Monday, January 5, 2009
Politics / Woods Chip the Magic Cracker
Posted by Jeff Woods on Mon, Jan 5, 2009 at 1:56 PM
By some accounts, Chip Saltsman's little faux pas--sending that charming Christmas CD featuring the song "Barack the Magic Negro"--actually might have helped his bid to lead the Republican National Committee.
I just finished watching the video of today's Americans for Tax Reform-hosted debate with Saltsman and the five other candidates. Besides the fact that it was excruciatingly vapid and boring, it was most striking for the complete absence of any mention of Saltsman's highly publicized boo-boo--the only reason any ordinary people even know there's a campaign for the RNC job.
What the hell was Saltsman thinking? What does it say about his commonsense, let alone his racial sensitivity, and what kind of bone-headed PR mistakes could the party expect Saltsman to make as RNC chair?
It's telling not only that there were no questions about the controversy, but that Saltsman felt no need to bring it up himself. It's apparently not necessary to offer a defense. Like Sarah Palin in the parallel universe known as the GOP, he's obviously scoring points for standing up to the evil liberal media.
Asked how Republicans can attract minority voters (good question), Saltsman logically could have replied, "By not referring to blacks as Negroes and then laughing it off as a bit of lighthearted satire." Instead, the elephant in the room (pun intended) remained unacknowledged, and he said this instead:
"If we look at what we believe as a party, it's what most minorities believe as a people. ... The good news is there's a lot of room to grow. The bad news is there's a lot of room to grow. We have done a very bad job of communicating who we are and what we believe ..."
Highlights from the the rest of the debate: We learned Saltsman keeps what sounds like an arsenal of weaponry in his closet--a couple of 12-gauges and a handgun and some other stuff. He advocates "open-box solutions" to political campaigning. A cutting edge kind of guy, he twitters and--gasp!--he has a couple hundred online followers of his twitting.
What was Bush's biggest mistake? The war or the economy? No, Saltsman declares, it was "lack of communication."
Of local interest, Saltsman now makes a virtue out of his betrayal of Don Sundquist a decade ago. Recall that Saltsman, son of the Sundquist transportation commissioner, catapulted overnight from the governor's chauffeur to state GOP chair. To thank Sundquist for the sudden promotion, Saltsman later worked--as he now puts it--"tooth and nail" against the governor's income tax proposal.
During the debate, Saltsman referred to Sundquist as "like a father to me." But "you have to stand on principle," he said. We don't think he was talking about loyalty.
Comments (4)
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Chip says: "We have done a very bad job of communicating who we are and what we believe ..."???
Ummm...No. And that's the beauty of this whole "magic" episode - By sending out his idea of "humor," the Chipster has done an excellent job of communicating who he is and what he believes...Indeed, Chip has shown the world why he's the right over-privileged intolerant white southern male to lead his party.
GO CHIP!!!
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But it looks like ol' Chip got his text message on Fox News. From the NY Times (liberal rag):
"Fox News broadcast what was, for some, its own cringe-inducing moment in the early hours of 2009. Among the text messages from viewers that scrolled along the bottom of the screen was one saying, “let’s hope the magic negro does a good job.” The message was an apparent reference to a parody song, “Barack the Magic Negro,” that was broadcast on Rush Limbaugh’s radio show in 2007. A Fox executive told the blog TVNewser that the message was “inadvertently cleared for air.”
