Ken Mehlman made an appearance and made an interesting acknowledgement

All the more interesting since Mehlman left the party chairmanship right around the time Bill Mahre said Mehlman was gay. Blacks aren't the only bastards at the Republican family reunion.

Steve,

Why are you obsessing on what the Republican party has to do to survive? They don't seem to be giving the question any serious thought.

They have embraced their inner racist. Let them dwindle into obscurity. At the rate they are going in 20 years they will have the same level of currancy as the Whigs.

My guess is an inclusive party with a serious libertarian streak is going to emerge to replace the GOP.

The point isn't that the Republican Party, in the 21st century, is still "struggling with the difficult issue of race," it's that the party is still losing this struggle.

I would argue that they haven't even reached the point of struggling. They're still doggedly heading down the path of cluelessness, denial and pointless defiance.

As demonstrated by the response to Saltsman's antics, the chief Republican response to questions of race and racism still seems to be taking umbrage that the issue was even brought up, then claiming victimhood at the hands of the people who dare to bring it up.

Yeah, it's not that far-fetched to imagine the GOP turning fully into the Christian Taliban (possibly without the violence, but you never know) and taking a solid 10% of the nutcase vote for years. Meanwhile, a more socially responsible libertarianesque party could emerge as the main challenger to the Dems.

That will be fun!

What still stonkers me to this day is that nobody has called out the McCain campaign on their slogan: "Country First." Why was it "Country First" and not "Nation First"? Republicans are very careful about the words they use, as Frank Luntz has long made clear.

"Country" is a word of multiple valence. If you listen at the dog whistle level, you will hear "country," as in "country music," as in white people. Surprised?

Krugman totally nailed it when he wrote

Lee Atwater, the famed Republican political consultant, explained the evolution of the G.O.P.’s “Southern strategy,” which originally focused on opposition to the Voting Rights Act but eventually took a more coded form: “You’re getting so abstract now you’re talking about cutting taxes, and all these things you’re talking about are totally economic things and a byproduct of them is blacks get hurt worse than whites.” In other words, government is the problem because it takes your money and gives it to Those People.

describes the worldview of my sister and other backwards members of my family perfectly, except, of course, to also add for good all-purpose measure that "Hillary Clinton is a b*tch".

I would argue that they haven't even reached the point of struggling. -- shortstop

Exactly. Oh, they may be concerned with the electoral consequences of their racism, but they aren't dealing with racism itself. The only struggle is how to get minority votes while maintaining racist attitudes. They really don't get it.

nobody has called out the McCain campaign on their slogan: "Country First."... If you listen at the dog whistle level, you will hear "country," as in "country music," as in white people. Surprised?

I heard a dog whistle from John to Cindy McCain.

I am hopeful that what we are seeing now is the political equivalent of nervous reflex--the racist head has been cut off the body politic, but the corpse is still twitching.

Why don't the Repigs appoint Michael Steele or Kenneth Blackwell the chairman of the RNC?

They've shown repeatedly that they are perfectly happy to put on their minstrel show for the GOP.

They're still doggedly heading down the path of cluelessness, denial and pointless defiance.

Sure-- that's what their base requires. The GOP deliberately allied themselves with know-nothings and racists, carefully fed and cultivated their ignorance & resentments, and now has no way to prune what's become the root system of their party. Oh well.

Making a true outreach to African-Americans by Republicans has not happened due to the party's base in the south. Back to Nixon's Southern Strategy. This is puzzling because of the South's changing demographics, and the fact that African-Americans are a socially conservative group. Republicans are left only with their Southern base and that will make the prospect much more difficult for outreach. They missed that boat.

As America steadily becomes a minority "white" country, the Republican'ts will find their "Southern" strategy to have been a relatively short-term tactical success but a long-term strategic disaster.

I think I have the tactics/strategy distinction correct, don't I?

Some very relevant excerpts from an older article--"The Other Trent Lotts" by Bob Herbert

"...The problem isn't going away because Republican leaders haven't rid themselves of the habit of playing to the closet racists and the Confederate flag-waving yahoos who mean so much to the G.O.P.
"... For 40 years the party has gone out of its way to court the enemies of black people.
It's an offense for which it should be begging forgiveness...
"....Americans have made tremendous progress on matters of racial and ethnic tolerance over the past three or four decades.
"But those gains were made in spite of the ugly, backward, divisive and destructive behavior of many, many politicians in the Republican Party, including those at the very top..."

