GOP Taps Rand Paul To Open Minority Outreach Office
The Michigan GOP is seeking to increase the party's visibility in the Democratic stronghold of Detroit, 97.5 percent of which voted to reelect Barack Obama in 2012.
The solution? Open a new outreach center for Detroit voters, named the "African American Engagement Office."
The GOP has tapped Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) to headline the official opening of the office on Dec. 6, which will highlight "the Michigan Republican Party's outreach efforts and our commitment to revitalizing Michigan's urban centers," according to the Eventbrite listing.
Paul will already be in Detroit to speak on the city's bankruptcy crisis at the Detroit Economic Club, where he will "unveil his new legislative proposal to remove bankrupt Detroit and other economically blighted areas from poverty and the shackles of big government," according to the Detroit Free Press.
Both the name of the office and the outreach strategy are already attracting their share of detractors. One Republican strategist told The Huffington Post that it sounds like Michigan Republicans are opening a "'separate, but equal' office in Detroit."
"The party should have an office in Detroit, but calling it the 'African American Engagement Office' is absurd, offensive and pathetic," the source told The Huffington Post on background.
Paul may be an unusual choice for Detroit. Though he has said he would have marched with Martin Luther King Jr., Paul has also criticized the Civil Rights Act and said the government shouldn't force businesses to serve minorities. His views have appealed to several white separatists who donated to his campaign, according to the New York Daily News.
In July, Paul said he would oppose any plan by the president to send aid to the Motor City, vowing an Obama bailout would occur "over my dead body because we dont have any money in Washington."
The liberal Eclectablog also questioned the wisdom of having Paul speak to Detroit voters.
"This is the guy thats going to help the Republicans rebrand themselves as a party that is friendly to African Americans and hes going to do it in a city that is 82.7% African American. Good luck with that," Eclectablog wrote.
But Republican National Committee Chairman Reince Priebus said in a Detroit appearance on Nov. 12 that the new office and other GOP outreach efforts targeting minority voters were "long overdue," according to the Detroit News.
The RNC announced last week that it had hired a state director of African-American engagement in Michigan, Wayne Bradley. Bradley will be "leading that statewide effort from this [Detroit] office," Michigan GOP Communications Director Darren Littell told The Huffington Post in an email. Michigan Republicans will open 10 new GOP offices throughout the state and also announced a new 13-member Michigan Black Advisory Council to help build relationships throughout the state.
Its based on the fundamental principle, if you want to get the sale, youve got to show up and ask for the order," Priebus said.
Josh Pugh, communications director for the Michigan Democratic Party, questioned the GOP's plan to attract African-American voters in Michigan in a statement to The Huffington Post.
"After Lansing Republicans crusade to make it harder for African-Americans to vote, the GOPs campaign to prevent millions of uninsured black Americans from accessing affordable health care, and Republican Gov. Snyders Emergency Manager law, ensuring that over half of black Michiganders no longer have the right to elect their local government," he wrote, "the GOP has repeatedly proven they are so far out of touch, they cant even see it."
Is this a good chess move by the GOP?
Scuba
(53,475 posts)trublu992
(489 posts)pangaia
(24,324 posts)Rozlee
(2,529 posts)This from the guy that had to backpedal from earlier comments about the Civil Rights Act. Republicans seem to be blind to irony. Or is it tastelessness?
pangaia
(24,324 posts)Mass
(27,315 posts)Opposing the Civil Rights Act?
Having a staffer who is a neo-secessionist?
Plagiarism?
I really wonder?
Botany
(70,489 posts).... should be able to not serve people of color.
Turbineguy
(37,317 posts)ruffburr
(1,190 posts)Laughing Tears are flowing ,Rand Paul the man for african american outreach Really?
The Republicans have lost their friggin minds!!!! It is hilarious !!!
1StrongBlackMan
(31,849 posts)In all fairness, paul WAS "brave enough" to appear at Howard University ... He has a heads up on sh!t NOT to say.
Thor_MN
(11,843 posts)rather than trying to represent what the people want. I don't know how they are able to delude themselves into thinking they represent "the majority" when they vote against what 70% of their own party support. What is even more mind bending is that people will vote for them after seeing what they do.
Paladin
(28,252 posts)Nothing would surprise me anymore......
Wolf Frankula
(3,600 posts)Randroid Paul will fit right in.
Wolf
Blue_Tires
(55,445 posts)Marrah_G
(28,581 posts)But apparently they are this clueless.
jsr
(7,712 posts)Aristus
(66,316 posts)So do some outreachin' stuff! Offer 'em watermelon 'n' fried chicken 'n' stuff. That'll git 'em ta vote fer us!"
struggle4progress
(118,275 posts)The libertarian senator's new media guy has a pro-Confederate past filled with controversial comments
By Jon Terbush | July 9, 2013
Rand Pauls neo-Confederate staffer sought mass deletion of his own columns
By Eric W. Dolan
Thursday, July 18, 2013 18:56 EST
... According to an editor at the Charleston City Paper, Hunter asked for his own columns to be deleted ... Editor Chris Haire said he would have considered removing a few questionable columns, but Hunter was seeking to have a cowardly amount of his writing removed. The Washington Free Beacon, a conservative publication, reported earlier this month that Hunter was a neo-Confederate who celebrated John Wilkes Booths birthday. He believed the southern Confederacy was correct to secede from the United States. Hunter also had served as chairman of the League of the South ... The columns that Hunter had written at the Charleston City Paper compared Abraham Lincoln to Adolf Hitler and said black people should apologize to white people for high crime rates, among other things ...
Hunter's not the first one, either
FLASHBACK: Paul Campaign Spokesman Resigned Over Racism On Myspace Page
Justin Elliott May 20, 2010, 6:44 PM EDT534
... In December, Chris Hightower, the spokesman for Paul's senate campaign, was forced to resign after a liberal Kentucky blog discovered that his MySpace page had a comment posted around Martin Luther King Day that read: "HAPPY N***ER DAY!!!" above what appears to be a historical photo of the lynching of a black man. The photo and comment appeared to have been posted to Hightower's MySpace page by a friend, not by Hightower himself. The comment has since been removed but at the time it was discovered by the local blog it had been up for nearly two years. According to the Barefoot and Progressive blog, Hightower... wrote a MySpace post referring to "Afro-Americans" titled "Blacks don't like my Napalm Death hoodie":
Perhaps sympathy for The Lost Cause just runs in the family:
Ron Paul: Free People Have the Right to Secede
... In a statement posted on his House of Representatives website, Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) spoke out in support of the secessionists, saying that their actions raise a lot of worthwhile questions about the nature of our union. Continued Paul:
NastyRiffraff
(12,448 posts)opening an outreach office for Jews.
Honestly, I thought this was satire.