he was the nation’s highest ranking black Republican.
Cillizza’s list is dominated by governors and former governors: Palin, Jindal, Sanford, Steele, Pawlenty and Barbour. There are no United States senators. Canton, the House Minority Leader, is the only member of Congress.
Alaska Governor Sarah Palin Only Westerner on List
Three surprises in Cillizza’s list:
Palin is the only Westerner in the group. There is no one from the Texas-Arizona-California-Wyoming circuit. Those are the states that produced the Republican stars of the past half century--Ronald Reagan, the two Bush presidents, Dick Cheney, Barry Goldwater, Richard Nixon and McCain.
Five members of the group come from the East Coast: Gingrich, Canton, Sanford, Steele and Romney.
There are no Hispanics, the fast growing ethnic group that Bush and the GOP tried so hard to lure in the past decade.
The 2009 Republican leadership certainly doesn’t look like your father’s Grand Old Party anymore. But will the new diversity change traditionally perceived Republican attitudes on such social issues as race, sex, immigration, and religion?
Reference: History Central.com
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