GOP - Grand Ofay Party? - BV Black Spin

Once again, Democratic National Committee Chairman Howard Dean has stepped in it. This time, his loose lips let slip a political gaffe, an unintended truth.

In an interview on National Public Radio's "Tell Me More," Dean said:

If you look at folks of color, even women, they're more successful in the Democratic Party than they are in the white, uh, excuse me, than in the Republican Party because we just give more opportunity to folks who are hard-working people who are immigrants and come from members of minority groups.

Back in the 1920s or '30s, blacks Negroes started to use a derogatory term, ofay, to refer to white people.

Also around that time, black folks began to leave the Republican Party in the wake of President Franklin D. Roosevelt's promise of a New Deal. There was a mass exodus from the GOP in 1964 when Republican presidential candidate Barry Goldwater threatened to veto civil rights legislation if he were elected President.

Forty-four years later, black Republicans are as scarce as hen's teeth. Still, the Republican National Committee quickly pounced:

Howard Dean's comments on race and gender today are disappointing and wrong. His efforts to divide Americans are an insult to all our nation's citizens and have absolutely no place in the national dialogue.

The McCain camp also jumped on Dean. Carly Fiorina, chairman of Victory '08, said Dean's remark was "insulting, inappropriate, and have no place in this election."

When the Republican convention convenes in Minneapolis-Saint Paul next month for its quadrennial illusion of inclusion, you will likely hear leading black Republicans – all five of them – accuse Dean of "playing the race card."

They will reflexively note that President George W. Bush has placed more black faces in high places than President Clinton. That is a dubious achievement given those black faces include Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, the so-called Russia "expert," who clearly did not have Georgia on her mind.