I'd been wondering what Michael Steele thought about the whole Magic Negro fiasco, because he'd stayed completely silent when all the other candidates were falling all over each other to comment. Apparently, he thought it hurt the party, or at least that's what he told Thinkprogress yesterday.
TP: A big theme on the panel today was how to get the GOP to embrace minority voters. Do you think that Mr. Saltsman’s CD that he released to the RNC members helps or hurts that effort?
STEELE: Oh it doesn't help at all. Absolutely, it reinforces a negative stereotype of the party. […] And so now we have a opportunity to step in the breach and clear that up and make sure that people appreciate and know that look, this is not representative of the party as a whole, this is not a direction that we want to go in or a system that we believe.
At first I thought, "good for him." But then I realized that despite his objection to the song Steele said nothing initially. Now he either said nothing because he doesn't actually believe the song hurt the party's image, or he said nothing because it would have cost him politically. The latter seems more likely to me, and that doesn't actually speak all that well of Steele. I also think it's kind of weird to have said nothing on an issue all the other RNC candidates weighed in on, and then an interviewer from a liberal think tank exactly the kind of thing they want to hear. A week ago if Steele had said this to a newspaper reporter it would have been news.
For what it's worth, Steele seemed sincerely frustrated yesterday by the party's inability to reach out to minorities, and when he described "the war, Katrina, bailouts" as Bush's worst failures I think many Democrats might have agreed with him.
Most telling, from my memory, not one of the candidates mentioned "the economy" when asked about Bush's failures. They all think the bailout was a far bigger failure then driving the economy into the ground in the first place. But then again that may be because conservatives are still blaming black people for the mortgage crisis and claiming that Barack Obama got elected president because of "white guilt". I've always found that a good way to reach out to people is by gently explaining how much better than them you are.
-- A. Serwer
