Fla. Senator Mel Martinez to chair RNC

They just announced: Fla. Senator Mel Martinez to chair RNC. If you recall, Maryland Lt. Gov, and loser, Michael Steele was thought to be the front-runner for this post. The Republicans chose a Hispanic (Cuban) over the African-American (again, har) but all part of the same effort to create a bigger tent for the GOP.

Considering the despicable race-baiting of this past election, I would think that it takes more than a few token hues to change public perception. I don't know many Blacks who respect Clarence Thomas or Condaleeza Rice; they see them as the talentless sellouts that they are.

This type of myopia is found on both sides. Ya see, back in 2004, liberal Democrats wanted a candidate that would appeal to Republicans. Because the most extreme of either party vote in the primaries, the moderate candidates favored by the majority of the country do not get as many votes as the shameless partisans. The liberal Democrats want liberal candidates but since they also wanted someone who would appeal to 'swing voters' they selected John Kerry. To real moderates, like myself, Kerry is a too-liberal pusillanimous SOB. Only a partisan liberal would think that since Kerry had a war-record that made him a moderate!

So too with Republicans. As Howard Dean quipped, it's largely the rich white Christian party. Suuure, there are Jews and other minorities in there, as the Wiki notes: "In the 2006 House races, whites voted 51% for Republican candidates, Blacks voted only 10% GOP, Latinos 30% and Asians 37%"

So when the GOP leaders look for minority Republican candidates or figureheads, they choose abnormal examples of the population - and often as tokens. So Kerry is as much a 'moderate' as Clarence Thomas is a spokesman for the African American sensibility.

Anyway, all that aside, Mel Martinez as head of the RNC. Goodie. If you recall, when I was predicting who the Rove-Chosen candidate for 2008 would be I put Martinez on the top of the list because he's a Bush Family surrogate. Since then, I've learned that he's a real winner: he's implicated in the growing Abramoff scandal *and* he was the dude who encouraged the Terry Schiavo intervention.

He is precisely the face I personally want for the GOP: (1) a Bush crony, (2) token minority to offend the rest of the under-represented, (3) corrupt, and (4) in lockstep with the Fundamentalist Wackos.