In other words, these are often people who are quite conscious of race when it comes to blaming things on minorities, but scream racism ONLY when those on the left advocate race-conscious policies.

Now that doesn’t mean that they won’t vote for Jindal. Heck, plenty of racists and race-conscious voters are voting for Obama. (I think Adam Serwer or Ta-hanisi Coates said that a lot of white voters can’t afford the luxury of racism.) But in terms of this “real racism” stuff, there are not that many people who take a principled, across the board “race never matters” approach, and those that do are not likely to be the ones who scream that the real racists are liberals.

… but it is quite serious in that reflects a widely-held Republican belief that their agenda and their party represent ”empowerment” for women and minorities.

Exactly right.

What the Republicans of whom we speak fail to understand is that American blacks are insulted by antiracism, and rightly so. The same goes for other minorities in varying degrees, but the black case is instructive. Where have we ever seen a genuine groundswell of sentiment among our African-American countrymen for a truly color-blind society? Why do we insist on supposing that blacks secretly wish that they could be white?

Because that is exactly what we Republicans are offering black Americans today: a chance to be honorary whites.

They’re not buying it. Why do we continue to peddle it? It makes no sense. Black Americans deserve more respect than this, which is something the genuinely racist Democratic party has long understood.

Howard

I agree that for that brief period of time where Rice was a rock star, it was remarkable. I wonder if the base would have felt that way now if he asked Condi to join him on the ticket. Condi on the ticket would have been just as strong a ticket of substance, and he would have had Obama beaten on the experience argument – or just beaten period.

Whereas with Sarah “I can see Russia from my house” Palin, he made a joke of himself, and made the thinking portion of this nation extremely nervous.

I have hope for Crist as a moderate conservative who can attract voters from the center, but I think his “love life” could be a problem.

And don’t crown Jindal just yet either, he’s having some minor ethics problems down here with a trip to speak in CA paid for by some lobbyists, and he waffled on the issue of a pay raise for legislators, finally vetoing it even though he promised the legislators he wouldn’t, and that was after promising TO veto any pay raises while campaigning. He was against it before he was for it, but then decided he was against it again, after much uproar from the populace.

Right – if Jindal came from a background of non-IndoEuropean speakers that would be a problem.

But yeah, to actually succeed at something and stay clean (which AFAIK he has) in Louisiana politics is a very impressive accomplishment.

A 2012 primary race I’d like to see but won’t is Jindal vs. Crist.

I think a lot of them would insist on it. There might be some who simply wouldn’t vote if Jindal became the nominee, in absolute numbers there are not many of these people. If a non-white Republican is on board with full-throated Americanism and hits all the right notes on social issues, taxes, etc., he is treated like a king, and there are then no policy-based reasons that mainstream conservatives can give for not supporting him.

As a comparison just consider the once-upon-a-time Condi Rice *presidential* boomlet and Condi Rice’s generally high favorable ratings among Republicans. Just as Powell did, she fails some litmus tests, and she is personally the antithesis of everything that people find so endearing about Palin, but she continued to be regarded very highly. It is only as she has gradually shifted back to a more realistic foreign policy that she has started losing admirers. The response to Jindal would be similarly favorable, and he has the elective experience, family and social conservative bona fides that she lacks.

Absolutely. One of my Savage-listener friends told me he won’t vote for Obama because Obama’s a racist. The Wright scandal was his proof. This from a guy who will argue that the KKK is not a racist organization. I’m waiting for him to ask me to read Liberal Fascism. I know it’s coming soon.