Hiram College professor discussed Republican outreach to African-American voters on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the March on Washington.
Republican National Committee
HLN: Jason Johnson answers the question: “Who had the best convention, Republicans or Democrats?”
In a Headline News interview, political science professor Jason Johnson described the Democratic National Convention as a “pep rally” and the Republican National Convention as an “intense business meeting.”
The Democrats were a much more emotional and enthusiastic crowd, says Johnson who attended both conventions for HLN.
“For the first four years, [Democrats] were laying down the tracks. Now they’re waiting for the train,” he says.
Michael Steele: The WB Network of Politics
Broadcast television was dominated by NBC in the 1990s, so when the WB was launched across the nation in 1995 Warner Brothers executives had a novel idea: Why not create programming for a niche African-American audience that was all but ignored by other networks at the time? From this idea shows such as “Jamie Foxx,” “Steve Harvey” and “Sister, Sister” were born to huge ratings and critical acclaim across black America. In fact, it was black programming that kept the WB alive in the ’90’s as most of their other show attempts had failed (Anyone remember Kirk Cameron’s sitcom “Kirk”? Didn’t think so).
Then, in 1999 it all changed. The station had finally stabilized financially and began to focus exclusively on creating and promoting shows targeted at white teens and young adults. Goodbye “The Hugleys”, hello “Dawson’s Creek,” “Smallville,” “Buffy the Vampire Slayer” and “Charmed.” It didn’t matter that the black shows were successful. Executives at the WB always aspired to grab the white teen audience like Fox and MTV and had no problem using black shows to get there. I call this the “WB syndrome” – throw some blacks in there early on to sell the product then dump them the moment the white audience is secure. You saw the same thing with Jennifer Lopez’ dating life and Timberland boots.
This syndrome explains Michael Steele’s relationship with the Republican Party. After major losses in the 2006 and 2008 elections and a black man in the White House, the Republican Party had to re-invent itself. So they made their first affirmative action hire and elected Steele to be Republican National Committee chairman. Steele, former Lt. Governor of Maryland was great on television and started a drive to attract more minorities and young people to the party.
Of course there were some Republicans that were not comfortable with the idea of being driven to do anything by a black man unless his name was Hoke Colburn. The Republican National Committee voted to limit Steele’s access to party funds, and his occasional gaffes always became a national story. The overly racist Tea Party movement openly snubbed him leading to conservative pundits calling for his ouster in the summer of 2010. By the time the midterm elections of 2010 came about, many big time Republican donors openly refused to give to the party until Steele either resigned or was voted out, leading to the party having over $20 million in debt in early 2011.
Despite all of this, Steele kept winning. Since Steele took over in 2009 Republicans have flipped half a dozen governor’s mansions from blue to red, took senate seats and won the House of Representatives. Yet last week he was voted out in favor of Reince Priebus, the white, 38-year-old former head of the Wisconsin Republican party.
It’s the WB syndrome in politics. The Republican Party is the party of middle aged and old white people and they aspire to compete with Democrats for younger white voters. The leadership has no problem using black faces and candidates to achieve stability as long as it serves their ultimate goal, which was and always will be more white voters. The GOP used Steele to get stabilized then dumped him for a white guy just like the WB dumped The Wayans Brothers the moment they had Buffy.
In order to avoid cancellation, the WB eventually merged with UPN, both stations purged themselves of any remaining minority targeted programs and created the CW. Despite their best efforts to survive on white viewers alone the CW is still firmly planted in last place. With Steele gone the Republican Party is free to even more brazenly and publicly ally itself with the lunatic fringe of the Tea Party and pursue their prized demographic of young white men. But if their television doppelganger is any indicator, this strategy is a ticket to last place in 2012.
Jason Johnson on CNN to discuss RNC Election
Professor Jason Johnson appeared on CNN to discuss the election of Reince Priebus as the new chairman of the Republican National Committee, and reflected on the conclusion of the tenure of RNC Chairman Michael Steele.
Click here for a full transcript of Jason Johnson on CNN.
JASON JOHNSON, CNN POLITICAL ANALYST: You know, Michael Steele has this really interesting relationship with the RNC, like all he’s done is win. I mean, since he came into office, they have won governor’s mansions, they did well in the 2010 midterms, but there have always been people who were unhappy with them, so rather than go through the embarrassment of being kicked out, he decided to take himself out of the race and leave whatever problems the RNC has to the new guy.
WHITFIELD: Should I be surprised, though, because doesn’t he seem quite steely, so to speak. Now, you know, he is like Teflon, he has been taking it whether it’s criticism or whether it’s accolades for a long time, now, and that he would acquiesce and step down, that doesn’t seem like his character, or the character of the man that we’ve gotten to know over the past few years.
JOHNSON: It’s not that surprising. You know, Michael Steele has always been surprising people and that’s why the RNC was so unhappy with him. You saw right after the midterm elections his first interview, he said, look, you know, this wasn’t really a victory for us, this was the public being angry. There’s no more honest man in America than the man who knows he’s losing his job. So Michael Steele recognized this a long time ago, and backed out. I think, but he does have a future, maybe not in the Republican Party, but certainly in Washington.
WHITFIELD: And what do we know about Priebus?
JOHNSON: What we know about Priebus is he’s got the two things that the RNC really wants, right now. He is an insider, he’s been part of the 168 committee and he turned a blue state red. And that’s what the Republicans are going to need to win in 2012, I mean, he got rid of Russ Feingold and that’s the kind of thing Republicans hope will project whatever their candidates are in 2012 into the White House.
WHITFIELD: And so, I wonder if we can look ahead, even to the week, because now we hear the Republicans are saying we’re ready to get back to business and Congress. Boehner, who had been leading the effort to say let’s vote for this repeal of health care, but because of the Tucson tragedy, put that on the back burner. But, now many Republicans are saying next week it’s time to get back to business.
JOHNSON: Priebus will be much more low profile when this is going on in Washington, D.C. The Republicans have $20 million in debt. He’s not even doing interviews. He’s answering the phone right now trying to get to more money. So, I think Republicans are going to move forward with their agenda, they’re going to try and reform and get rid of health care reform and push to improve jobs in this country, but Priebus has to get the finances great or they’re not going to be good for next year.
WHITFIELD: He’s talking about retiring of the $20 million debt.
JOHNSON: Yes.
WHITFIELD: Interesting terminology.
JOHNSON: Yeah, you know, that’s the term that you use when you don’t know how to pay it and they’ve got bills due in February.
WHITFIELD: All right, Jason Johnson, good to see you. Hopefully we’ll see you more on the weekends, joining us, right?
JOHNSON: Most definitely.
WHITFIELD: All right, good to see you, thanks so much.