Old men drooling

While we've been happy to see the GOP begin to open its candidate ranks to minorities and women, there's still more a bit of tokenism at work. Newsweek, in a cover story featuring SC candidate for governor Nikki Haley, observes:

Eager to shed their image as the party of old white men, national Republicans are salivating. “The GOP has long struggled with expanding the base of our party,” says Nick Ayers, executive director of the Republican Governors Association (RGA). Haley offers “a big chance for us to bring ethnic minorities into the party.” In Haley, the GOP has found a candidate who not only has consistently espoused conservative dogma—small government, lower taxes, less regulation—but one who appeals to multihued, 21st-century America. When Ayers met her, he immediately grasped her potential. “She had core principles she was unwavering on,” he says. “I thought it would be icing on the cake that she had darker skin and was Indian-American.”So does this herald a new era of diversity in the GOP? Only to an extent, says Scott Huffmon, a political-science professor at Winthrop University in Rock Hill, S.C. “What [Haley’s rise] says about the Republican Party is that they are open to minorities and women,” he says. While that’s significant, it doesn’t mean there’s a corresponding urge to take up what are typically considered minority issues—endemic poverty, for instance, or employment discrimination. If Haley “had entered the race talking about issues that minorities face, she would not have gotten into the next round,” Huffmon argues.