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Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele On Racial Politics In 2012

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Former RNC Chairman Michael Steele‘s tumultuous tenure as head of the national GOP was marked by his tendency toward outspokenness, a tendency that earned him little reward. Since he become a contributor for MSNBC almost a year ago, however, that tendency has become an asset. Although still a strong critic of President Obama, the Chairman isn’t afraid to tell uncomfortable truths about his own party. In part two of our exclusive interview, Chairman Steele discusses one such truth: the Republican Party’s rocky relationship with racial politics.

One of the more remarkable moments of Michael Steele’s stint as RNC chairman was his stunning admission that, by virtue of the decades-long, race-based Southern Strategy, his party had given black voters very little reason to vote for them.

In the second part of our interview, I asked Chairman Steele what role, if any, that strategy is playing in the 2012 election, as expressed in language like that of former Speaker Newt Gingrich. His responses were remarkably frank:

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  • Anonymous

    “The southern strategy died, when bubba went back to Clinton”   Nice

    Its like i always say “the Democrats have a very proud history of racism”.

    And now they are leading the way in race baiting and plantation style voting bases. 

  • Anonymous

    I actually like Michael Steele. He might have made some outlandish comments but he actually did a good job of raising money and winning midterm elections. Problem is that he took over the RNC at a very tough time, when everyone was fighting for leadership & control of the party. Unfortunately for Steele, the Repulican that emerged as the most powerful during this time was Rush Limbaugh, who underminded Steele even more.

  • Anonymous

    Yes, the Democrats have a history of racism that pre-dates the FDR administration. The Republicans have a history of racism that post-dates the Nixon administration. See how one relates to modern times and the other doesn’t?

  • Anonymous

    Michael Steele had 2 comments during the interview that distills the biggest hurdles for the R’s:

    “We’re not connecting” and “Problem with group think”

    Now,try to fix those 2 problems with a daily influx of FIXED NOISE talking points and leading voices on the Right propagating the same to the Pitchfork Pounders and Torch Bearers.I personally can’t see any quick fix for this Party, unless you burn the house down and rebuild.

  • Anonymous

    Democrats have a history that pre-dates and post-dates Nixon.  It is no surprise that all of their leaders (e.g. Kennedys, Pelosi,  Biden, Dean, Kerry, etc. (I could go on for hours)) refuse to live near black people and send their kids to school with black children.

  • Anonymous

    Why don’t you add Obama to that list?

  • Anonymous

    He too refuses to live near black people and refuses to send his kids to school with black kids.  That is obviously the racist white half of him.  The other half of him organizes black panthers to stand outside of polling stations with billyclubs.

  • Anonymous

    True, Obama hates blacks, even though his father, his wife, his children, & he himself are all black.

  • Centrist79

    I went to school with a Kennedy, Jefferson, Washington, Kerry(first name)and an Adams.

  • Centrist79

    Washington D.C has 50.7% African Americans. You want to try again.

  • Love of Country

    Don’t listen to colberT … he argues like a child, always creating false strawman arguments to try and gain the upper hand.

    Of course Barry wants poor kids to go to school with rich kids … just not HIS rich kids.  Then colberT tries to turn the conversation into something completely different (hypothetical racism) so he can fabricate a winning argument of some kind in his little pea brain …. too funny!

    I reminded him Dems wouldn’t let Repubs regulate Fannie and Freddie and he tried to play the hypocrisy card suggesting that if Repubs didn’t want all of Owebamao’s strangulating and foolish regulations then they should have never tried to reign in Fannie and Freddie who DESPERATELY needed it.

    The kid is a classic tard who thinks he is clever but is really just a dishonest fool.

    BTW colberT … Barry is white, not bIack!  (LMFAO)

  • Love of Country

    Dems have been racist for a quarter of a millennium.

    The GOP stopped slavery

    The GOP stopped DNC JIM Crow Laws

    The GOP stopped DNC Segregation

    The GOP started the civil rights movement, the DNC started the K K K.

    LBJ boycotted civil rights as senate majority leader along with tenured klansman, Bobby Byrd and Al Gore senior …. almost all dems filibustered civil rights.

    LBJ decided to pass civil rights as president because the writing was already on the wall, thanks to the GOP.  However … said LBJ on Air Force One “If we can pass the civil rights voting act, we’ll have these ni**ers voting for us for the next 200 years.”

    Even with LBJ’s bold, racist strategy to win over the bIack vote with his ironic civil rights bill, he still relied heavily on a majority of Republicans to pass the bills because the majority of dems were adamantly against it.  The whole reason the dems started the K K K was because they detested the GOP for supporting the bIack man’s independence.

    But hey, colberT …. don’t let the facts get in the way of a good narrative, you state run media, racist sock puppet patsie.

  • Anonymous

    None of that has actually happened.

  • Tan

    Don’t you see that everything you can point to predates the birth of most of us? If LBJ was running for President today no liberal would vote for him, only conservatives would. He was, after all, an enemy to liberals of the day as the Vietnam war President. Now which party still defends that war? Which sort of people agree with LBJ today? THAT is what is relevant, not any references to decades ago idiots.

