This is still bothering me.
He [Dean] surveys the crowd of 150 crammed into the room [at the African American Caucus]. "You think the RNC could get this many people of color into a single room?" he marvels. "Maybe if they got the hotel staff in there."(Emphasis mine.)
Granted, the vast majority of Americans who are black are Democrats and did voted for John Kerry in the 2004 presidential election, in spite of the conservative views that many black Americans have, such as those on abortion and same-sex marriage. Chairman Dean could have just left it at plain fact; that the Republicans can’t muster the sheer numbers of black Americans to their gatherings that Democrats can.
What was up with the ‘hotel staff’ comment, however?
Does he mean that Republicans would only invite the black hotel workers into their midst, rather that the hundreds of thousands of black physicians, lawyers, PhDs, engineers, executives, journalists, etc.?
Or does he mean that most blacks *are* hotel workers or equivalent--and honorably-employed--blue-collar types, rather than (formally) well-educated sorts?
Or does he mean that Republicans would only invite those blacks who were handy at the sort of place in which political gatherings are held (in this case, the Hilton Washington) and would “forget” to invite those who are *deemed* to be “smarter”? Does he think hotel workers aren’t intelligent and are “dumb’ enough to be “lured” into a Republican gathering merely because of simple proximity? (Believe me, many of the most intelligent people out there are among the ranks of blue-collar workers.)
Well, excuse me, but I can’t help but Forget the Rule, perhaps because I don’t subscribe to it in the first place. Why is newly-minted Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean being let off the hook for this extremely suspect statement?
Does the name Trent Lott ring a bell? Bloggers ran him away from the Senate Majority Leader position (so I’m told; this was a bit before I started following blogs). At least Senator Lott apologized.
Can we at least ask for a clarification from the good governor? After all, he is the face and voice of the Democrat party, not some poor previous-unknown guy from a fledgling news service.
