i think that s a totally fair point. and i would say two things. one is, african-americans are a constituency in this country that joets overwhelmingly in one direction. so there s something statistically, you know, salient about black conservatives, just because it is unusual in the distribution. there s no real analog for it in american politics. the other thing i would say is if this were a black man in the south and a democrat, it would be interesting to me, too. to me what s as interesting for him being a republican is that this is south carolina. this is the american south. the heart of dixie. this is a whole heck of a lot about where the republican party is headed and where it knows it needs to get and get back to that 10%. i don t think it says any of that. let s just slow down for a minute. i m happy for tim scott as an individual. but tim scott s policies are no different than jim demint s and at the end of the day, this is a
country. we ve got two asian governors in this country on the republican side of the aisle. there are people of color that are getting elected statewide in the republican party in this country. and i think that is a lesson for the party. but, here s the big question. some people would say the fact that you can count them and tick them off like that is probably tokenism. that s not fair. i don t think tokenism is fair. but they re going to continue to lose. if the policies remain the same, you ll have people like alan west and if republicans don t understand that it s not individuals, policy shifts have to change, then they ll continue to lose. you re right. in the last election the republicans did too much about race i. having tim scott cuts into the whole idea of southern poll six being so based on rieshl
is that colin powell is willing to talk about issues that are relevant to the black community, like affirmative action. he s been very vocal about, you know, saying that we still need some forms of intervention that recognize that black people the not yet play from a level playingfield and i think that s a substantial difference. actually, i agree that i think there is one of the things that the republicans see and are taking advantage of is the fact that they can get black vote if they think about how they re reaching out to black voters. i just don t think a tim scott, particularly given some of the statements he s made about not wanting to talk about race here s what i m hear which gets to an interesting complexity of american racial politics in the year 2012. two trends. in some ways our politics are becoming more racialized in the sense of look at the exit polling. it is increasingly the case that one party is a very multiracial coalition. one party is not a particularly
office first. he had the first black staff member. he was responsive to his constituency. he had the first black staff member, tom moss. and tim scott will get a significant amount of black votes because people will go to him in that same tradition as they went to strom thurmond. and he won t play race like a lot of them. i want to ask you this question. i want to see if because this is an appointment. the real question is, how few statewide elected black leaders we have in the country as a whole, but particularly in the south. we ll take about that after this break. [ male announcer ] campbell s green bean casserole. it s amazing what soup can do hi, i m ensure clear. clear, huh? i m not juice or fancy water. i ve got nine grams of protein. that s three times more than me! [ female announcer ] ensure clear. nine grams protein. zero fat.
the only one with trap + lock technology. look! one select-a-size sheet of bounty is 50% more absorbent than a full size sheet of the leading ordinary brand. use less. with the small but powerful picker upper, bounty select-a-size. we spent time in the previous segment talking about speaker boehner s inability to get his house republican colleagues to accept higher tax rates even just for millionaires which can be seen of the ipd occasion of the power still 4e8d by tea-party backed. the tea party movement helped the republicans gain the majority in the house. on monday, south carolinaki hal will appoint scott. a few things you should know.