You have to increasingly ask yourself: do Republicans truly want to keep doing things, enabling, or refuse to repudiate actions and comments by their party members that will continue to work to brand them as a party with zero concern over the sensibilities of groups not in their coalition? And you have to ask yourself, do Republican Party establishment types realize how difficult it will be for their party to have credibility and support from some of these groups when they inevitably get their turn in the Oval Office? The latest let’s-forget-about-offending-them-and-just-keep-the-narrative-going event comes from Colorado where a GOP lawmaker brought fried chicken to a poverty hearing in “silent protest” because of comments from another GOP who got her in hot water.
Some details from Denver’s KDVR:
Two weeks ago, the last meeting of a Colorado task force on economic opportunity and poverty exploded into allegations of racism when Sen. Vicki Marble, a Republican, attempted to explain high poverty rates among African Americans by talking about chicken.
Those comments drew a strong rebuke from Rep. Rhonda Fields, an African American lawmaker, and all but the most extreme Colorado Republicans distanced themselves from Marble, R-Fort Collins.
So on Wednesday, when the task force met for the first time since the Aug. 21 hearing, a box of Popeye’s fried chicken placed conspicuously on Rep. Lori Saine’s desk inside the senate committee room drew the attention of several lawmakers and observers in the room.
One witness heard Saine, who represents District 63 in Weld and Morgan counties, telling Marble that she brought the chicken in ‘silent protest’ of the uproar caused by Marble’s comments last month.When Saine left the hearing room, I tried to ask her for an explanation.
“I’m having chicken for dinner,” Saine replied, laughing. “Would you like a [press conference] at my house?”
For the next three minutes, I followed Saine throughout the Capitol as she walked in a circle through the rotunda and back to the elevators, then down to the basement, and through the cafeteria until she left the building.
Repeatedly, she refused to say anything other than, “I’ve made my statement.”
She reportedly insisted this was dinner. Just a coincidence she showed up at the same hearing, and put the box out there for people to see, right?
But the state GOP had something to say:
Owen Loftus of the Colorado Republican Committee called Saine’s actions “insensitive and hurtful.”
In a statement he said, “Saine’s actions on Wednesday do not represent the Colorado Republican party” and “she mus apologize for them.
Here’s the station’s video report:
This is a perfect example of someone being totally oblivious to how things are perceived. Or, rather, knowing how it’s perceived and wanting to make a statement — and to hell with those who might be offended. Then suggest it’s all just a teeny-weenie coincidence that the box is up there in THAT hearing room.
Laudable: the state GOP’s decision to get out a statement and repudiate it for what it was “insensitive.”
But the problem for the GOP is: some people will read and hear the denial. But to those who hear it quickly on the news, or see it in a newspaper, or online it’ll be one more little piece in a jigsaw that suggests to them that at the very LEAST the Republican Party isn’t interested in them — or their support.
And these segments of the population are growing, not diminishing.
Rather than eat friend chicken, it’d be more suitable and politically helpful to Republicans if the dinner was crow.
P.S. So let me get this straight. Lawmakers in a hearing room can have fried chicken boxes, Jack in the Box burgers, a large pepperoni pizza from Pizza Hut, a burrito from Taco Bell, and a banana split from Baskin Robbins (wait: I’m getting hungry…) on their desks in a hearing room?
That’s the way it’s always done, right?
They do it in Congress, too, right?
(I thought so..)
Joe Gandelman is a former fulltime journalist who freelanced in India, Spain, Bangladesh and Cypress writing for publications such as the Christian Science Monitor and Newsweek. He also did radio reports from Madrid for NPR’s All Things Considered. He has worked on two U.S. newspapers and quit the news biz in 1990 to go into entertainment. He also has written for The Week and several online publications, did a column for Cagle Cartoons Syndicate and has appeared on CNN.