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GOP's New Goal: A Less-White Party

By Clarence Page, Tribune Content Agency on

Republicans are starting to show some color again. The midterm election that swept Republicans into control of both houses of Congress also brought in the party's largest group of black lawmakers since Reconstruction: three.

Hey, it's a start.

They include Sen. Tim Scott, who was appointed to the Senate in 2012 but became South Carolina's first elected black senator -- and the South's first since Reconstruction -- in November.

In the House, Rep. Mia Love, a Haitian-American Mormon from Utah became the first black Republican woman ever elected to Congress. Rep. Will Hurd, a former CIA officer, became the first black Republican from Texas ever to win a seat in Congress.

Those three victories gave Chairman Reince Priebus something tangible to celebrate at the Republican National Committee's third annual "Black Trailblazers Luncheon," which I attended on the eve of Abraham Lincoln's birthday.

Priebus launched the luncheons in Washington D.C.'s historic Howard Theater as part of his multimillion-dollar effort to woo black, Hispanic and Asian voters after Mitt Romney's racially lopsided defeat in the 2012 presidential race.

 

The program was lovely, the choir was spirited, the lunch was tasty and the speeches were mercifully brief.

Yet conspicuously absent were those who, in my view, have presented the biggest obstacle to the party's outreach efforts.

I'm talking about the element that Colin Powell, who still calls himself a Republican despite endorsing President Barack Obama, described in January 2013 as "a dark vein of intolerance in some parts of the party."

"What I mean by that is they still sort of look down on minorities," Powell said on NBC's "Meet the Press."

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(c) 2015 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.

 

 

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