Rand Paul: The GOP’s outreach to blacks

“I’m not the world’s leading Rand Paul fan,” said David Frum in TheDailyBeast.com, “but good for him for speaking at Howard University.” The Republican senator from Kentucky and Tea Party hero last week reached out to African-American voters in a speech at the historically black college, pitching the merits of the GOP and libertarianism to a skeptical audience. “I come to Howard today, not to preach, or prescribe some special formula for you,” said Paul, “but to say I want a government that leaves you alone.” That got a chilly response, but Paul got a warmer reception when he portrayed “school choice” as a civil-rights cause, and advocated the repeal of the harsh drug laws that had locked so many young black men in prison. How could it be, Paul asked, that the party of Abraham Lincoln and emancipation was now so out of favor with black voters?

It’s a patronizing question, said Adam Serwer in MotherJones.com, and throughout his lame speech, “Paul condescended to his audience.” He tried to whitewash his own stated opposition to the Civil Rights Act of 1964, and commended himself for being “brave or crazy” enough to speak in such an obviously dangerous environment—that is, a college full of black people. At least we now know Paul’s strategy for expanding the Republican Party’s appeal, said Jack White in TheRoot.com: “Amnesia.” There was no mention of the Southern Strategy that Richard Nixon and other Republicans used to win white votes for decades, or Ronald Reagan’s attacks on “welfare queens” and coded support for “states’ rights.” Paul may find it convenient to forget that Republicans effectively “embraced racism” from 1964 on, but African-Americans haven’t.

Paul deserves credit for trying to open a dialogue, said Jay Bookman in AJC.com.But without real candor, he and other Republicans are “stuck.” Once Democrats became the party of civil rights, “the Republican Party consciously remade itself as a haven for white voters who had grown uneasy with the rise of minorities.” But the GOP’s internal party narrative prohibits any frank admission of this historical fact, and insists that Republicans are “blameless for the abandonment of their party by black voters.” Outside the party, and especially among minorities, that comes off as “condescending and dishonest.” Until well-meaning Republicans like Paul can openly address the elephant in the room, their “efforts at outreach will bear very little fruit.”

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