Is there any political caricature more threadbare than casting the Republican Party as "the Confederacy?" CNN analyst Gloria Borger tossed that one on Thursday, with all its pejorative assumptions about hidden or not-so-hidden racial animus, noting New England states had no House Republicans.
Perhaps that's because a CNN panel was discussing RNC Chairman Michael Steele's promise to bring some hip-hop to the GOP, causing Steve Hayes to make hip-hop Hatch jokes:
WOLF BLITZER: What do you think about that, Steve?
STEPHEN HAYES, Weekly Standard: Well, when I heard him make that appeal to the hip-hop generation, I had this flash of Orrin Hatch on the Senate floor wearing the Flavor Flav clock around his neck. (LAUGHTER)
HAYES: It was really not an attractive picture. Look, I actually think he's right. I mean, it's good to reach out. And the thing that heartened me most in his comments that you just read was that, you know, the Republican Party needs to be a conservative party, it needs to stand on its principles. But, yes, absolutely they should find as many ways as possible to reach out and to sell the message in a different way -- to have different messengers and to be as appealing as they can to a broad section of the country.
BLITZER: As attractive as Michael Steele, Gloria, might be, to some, this might sounds like mission impossible.
GLORIA BORGER, CNN SENIOR POLITICAL ANALYST: Well, you know, it's very difficult, because right now, quite frankly, the Republican Party looks more like the Confederacy, Wolf, than anything else. I mean they have no Republican representatives in the House, for example, from the half dozen New England states. And they're trying -- you know, I give Michael Steele credit here. But there has to be a message beyond we voted 100 percent against the stimulus package and we're against President Obama.
This is a strange analysis as there are many House Republicans from Union states of the Midwest, and many more from the West -- not to mention that the Republican Party was founded on anti-slavery principles, while the solid segregationist south was a Democratic enclave. Borger needs to get a new cartoon. Steele's election alone suggest she needs a new template.
