Beauty is only skin deep. And to the Democratic Party and the liberal media, that appears to be as deep as they go for selecting their candidates. That much was demonstrated during Sunday’s This Week on ABC when fill-in host Martha Raddatz, who is supposed to be an objective journalist, flashed her partisan side by bragging to former New Jersey governor Chris Christie about how diverse the income class of newly elected Democrats was.
Openly declaring her goal was to “rub it in” (an odd sentiment for a journalist who wasn’t supposed to take sides), she showed Christie a collection of pictures of the newly elected GOP and Democratic candidates and paid particular attention to their race and gender.
One of the people displayed was Texas Congressman-elect and former Navy SEAL Dan Crenshaw, who already had to deal with liberal attacks against his appearance when NBC’s Saturday Night Live mocked his missing right eye, which he lost to an IED in Afghanistan.
Another one of the people Raddatz flaunted, this time a Democratic one, was Minnesota Congresswoman-elect Ilhan Omar. She has been accused of being an anti-Semite after making a series of anti-Israel statements on Twitter using anti-Jewish tropes.
“A little bit different,” Raddatz mocked, effectively reducing the backgrounds, policy positions, and life experiences of the GOP class to their skin color and gender. “Should that lack of racial and gender diversity be cause for concern among Republicans, especially when you look at the midterms,” she demanded to know.
Raddatz’s focus on Congress completely obscured the GOP’s diverse field of female candidates who won on Election Day. As Townhall political editor Guy Benson pointed out on Twitter a couple weeks ago, the GOP elected, among others:
- First woman elected as governor of Iowa in Kim Reynolds
- First woman elected as governor of South Dakota in Kristi Noem
- First woman elected to be a senator from Tennessee in Marsha Blackburn
- First Latina lieutenant governor of Florida with Jeanette Nunez
- First woman elected to be a senator from Mississippi in Cindy Hyde-Smith (favored in the runoff)
Even with this diversity, Christie’s response included a hope for more diverse recruitment from party leadership. “I come from the most ethnically diverse state in America. And so, for me, the fact that my party, let’s say, in New Jersey looks significantly different than that class picture just tells you it's possible,” he explained.
“Okay, but we're not just talking about New Jersey. We have just had the midterms. What do they need to do,” Raddatz snapped back. Christie reiterated his call for more diverse recruitment:
I think it is incumbent upon the leadership of the party to go out and recruit members of our country, citizens of our country who believe in Republican philosophies and Republican approaches to government, and get them to come in to give our party a more diverse look at what is going on and how we solve some of the problems the country has.
This just goes to show that the Democrats and the liberal media only look at the outside when it comes to selecting candidates and put little emphasis on the content of the person’s character. It explains a lot.
The transcript is below, click "expand" to read:
ABC’s This Week
November 18, 2018
9:44:15 a.m. EasternMARTHA RADDATZ: I'm going to start with you, Mary Jordan. You saw that class picture of the incoming number of women, you heard all the women I talked to. Do you think they make a difference?
MARY JORDAN: I do think that in all the excitement and the significant gains we've been talking about three out of four members of Congress are still men. And we're still behind most of the rest of the world. So, I think, first of all, men are still in charge here. But there is an enormous amount of new energy to get things done. A lot of women who were never in politics are coming to the Hill. And I think they're going to bring fresh perspective and they’re going to focus on two things. I heard over and over and over they're going to focus on health care and stopping the incivility and trying to heal things. And if they do that, that would be a pretty significant change in conversation on Capitol Hill.
RADDATZ: And everybody comes in with a great agenda. Hope they keep their energy up. Chris Christie to that point about women, Congress newest members were up on Capitol Hill, as you saw.
CHRIS CHRISTIE: Yup.
RADDATZ: Let's just take a look at the Republican freshman class in the House, I guess to rub it in. Look at the faces there. Here is just some of the Democratic freshman class. A little bit different. Should that lack of racial and gender diversity be cause for concern among Republicans, especially when you look at the midterms?
CHRISTIE: Well listen, I think we should always be looking for ways to make our party more diverse and more representative of what the country looks like. So, I think that should be a goal. I come from the most ethnically diverse state in America. And so, for me, the fact that my party, let’s say, in New Jersey looks significantly different than that class picture just tells you it's possible.
RADDATZ: Okay, but we're not just talking about New Jersey. We have just had the midterms. What do they need to do?
CHRISTIE: You've got to focus on it. You got to recruit. You know, candidates, like you said, a lot of these folks who came in on the Democratic side had never been involved in politics before. How did they get there? Well, some of them were self-motivated to get there, but some of them, Martha, were recruited. And I think it is incumbent upon the leadership of the party to go out and recruit members of our country, citizens of our country who believe in Republican philosophies and Republican approaches to government, and get them to come in to give our party a more diverse look at what is going on and how we solve some of the problems the country has.
(…)
