I'm sure Mike Duncan, the Chairman of the Republican National Committee, is a great guy. My friends in Kentucky, where he serves as Kentucky's National Committeeman, have said he was a very responsive leader. But the fact is that the folks we have had up there have not been able to keep any consistent message going. Contrast that to Howard Dean and the Democrats. The last truly great RNC Chairman we had was Haley Barbour, and the same leadership he showed at the RNC he has shown as Governor of Mississippi.
Working along side Speaker Newt Gingrich, Barbour helped coordinate the various arms of the RNC to keep the party focused on the Republican message.
We don't need people who are just "great guys", but people of action who can finally bring the Republicans under one message. These were my thoughts an hour after Barack Obama clinched the states he needed to become the next President of the United States.
Rather than listen to McCain's concession speech or Barack's victory speech, I got on Facebook and created the "Draft Newt for RNC Chairman." By the time I turned off my computer, the group had almost 30 members. Less than a week later, over 200. What's more, the Atlanta Journal Constitution has reported that Newt is interested in the job.
Newt Gingrich has let it be known that, if Republicans want him, the former U.S House speaker is willing to serve as chairman of the national party and lead it out of the wilderness it’s blundered into.
The question is whether the 168-member Republican National Committee is open to the match.
“If a majority of the RNC thought he was needed, he would accept that appointment,” said Randy Evans’ Gingrich’s close friend and legal counsel. “He fully appreciates the urgency of the moment.”
I have only briefly touched on the issue of race dynamics involving the Obama campaign because personally I find the whole issue of the politics of race and racial division to be distasteful and repugnant. In terms of politics, skin color means nothing to me, ethnic group means nothing to me, and religion means nothing to me as long as the candidate shares my core values and beliefs in how they will govern.
That being said, when I heard from Darrell Galloway, Chairman of the Paulding County Republican Party, yesterday, Saturday, November 1, that a few Obama supporters were waving signs in Hiram dressed in full KKK garb, it reminded me again that part of the Obama strategy was to equate every bit of opposition to him as stemming from racism.
The story started when members of the Paulding County GOP were out waving signs for McCain at the corner of Highways 278 and 92 when around 3:00 PM, a group of Obama supporters showed up and started waving signs from the opposite corner. The Obama supporters quickly outnumbered the Paulding Republicans. One of the Obama supporters was dressed as a Klansman.
The idea is once again being reinforced from the Obama camp that the only reason ANYONE would have against voting for Obama is because Obama is black. If you are not voting for Obama, you might as well just put on a white robe and hood and join the KKK, or, as Obama’s “Spiritual Mentor” the Rev. Jeremiah Wright once said, “the U.S. of KKK-A.”
If Obama’s idea of a race dialogue in America is, "anyone who disagrees with me is nothing more than an ignorant racist," we aren’t going to get very far finding common ground.
Of course this isn't the first time this month that Republicans have been compared to the KKK. A Halloween display in Texas by an Obama supporter had McCain dressed in KKK robes and a hood and chasing Obama with a bat.
In addition to all of the KKK references, there have been plenty of Republicans simply labelled "racist." Daily Kos, the unofficial mouthpiece for the Democrat Party and the most widely read blog on the left, has started to refer to Ohio plumber Joe Wurzelbacher as "Joe the Racist Plumber".
As for the Obama supporters in Hiram, the police were eventually called out and asked the Obama Klansman to make sure he kept his mask off. The law in Georgia, like in many other Southern states, forbids the wearing of Klan masks because of its history as a form of intimidation as opposed to free speech. They will probably claim that calling the police shows that the Paulding County GOP is racist too.
To those Obama sign wavers who were probably bused into Paulding; thank you for demonstrating the kind of intolerance and race-baiting that white Georgians, who I will add were also proud Democrats, rose to an art form in the 1950s and 1960s.
As some in the media are quickly coming to find out, freedom of speech does not necessarily mean freedom of access.
About a week ago news broke that media organizations wishing to cover the Barack Obama “Victory” party in Chicago should expect to pay, and pay through the nose, to have the privilege, not the right, to be there.
I don’t have any sympathy for these news organizations. After all, Obama and other candidates have paid them millions to advertise on their channels. Other advertisers have paid them millions to place ads on shows that discussed the 2008 race for the White House ad nauseam. Why shouldn’t Barack get some of his money back?
What should concern the media even more is the purging of those who have not towed the party line. The three were the New York Post, The Dallas Morning News and the Washington Times. The Times and Post are considered right leaning papers while the Morning News only committed the crime of endorsing McCain.
Ben Smith with Politico confirms the story published by the Drudge Report, which in turn linked back to Smith.
The justification given to the three was there was a lack of room on the plane, and offered the chance to ride on Joe “The Senator” Biden’s campaign bus, the Straight Gaff Express. But that excuse seemed a little hollow to Times Executive Editor John Solomon.
Solomon told Fox News Channel, "We've been traveling since 2007 with him. ... We're a relevant newspaper -- every day we break news. And to suddenly be kicked off the plane for people who haven't covered it as aggressively or thoroughly as we are ... it sort of feels unfair."
While the McCain campaign has barred a couple of columnists who have been critical of his campaign like Joe Klein and Maureen Dowd, the GOP ticket hasn’t barred entire papers. And while one might make an excuse that Texas and New York aren’t exactly swing states, the Times is widely read in Northern Virginia, a “must win” area for both candidates. This also doesn’t gel with the fact that BOTH Chicago papers, the Chicago Tribune and the Chicago Sun Times, are on the plane. I realize you want the home town guys to have a space, but if the decision is between local coverage in your home town and national coverage, you’d think Obama would want the national coverage.
The bigger question is whether in the race to put Obama on a pedestal, has the media cut its own throat?
Obama has the same relationship with the media that John McCain had before he became the GOP standard bearer. The difference is McCain never seemed to take his relationship with the media for granted and they still turned on him.
Like a girl going after the “bad boy” that mistreats her, the media has swoon over Obama who has treated the media like garbage, put them in the “smelly” section of the plane, told them they had to pay for access, used them, abused them and they still love him for it.
Given the lack of respect Obama has for the media, they shouldn’t be surprised if after January 20, Obama only gives passes to the White House press room to those reporters and news services that blindly cover him in glowing terms. The rest of the press can find their new news conference location, somewhere in Lafayette Square.