"Gee, I wonder why there are so few blacks in the Republican Party...
...the Trent Lott fiasco lifted the fig leaf and exposed the shameful behavior of the G.O.P. for all Americans to see. Suddenly there was a spotlight on the party's shortcomings. That's the reason party leaders were so anxious to toss the clownish senator from Mississippi into the drink. Mr. Lott had to go not because of any hurt to black people that his remarks and his leadership might have caused, but because of the potential harm to his party, which has made race-baiting a cornerstone of its electoral philosophy...
The G.O.P. could cleanse itself of the taint of racism, but it's not so inclined. For one thing, party leaders would have to admit that they have a problem in this area and take steps to remedy it across the board. Don't hold your breath."

"This is a party that will smile in the face of a Colin Powell while waving Confederate flags behind his back. Republicans are not turned off by the George Allens of the party. He's in the party mainstream...
The G.O.P. has spent more than 30 years demonizing Democrats for trying to help racial and ethnic minorities. It has spent more than 30 years stomping on the voting rights of blacks. And it has gone out of its way to pack the federal courts with judges who are hostile to the interests and the rights of minorities...
...The party won't be rid of these sins and their consequences until its leaders acknowledge them, and take meaningful steps to do better. Many of the officials and operatives who threw Trent Lott overboard have voting records and campaign histories that are as bad as Senator Lott's, or worse. The real lessons of the Trent Lott experience are lost on them...
"...Mr. Lott may be gone as Senate Republican leader, but the G.O.P. is still hot for the racist vote.
It's a vile addiction that's guaranteed to bring a great deal of additional grief — for the party, and for the rest of us."

We all saw how hot the Palin-McCain ticket was for the racist vote.
Now we hear "The Magic Negro" rascist songbirds of the Republican National Commmittee, hot for the rascist vote.

[...] nobody has called out the McCain campaign on their slogan: "Country First." -- Joe S, @14:10

The original slogan was "Country *Club* First". While it represented McCain's philosophy more closely than "Country First", it didn't really sound all that good, when tested on the population of Joe the Plumber and his like. But John McC (the 3rd) is a stubborn cuss an, for the longest time, refused to change it. So that, when he agreed to dropping "club", everyone felt relieved at the achieved compromise. That's why nobody complained about what was left of the original.

The comparison of the modern Republican Party with the Whig Party of the 1840s is erroneous; the most accurate comparison would be with the "Know Nothing" Party of the same general time period.

Republicans have done this to themselves with any number of well-publicized blunders:

-- The blatant exploitation of Elian Gonzalez 2000;

-- Trent Lott in 2002 bad-mouthing the Civil Rights Movement at Strom Thurmond's birthday party:

-- George Allen in 2004 with his "macaca" comment during in the closing weeks of his campaign;

-- Saltsman's "Barak the Magic Negro" recording for his fellow party members

-- The relentless hounding of immigrants at the state and local levels over the last several years over zoning, social services, day worker hiring, green card verification at job sites

To appeal to its traditional white male base -- Nixon's Silent Majority and Reagan's Angry White Male -- the Bush Administration has directly supported local, nativist attacks on immigrants with law enforcement grants for police to do the work of ICE and the Border Patrol.

Any racial backlash the GOP itself receives as a result of the policies it has pursued these last eight years is very well deserved.

I was surprised during this last election to also learn of how many racist Dems exist.

Although we clearly have nothing on the Repubs when it comes to sheer numbers of embedded and multi-layered bigotry.

Sure, but be careful: there are still some socially conservative blacks ready to distance from the Dems if the latter gets too socially radical/libertine in the view of the conservatives.

What you're seeing here is the fundamental difficulty with parties playing out. A version of it happened to the Democrats back in the 70's. The strategies that reelect Republican incumbents are incompatible with those that lead to the spread of the party nationally. Republicans have gerrymandered themselves into a corner. They almost all represent the few remaining racist dominated districts. That was by choice. In that situation, getting reelected in their district is incompatible with promoting Republicans outside their districts.

It is not racist to point out that Obama is a far left ideologue with absolutely no experience.

We have bought a "pig in a poke" and will need tremendous good luck to survive.