Column:
New 'off-the-hook' GOP campaign tries too hard
Palin, Jindal and Steele should look to Limbaugh for authenticity.
Published March 9, 2009
Ever since Barack Obama became president, Rush Limbaugh has been everywhere. For the last few months it's been baffling me. I had no idea why this man, whose heyday basically seemed over, suddenly rose to prominence among a crowd of youthful GOP up-and-comers like Sarah Palin, Bobby Jindal and most recently, Michael Steele. It took me until this week to realize that somehow, all of these people are crazier, or at least more patronizing than Limbaugh, which seems impossible but also undeniable.
Palin had her fair share of winning moments during the campaign, from talking to Katie Couric about how she reads all newspapers to garnering her foreign policy experience from looking out the window. More recently she can be seen every single day on Fox News, as Greta Van Susteren seems to pay daily visits to the Palin household to check on Bristol Palin and her unfortunately named son.
Bobby Jindal, Louisiana governor and rising star of the GOP, delivered a speech last month following Obama's address to Congress, and in the process proved himself to be a less-than-riveting orator.
But perhaps worst of all is new Republican National Committee Chairman Michael Steele. Last week he announced plans for an "off-the-hook" public relations campaign aimed at young minority voters in "urban-suburban hip-hop settings."
This is patronizing, stupid and childish, and shows Steele is completely disconnected from the white community, the black community and the sane community. All these would-be up-and-coming GOP saviors seem to have completely missed the message of the last election. Palin seems to think being portrayed as a nice down-to-earth person is what won Obama the election, but she's wrong. Jindal believes being young and confident won the election, and he's kind of right, but mostly wrong. Steele thinks being black is what won the election, which is just offensive and moronic.
What really won the election, in addition to charisma and conviction, were Obama's beliefs. What has gone completely over the heads of Palin, Jindal and Steele is people voted for Obama because they like his policies. People aren't as stupid as Steele seems to believe.
And this is exactly why Rush Limbaugh deserves to be the leader of the Republican Party more than any of the new kids on the block. Even though he might be brash, and as Steele says, "incendiary," he doesn't play games and insult his constituents' intelligence. He just says what he believes, says it with conviction and stands by it. Which is more than any of the younger generation of GOP hopefuls has done lately.
The underlying assumption when Steele says the party needs a "hip-hop" makeover, or uses the term "bling-bling" when talking about Obama's economic policy, is the Republican Party is perceived as being too old. But ironically, by throwing around these youthful colloquialisms, Steel just proves beyond a doubt, he is old. Limbaugh is almost a decade older than Steele, but by being himself he gives no one any reason to question how his age affects his politics. Steele on the other hand, claims "we want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-suburban hip-hop settings."
Steele portrays a self-conscious party looking at itself in the mirror and asking, "Am I young enough? Am I black enough?" If Steele wants to value principles more than appearance, he should take a page out of Limbaugh's book.