THE GOP NEEDS A YOUNG BLACK FEMALE ZELIG :

Watts Offers Parting Advice to GOP Leaders (Jim VandeHei, July 15, 2002, Washington Post)

House Republican Conference Chairman J.C. Watts (Okla.), the only black Republican in Congress, is offering some blunt warnings to his party on his way out the door.

Watts, who recently announced that he's retiring from Congress, is imploring the GOP not to revert to the conservative rhetoric it used to win control of the House in the 1994 elections and urged Republicans to elevate women and minorities to positions of power. [...]

Watts said it was "critical" that his party understand that "if J.C. Watts gets elected conference chairman, they will get accused of tokenism. And if he doesn't, they will get accused of being racists." So, "Get over it."

If nothing else, Watts said the GOP should showcase minorities and women at events to show that the party includes more than middle-aged, white males. Watts said he often goes to news conferences because Republicans simply want an African American in the shot, which he, too, believes is important.

"I just wanted people to see my black face on camera," Watts said. "It's just a reality of the atmosphere we operate in."

One of the hardest lessons to teach Republicans is that shameless and hollow symbolism is quite effective in politics. Show people a face of the GOP that is always and only middle-aged, white, male and most often Southern and that's what people will think a Republican has to be. Show them blacks and women and Latinos and Asians and whoever else and you at least increase the chance that when someone looks at a group of Rebublicans they'll see someone they can identify with in the picture and maybe even think that they could be a Republican themselves.
Posted by Orrin Judd at July 15, 2002 3:05 PM