Quote:
Originally posted by Rudey
Umm Barak is an elected official. He wasn't appointed to anything. He is not the same as Colin Powell, Condoleezza Rice, Elaine Chao, or Alberto Gonzales.
And it's just so funny how Democrat leaders have distanced themselves from what Dean said but people are on here trying to justify it.
-Rudey
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How does elected versus appointed have anything to do with the fact that these are all influential people of color within their political parties who achieved their current level of success both in spite of and because of their race? Nobody can argue that both Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice were not appointed to their current positions at least in part because of their race. Bush knew he would be facing criticism about the "old white Christian men" nature of his apointees had he not, thus Colin and Condi and other appointees of color/women were a wise political decision on his part. (Not to mention the fact that they allowed him to appoint old white conservative Christian men to other positions because his opponents could not accurately pull the "He only appoints old white conservative Christian men to positions of power!" card.) Obama, while he is an elected official, has certainly been tokenized within the Democratic party.
Furthermore, Democratic leaders have distanced themselves from a lot of things that are true because they don't want to harm their political careers. As DeltAlum would say . . . that's politics. I would like you to find me the statistics that refute the fact that the GOP is a primarily white, Christian party. You won't find them. Why not? Because this is a primarily white, Christian country. Any political party that does not make race and religion a major part of its platform will probably end up a white, Christian party.
That said, I'm not entirely convinced that Dean is wrong -- my understanding is that the GOP IS primarily whiter and more Christian than the rest of this country, and that statistics would bear this out. However, I've been looking a little bit and found nothing one way or the other, so anybody who wants to prove me wrong or right on this one can feel free to post statistics, and in the meantime I'm off to work.
ps: The real question, to me, is whether or not Dean can legitimately offer anything better than the "white, Christian" political party he is denouncing. Unless he plans to overhaul the Democratic party, I kind of doubt he can.