8136: Diverse GOP Not An Oxymoron.

From The Chicago Tribune…

A GOP not for ‘whites only’

By Clarence Page

What’s the most overlooked, underappreciated story from the midterm elections? My nominee would be the surprising new racial and ethnic diversity of Republican congressional and gubernatorial winners — even if we don’t see as much diversity among the party’s voters.

Republican contenders-of-color had a history-making night, which helps undermine the notion that the GOP is becoming a whites-only party. It’s hard to say how much help the new diversity will be in winning over more nonwhite voters. But it already appears to be helping party leaders to become more comfortable with an increasingly multiracial, multicultural voting population. If their success at attracting ethnic minority candidates keeps up, it could attract nonwhite voters, too.

For example, South Carolina’s Tim Scott and Florida’s Allen West became the first African-American Republicans to be sent to Congress from their states in more than a century. They also are the first black Republicans to join the House or Senate since Rep. J.C. Watts of Oklahoma retired in 2003.

Cuban-American Marco Rubio of Florida was elected the Senate’s only Hispanic Republican, since Florida’s Mel Martinez retired last year.

In the House, Idaho’s Raul Labrador, Florida’s David Rivera, Texas’ Bill Flores and Francisco Canseco and Washington state’s Jaime Herrera will join re-elected Florida Reps. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart for a record total of eight Republican Latinos in both chambers, according to the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials. That will bring the total Latino representation on Capitol Hill to what the association called “a near-record 27.”

Among governors, Republican Susanna Martinez won New Mexico’s race to become the nation’s first Latina governor-elect.

Republican Nikki Haley became South Carolina’s first female governor and the nation’s second Indian-American governor after Louisiana’s Bobby Jindal, also a Republican.

Rubio, West, Scott and Haley, among other conservative candidates of color, were endorsed by Sarah Palin and backed by the tea party, eroding the charge that the tea partiers are running a whites-only movement.

Only six month ago, I wrote that there were more black Republicans running for Congress than there had been since Reconstruction, partly because they were encouraged by the long-shot victory of a Democrat, President Barack Obama. If he could do it, others figured, so can I.

A dozen black Republican congressional nominees made it to the general election. Two won. Both come from predominantly white districts, which follows another post-1960s tradition. The parties have become so racially polarized since the civil rights/white backlash era that black Republicans in Congress have been elected by mostly white votes.

But there, the similarities between the House’s two new black Republicans pretty much end there. Scott, 45, a businessman and former state legislator, gained national notice by beating Paul Thurmond — son of the late segregationist Sen. Strom Thurmond — to win the GOP primary in June, which in that conservative district is tantamount to victory. Despite Scott’s tea party endorsements, he campaigned in the style of a center-right moderate.

West’s speeches, by contrast, delighted the far-right by calling out Obama to “be a man” and declaring “institutional racism is dead.” A 49-year-old retired Army lieutenant colonel, West became a hero on the right after he was disciplined for firing a weapon near the head of a detainee he was interrogating for important information about explosive devices. “If it’s about the lives of my men and their safety,” he famously told his defense attorney, “I’d go through hell with a gasoline can.”

Quotes like that tell me that West, in particular, is going to be fun for journalists to cover. He also represents the tiger that establishment Republican leaders have by the tail as they try to please tea party members of all colors. At a time when the party is wooing the votes of moderate swing voters, their right wing expects some heavy-duty payback for its help in bringing conservative voters to the polls.

Things were a lot less complicated for Republicans when they were simply the “Party of No.”