SALON

Monday, Mar 18, 2013 9:13 PM UTC

Have Republicans read their new rebranding report?

Hours into its new outreach effort to minorities, the party is already trashing Obama's new Latino labor secretary

By

Topics: RNC, GOP Civil War, Tom Perez, Republicans, African Americans, Hispanics, gays, Editor's Picks,

Have Republicans read their new rebranding report?U.S. Assistant Attorney General Tom Perez. (Credit: Reuters/Jonathan Ernst)

How serious are Republicans about their effort to reach out to minorities, one of the core doctrines of their big new Growth and Opportunity Project report they released this morning? We may find out pretty quickly with a series of tests that will demonstrate whether Republican elites at the Republican National Committee can control the more unsavory elements in the base.

The report says “we have to engage” minority voters “and show our sincerity.” A first test of that strategy approached them almost instantly, with President Obama’s nomination today of Tom Perez to serve as labor secretary. And so far, they don’t seem to be implementing it very deftly.

Perez, who is currently the head of the Department of Justice’ Civil Rights Division, has had his name dragged through the mud over factually inaccurate, race-baiting charges of impropriety. Some conservatives claim that Perez, a Latino working under the first black president and first black attorney general in history, dismissed a case against a handful of New Black Panther activists in some kind gesture of racial solidarity.

In fact, as two inspectors general reports have found, officials made “a good faith assessment of the law and facts of the case” in dropping the prosecution against some of the accused. Oh, and Perez didn’t even take over the Civil Rights Division until several months after the case was dismissed.

The New Black Panthers controversy was always absurd and conspiratorial, but now it’s also almost three years old. Nonetheless, when Obama officially nominated Perez Monday morning, some just couldn’t help themselves in dredging it up again.

Just hours after the nomination, Sen. David Vitter said he will filibuster Perez over the allegations. “Thomas Perez’s record should be met with great suspicion by my colleagues for his spotty work related to the New Black Panther case,” Vitter said in a statement declaring that he will “block” the nominee.

“Obama Appoints Radical Who Lied Under Oath About New Black Panther Party Case to Head Labor Department,” is the headline at TownHall.com today from editor Katie Pavlich.

Today on his radio show, Rush Limbaugh said Perez “may as well be Hugo Chavez. Yup, that is not an exaggeration.” He continued by saying that Obama’s appointing Perez would like George W. Bush “nominat[ing] the Grand Kleagle of the Ku Klux Klan to a cabinet position where he would be deciding discrimination lawsuits. That’s exactly what’s happening here.”

Naturally, Fox News host Megyn Kelly, who led the way on the New Black Panthers a few years ago, was on the case today as well.

OK, so the African-American outreach isn’t off to a great start, but what about Latinos?

Well, conservatives have a problem with Perez there too. “This is an unfortunate and needlessly divisive nomination,” said Republican Sen. Jeff Sessions, citing Perez’ views on immigration and his work as an immigrants’ right advocate. “By nominating Mr. Perez to this important post, the President has placed his drive to promote his flawed immigration policies over the needs of the millions of unemployed Americans.”

As TPM’s Brian Beutler notes, it will be hard enough for the GOP to make good on its outreach to minorities while filibustering the only Latino in Obama’s second-term cabinet, but “it’ll be even harder if the conservative media lapses into another Sotomayor-like spectacle of racial panic and drags elected officials with them.”

It looks like we’ve already crossed that bridge.

Even so, some conservatives seem to realize this danger. Washington Post blogger Jennifer Rubin, whose reporting helped kick off the Perez scandal in 2010, tweeted that while “Perez is horrendous,” it’s just the Department of Labor, so “who cares,” it’s probably not worth fighting over.

For their part, liberals are amused by the timing. “At a time when the GOP is supposedly ‘rebranding,’ it seems inopportune to have Republican senators and talkers savaging the Latino civil rights attorney that the president has nominated to head the agency responsible for protecting the interests of workers — particularly when the criticism is focused on issues like immigration and fringe right-wing obsessions like the New Black Panther Party,” said Josh Dorner of the liberal Center for American Progress Action Fund. “The next few weeks will be a real test of whether the GOP is capable of even a cosmetic effort to change its rhetoric about minorities.”

Beyond Perez, a busy Supreme Court schedule could also test Republicans’ sincerity to reach out to gay Americans, as well as minorities.

The high court is currently considering two critical gay marriage cases, which could inflame harsh conservative rhetoric on gays at a time when support for marriage equality has reached an all-time high. A new Washington Post/ABC News poll out today shows that a record 58 percent of Americans now support same-sex marriage.

