Political science professor Tom Schaller’s latest column on Salon dealt with the run-up to the 2012 Republican National Convention in Tampa Bay.
“Republican National Convention: The heart of whiteness” was published on August 27th, and discussed what Schaller characterizes as the Republican Party’s efforts to present itself as a party of diversity to the American public while simultaneously having difficulty earning the votes of women and minorities.
Schaller described the approach as “window dressing,” and noted that such actions were unlikely to translate into a “winning coalition” this November. To Schaller, Mitt Romney’s choice of ultra-conservative Paul Ryan as a running mate and the party’s controversial support of voter ID initiatives which could adversely affect the voting rights of low-income and minority voters demonstrate the superficiality of the convention’s public face.
Schaller concluded the piece by writing that “[l]est a moving speech by Marco Rubio or Susana Martinez fool anyone, understand that Mitt Romney and the Republicans are not trying to unify America, broaden their coalition very much, move to the middle, or traffic in anything like the electoral kumbaya practiced by George W. Bush or Barack Obama in their first bids for the White House. Rather, in these anxious economic times, and despite a new cohort of female and minority politicians, Romney and the GOP hope to grind out a narrow win by building outward from their older, white male voter base. Any window dressing you see at this week’s truncated convention is just that.”
Tags: PoliticalScience
