The Missouri Republican State Committee selected David Cole of Cassville, Missouri as the new party Chairman last weekend. This paragraph from the release touting his selection is what caught our attention most:
“As Chairman, I am committed to continuing the hard work needed to be successful by growing our grassroots, communicating our message to new audiences, recruiting and supporting qualified candidates for office and encouraging participation in our Party from a broader segment of the electorate.”
As our Missouri Matters social networking site continues to grow with new members and interesting discussions, it’s very obvious that GOP activists from Southwest Missouri are not happy with the current state of the Party. We’re also hearing rumblings today from African American Republicans who are deeply concerned that Z. Dwight Billingsly was removed as a state committeman last weekend.
Is this how we’re going to “encourage partcipation in our party from a broader segment of the electorate,” by removing the less than a handful of Blacks on the state commitee?
Related
Late Rep. Sherman T. Parker: Open Letter to Future RNC Chair. Re: Talk is Cheap (Originally published in 2005)
“You and President Bush are spending a considerable amount of time talking to African-Americans, coining phrases such as the “party of Lincoln and Frederick Douglass.” What does that mean if your only goal is to marginally break off the African-American vote? It is embarrassing and you are doing the African-American community a disservice. You are not creating a political infrastructure that competes with the Democratic party. Packing the podium with minority faces at Republican events is meaningless from a black perspective. The African-American voter is more sophisticated than that.
The Republicans’ only budgeted one to two million dollars to reach black voters, (less than the cost to produce one Super Bowl ad). The fact that there are no major black elected policy makers serving in any state capitol, the United States Senate or the House of Representatives, leaves African-Americans no alternatives to the Democrats.” Read more…
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1 Paul Ground // Jan 19, 2009 at 11:23 pm
My friend the late Sherman Parker didn’t live to see the day when there were six candidates for chairman of the Republican National Committee — and two were black. Kenneth Blackwell, the former Secretary of State of Ohio, and Michael Steele, the former Lieutenant Governor of Maryland, are both serious contenders for the position.
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