“Already, there is a generational difference within the conservative movement about issues involving the treatment and the rights of gays — and for many younger voters, these issues are a gateway into whether the Party is a place they want to be,” the authors of the RNC’s Growth and Opportunities report wrote, acknowledging the mounting public opinion data.

But House Republicans are still spending up to $3 million of taxpayer money to defend the Defense of Marriage Act before the Supreme Court. And the vast majority are not in favor of the court overturning California’s Proposition 8 law in the second of the two marriage cases.

Also under consideration by the justices is Shelby County v. Holder, where conservatives have positioned themselves against the voting rights protections for minorities contained in section 5 of the Voting Rights Act. And they’ve supported voter ID laws, which are hugely unpopular among racial minorities, in Arizona v. Intertribal Council of Arizona, also currently under consideration. The court is also considering a case on affirmative action, which conservatives generally oppose, even though the RNC calls for the party to hire more minorities and women.

Alex Seitz-Wald

Alex Seitz-Wald is Salon's political reporter. Email him at aseitz-wald@salon.com, and follow him on Twitter @aseitzwald. More Alex Seitz-Wald.

Next Article

Related Stories

More Related Stories

Featured Slide Shows

The week in 10 pics

close X
  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11
  • This photo. President Barack Obama has a laugh during the unveiling of the George W. Bush Presidential Center in Dallas, Tx., Thursday. Former first lady Barbara Bush, who candidly admitted this week we've had enough Bushes in the White House, is unamused.
    Reuters/Jason Reed

  • Rescue workers converge Wednesday in Savar, Bangladesh, where the collapse of a garment building killed more than 300. Factory owners had ignored police orders to vacate the work site the day before.
    AP/A.M. Ahad

  • Police gather Wednesday at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to honor campus officer Sean Collier, who was allegedly killed in a shootout with the Boston Marathon bombing suspects last week.
    AP/Elise Amendola

  • Police tape closes the site of a car bomb that targeted the French embassy in Libya Tuesday. The explosion wounded two French guards and caused extensive damage to Tripoli's upscale al-Andalus neighborhood.
    AP/Abdul Majeed Forjani

  • Protestors rage outside the residence of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh Sunday following the rape of a 5-year-old girl in New Delhi. The girl was allegedly kidnapped and tortured before being abandoned in a locked room for two days.
    AP/Manish Swarup

  • Clarksville, Mo., residents sit in a life boat Monday after a Mississippi River flooding, the 13th worst on record.
    AP/Jeff Roberson

  • Workers pause Wednesday for a memorial service at the site of the West, Tx., fertilizer plant explosion, which killed 14 people and left a crater more than 90 feet wide.
    AP/The San Antonio Express-News, Tom Reel

  • Aerial footage of the devastation following a 7.0 magnitude earthquake in China's Sichuan province last Saturday. At least 180 people were killed and as many as 11,000 injured in the quake.
    AP/Liu Yinghua

  • On Wednesday, Hazmat-suited federal authorities search a martial arts studio in Tupelo, Miss., once operated by Everett Dutschke, the newest lead in the increasingly twisty ricin case. Last week, President Barack Obama, Sen. Roger Wicker, R.-Miss., and a Mississippi judge were each sent letters laced with the deadly poison.
    AP/Rogelio V. Solis

  • The lighting of Freedom Hall at the George W. Bush Presidential Center Thursday is celebrated with (what else but) red, white and blue fireworks.
    AP/David J. Phillip

  • Recent Slide Shows

  • Share on Twitter
  • Share on Facebook
  • Thumbnails
  • Fullscreen
  • 1 of 11

Related Videos

Comments

 29 Comments

Comment Preview

Your name will appear as username

You may use these HTML tags and attributes: <a href=""> <b> <em> <strong> <i> <blockquote>

follow salon

Most Read

Popular on Reddit

links from salon.com

vote
Guantanamo defense lawyer found dead of apparent suicide
120 points121 points | 10 comments
vote
Alex Jones is in the business of selling fear and business is a'boomin.
94 points95 points | 53 comments
vote
Just when I thought the raids were over, California dispensary crackdown resumes in San Jose
55 points56 points | 5 comments
vote
"Contrary to the myth of the happy, apple-cheeked great-great-grandmother, cooking has rarely been seen as a source of fulfillment, historically speaking." DIY domesticity, femivores, and refutations on the impacts of feminism on fast-food culture.
48 points49 points | 81 comments
vote
Are millennials delusional? New research suggests that members of "Generation Me" are warped by a profound sense of entitlement
34 points35 points | 49 comments

From Around the Web

Presented by Scribol
listener_new_rect The Listener: "The Shelter Cycle": Raised in a cult

Recommendations