Last time our presidential field didn't have it (aside from Herman Cain and Michelle Bachmann)....
In 2012, the GOP presidential field’s lack of diversity — perhaps the least interesting form of diversity, but one which nevertheless enjoys near religious devotion from the left — did not go unmentioned by partisan Democrats.
As early as 2009, the left was salivating at the opportunity to see Barack Obama challenge what looked likely to be a field of predominantly white, aging, and nearly exclusively male candidates. While the smug, self-satisfied liberal elite was robbed of a cherished opportunity for self-congratulations by the lack of a purely monochromatic GOP field in 2012, the Republican Party’s defeats in that election year nevertheless buoyed the left’s hopes for the future.
....whereas this time our field has it in, er, spades....
As of this writing, the GOP’s field of declared presidential candidates includes two Hispanics in their 40s, a woman from California, and an African-American neurosurgeon. The only declared GOP candidate with a majority ethnic background, Rand Paul, isn’t even an old white guy. Even he fails to comport with the tired stereotypes that satisfy the fragile self-images of insecure campus liberals.
“2016 is shaping up to be a year of historic diversity for Republicans, setting the party apart from the all-white line-up that’s emerging on the Democratic side,” CNN observed grimly.
....but are 'Pubbies getting any credit for those "inauthentic" Hispanics, woman, subcontinent Asian, and black man? Do we really have to ask? CNN continued:
“But the biggest question is whether a diverse slate of candidates will actually help the GOP overcome its demographic problem, which has contributed to losses at the presidential level in two successive elections.”
“If the overwhelmingly white crowd that gathered here for Carson’s announcement at Detroit’s Music Hall for the Performing Arts is any guide, the GOP hasn’t yet landed on a quick fix,” the report continued.
NPR then took the baton:
“Democrats aren’t the ones with the demographic problem,” NPR’s Dominico Montanaro asserted. “It’s no secret the GOP has had trouble attracting minority voters, especially now amid rapid racial changes, including the growth of Latinos and Asian-Americans.”
“It has had success electing minorities to prominent positions, so it is trying to highlight them,” he continued. “That could help blunt some of the diversity attacks routinely lobbed Republicans’ way.”
Still, the party is largely homogenous, and that’s even more pronounced in early presidential nominating states. Republican voters in Iowa and New Hampshire in 2012 were 99% white, according to entrance and exit polls. South Carolina was 98% white. But whites are shrinking as a share of the electorate and are projected in 2016 to be below 70% for the first time.
So if we have an all-white male field, we're racists. If we have a diverse field, they're not "authentic" minorities, and we're racists. And even if our minority candidates were "authentic," the GOP rank and file is too white, leading to the Democrat-media complex conclusion that....we're racists. Seems like there's a stacked deck pattern at work here, doesn't it?
Except to the Republican "establishment," which appears bound and determined to allow every single last candidate into the upcoming primary debates, making the stage look more like a cocktail party than a debate, despite the fact that Ben Carson and Carly Fiorina are unqualified, Bobby Jindal is constitutionally ineligible, and Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio are both unqualified AND constitutionally ineligible. And, you know, the remaining candidates are white males, so they're racists, no matter how qualified they are. Except for Rand Paul, of course. But there they'll all be on that damned stage anyway, each getting about two sentences in each on average, but in practice the airtime will be tilted toward the minority candidates because the party poobahs can't resist playing an identity politics game they will never be allowed to win.
Here's the memo, folks: Nobody in this field wants to get ahead based on immutable traits (I hope), and the most qualified and electable candidate is a white guy from Wisconsin that the Democrats fear the most, and against whom they will play their identity politics deck with a vengeance. So let 'em. What's more important? Resurrecting the Old American Republic or "looking good" on the way to the cattle cars?
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