    The southern strategy is not a rumour or half truth. It is a documented fact and I encourage you to look into it. It happened and it was racist and the remnants of it can still be seen in politics today. GOP leaders admit that it happened, and that it was a blatant outreach to racists. And the leaders of today refer to black people on handouts, defend the confederacy and it’s flag and think ‘n$&)!&&head’ is a fine name for a farm.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_45S32GWGDRUJIL6E2U4HOZW4BM Bob

    Oh, I’m sure that you live right next door to a black family.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_45S32GWGDRUJIL6E2U4HOZW4BM Bob

    Are you seriously this stupid?
    I realize you rightwingers are losing it now that you see 2012 slipping away, but this is just asinine.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_45S32GWGDRUJIL6E2U4HOZW4BM Bob

    What a selectively edited Bizarro Earth version of history you present.
    So why is the deep south a Republican bastion and why did racists like Helms and Thurmond run to the GOP?

  • Anonymous

    A man of integrity.  I can see why the right doesn’t like him.

  • Cecelia

    It’s amazing to me that you can talk about the disproportionate (to their numbers in the general population) number of African-Americans in jail or on welfare without criticism as long as you blame an inveterate and institutionally racist society for these stats.

    Had Newt Gingrich been blaming an old guard white patriarchy for these realities, rather than a now universally accepted ethos of unwed motherhood that is guaranteed to hamper any burgeoning underclass in a way that is not true for the rich and insulated one percent… (including the hypocritical Newt Gingrich) all would be right with the world.

    So yes it is a matter of how you frame such things  Don’t do it in the abstract way of analyzing public policy or of taking a negative approach to cultural changes.  THAT went out with the death of Danie Patrick Moynihan.

    If you want to pronounce upon such matters unimpeded by accusations of dog whistles and code language, all you must do is to blame whitey in general and a conservative patriachy in particular.  Than follow up with a call for more govt expenditures and interventions in order to stave off the negative consequences of single parenthood.

    Then and only then will you NOT be criticized, you’ll be likened to saints.

  • Anonymous

     wow youve shifted…..last year you were agreeing with glen beck when he said Obama hates white people and the white culture…now you claim Obama organized the black panthers…all this shows is how incredibly ignorant wingnuts are

  • Anonymous

     that was lovely….to bad you dont know the difference between liberal and conservative and have such a weak grasp of american history…..its people like you that reassures us that we are 100% correct in rebuking the 1850s mindset of brilliant conservatives like you……

  • Anonymous

    What part of pre-dates FDR & post-dates Nixon did you not understand?

  • Love of Country

    You’re comparing Jim Crow, segregation and slavery to the “southern strategy”????  That’s rich, you stupid white kid …. most bIacks would rather be “ignored” in the southern strategy than be segregated or enslaved.

    The “northern strategy” was 100x more offensive.

    Where LBJ, who deeply hated bIack people, suddenly reversed course solely to pick up the votes of the ni**ers he hated so deeply.

    You’re just a stupid kid who turns a blind eye to the race war the Left is obsessed with TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    BIack conservatives are called every racist name in the book … TODAY!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    It’s chronic, systematic and wretchedly racist.  TODAY, YOU STILL EXPECT ALL BLACK PEOPLE TO THINK AND VOTE ALIKE REGARDLESS OF THE FACT THE DNC HAS BEEN SH TTING ON THEM FOR OVER 200 CONTINUOUS YEARS, USING THEM FOR EITHER LABOR OR VOTES!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

    Goodbye Tan …. I will not be addressing you in the future … you’re a naive and racist fool of the highest order … Shucky Ducky!

  • Love of Country

    Why did the DNC send K K K Bobby Byrd to represent them in congress for the last 60 years and give him a hero’s funeral?

    Why is K K K Bobby Byrd’s name on every federal building, bridge and road in his DNC district?

    Selective?  Bizarro?  You definitely sound rattled as well you tards should be …. the truth shall set you free OR simply reveal your 225 years of uninterrupted racism, hatred and dysfunction.

  • Love of Country

    What an empty, foolish rebuttal … LMFAO!

    BTW kid … it’s “too”, not “to”.  You can’t even properly lodge an insult w/o looking stupid!

    ROTFLMFAO

  • Love of Country

    For your side it would be “pre-dates Romney” since your racism is still epic and a race war is all the Left wants … next to a class war as well.

    Now go burn the flag, scooter …. I have important things to do!

  • Anonymous

    Um, you were the one that brought up racism in the first place. Don’t blame you for not liking how this conversation is going. Kind of proves the the Republicans of today are like the Democrats 100 years ago.

  • http://pulse.yahoo.com/_45S32GWGDRUJIL6E2U4HOZW4BM Bob

    Byrd left the KKK in his 20s and spent the remaining 70 years of his life apologizing for it. Called it the biggest mistake of his life.
    Helms and Thurmond remained unapologetic racists til the day they died. Thurmond wouldn’t even acknowledge his black daughter.

  • Love of Country

    So I read your post below with no reply button.

    So Bobby Byrd was filibustering civil rights WHILE he was apologizing for being in the K K K?

    And wasn’t he in his 60′s while he was still using the n word on the floor of the Senate?

    Do I care you found two racists in the GOP after the dems started the K K K and Jim Crow and segregation laws?  Should you care the majority of dems filibustered civil rights through their entirety and they only got passed because a majority of Republicans voted to pass them?  And nevermind Republicans overturned Jim Crow and segregation in Congress …. no one deserves any credit for such whims, right?

    I gotta tell ya, bob …. I’m none too impressed with you as an individual or your amusing debating skills.  I will give you credit where credit is due, however.  You have staked your claim and found a home in the DNC …. just like 99 out of every 100 felons. 

    Allons, bob!

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