Well, those racist, sexist, redneck, bigoted Tea-Partiers in South Carolina have certainly refused to conform to the stereotypes we keep hearing about them. Yesterday they chose a daughter of Indian immigrant parents, Nikki Haley, to run for governor and a black man, Tim Scott, to run for congress. If Haley is elected, which she's favored to be, she'll be one of two Indian-American governors - Bobby Jindal being the other - and both are Republicans. I wonder how the media is going to fit that irksome development into their Tea Party narrative.
It should be fun to watch. Meanwhile, South Carolina Democrats are still in a swivet over the fact that their primary voters have served up ... Alvin Greene to run against GOP incumbent Jim DeMint for U.S. Senate.
For years we've been lectured about how the Republican party is suspiciously underrepresented by minorities and women and that the Democrats, by contrast, are the party of inclusion and competence. Now the Republicans have selected an Indian-American woman and a black conservative man to serve their political interests, and the Democrats have selected a man with criminal charges pending, no job, and an IQ that seems to hover somewhere on the south side of normal. Add to this, among others, the conservative GOP women running against Harry Reid in Nevada and against Barbara Boxer in California, and all the old liberal prejudices and shibboleths are just getting much, much harder to sustain.
RLC