News for February 3

Decisions of Steele

On Friday, the Republican Party elected Michael Steele chairman of the National Republican Committee. Steele, the former lieutenant governor of Maryland, is the first African American to lead the party. Bloggers and pundits are wondering what Steele’s election signals for a Grand Old Party that has been looking for its identity since the Novemeber elections. Links include:

Justin Webb’s America @The BBC |  “To those who missed the Republicans’ shameless discovery of their very own Obama, I would say keep an eye on Michael Steele, who is both able and ambitious. But is he quite the moderate that he appears to be?”

That Minority Thing |  “To be fair, Steele is probably one of the most centrist GOPers the GOP could find to run their show.  The Economist  sums up his resume by saying Steele is “Handsome, moderate, the grandson of a sharecropper and the only candidate who doesn’t own a gun, he looks good on television even to non-Republicans.” He’ll need to.”

Tapped |  “Reaching out to minorities from the party of Rush Limbaugh won’t be easy, even if the GOP weren’t in the midst of an identity crisis. And Steele will have to contend with the fact that man he has to spend the next four years tearing down is the same one he owes his new job to.”

Ta-Nehisi Coates @The Atlantic |  “I think Steele has a Sarah Palin problem. Remember the silly math that had Palin giving Obama fits for the votes of women? Ultimately, that line of attack fizzled because, I’d argue, a lot of women found Palin embarrassing–an obvious token who wasn’t ready for prime-time. I think Steele is twice the politician that Sarah Palin is. But the question remains–How does he get black folks to look at him as more than a token? And how does he get that magic to extend itself to the broader party? Mel Martinez failed at doing exactly that for Latinos. Will Steele be any better?”

The Revealer |  “Michael Steele, new Republican National Committee chairman, is African-American; he’s also a serious Roman Catholic who spent three years studying for the priesthood. The former fact is front and center in mainstream coverage of Steele and his new job; the latter is mostly missing, as Terry Mattingly of GetReligion points out. Why do identity politics matter for a party that says it disdains them? Because while Steele is not likely to change many African American votes, ardent Catholicism at the heart of the G.O.P. may be a real factor. It may also point to a new tone in a party dominated by Protestant evangelicalism.”

• Related link: Michael Steele: Standing Up for Faith and Family  |  Religion & Ethics Newsweekly

Just How Bad Off Is the Republican Party?  |  Salon

What is the state of the GOP at the dawn of the Obama era? The GOP has not quite ebbed to New Deal or post-1964 Democratic landslide levels, but it has certainly reached its lowest point since the comeback congressional cycle of 1966. Obama’s 53 percent national popular vote share is the highest for a Democrat since 1964, and there is no obvious set of formidable Republican presidential challengers for the 2012 election. As Salon’s Mike Madden observed from interacting with volunteers and activists on hand at the Capital Hilton in Washington for the national meeting, “If the mood and the speeches at the winter meeting are any guide, Republicans are seeking refuge from electoral defeat in an alternate reality, one where the public still loves them — or would if they could only improve their sales pitch.

Welfare Rolls Are Not Going Up. Why?  |  Crooks and Liars

I remember some months after 9/11 when my unemployment checks ran out, there were no jobs to be found, I couldn’t pay my rent and I desperately needed health care. So I swallowed my pride and applied for assistance. That’s when I found out I’d simply made too much money in the past year to be eligible. …That’s when I realized the reality of Bill Clinton’s welfare “reform” – it’s only for the hardcore, chronically poor. Everyone else has earned too much or has too many assets to qualify. So my guess is, the welfare rolls aren’t going up because in most cases, those unemployed in the past year simply aren’t eligible.

Obama Defines Green Jobs  |  Miller-McCune

Barack Obama on Friday returned to his campaign promise of creating millions of jobs in a new, renewable economy, announcing a task force on the middle class that next month will launch with a focus on “green jobs.” … They have called green jobs “good jobs,” jobs that can’t be outsourced. Today, they’re explaining another point: Green jobs are middle-class jobs, directly tying their creation to the fate of America’s largest demographic and the one around which Obama built his campaign. (He’s still not defining, though, precisely who fits in the middle class, which is a whole other battle of terms.)

From Racism to Sustainability, Communities are Creating Change  |  Everyday Democracy

Locally, the community dialogues on race and racism of last year have given birth to action groups that are tackling large issues such as citizen advocacy, workforce development, law enforcement and education to name a few. Just this week, another group brought together clergy for a breakfast that bridged both racial and denominational lines. Gathered over bagels and coffee, area ministers engaged in the early stages of envisioning ways to work together for the betterment of the entire community.