You know the problem with the Republican response?
They see Obama as a black man first, president second.
The very first thing Jindal did was give us a short third grade history lesson spoken as if he was reading to a child of the same age. From Independence Hall to the lunch counter? Why does Jindal have to remark, as if we were ignoramuses, "... from a far away land," as if we'd never heard of India? Was he afraid that most Americans would confuse India with American Indians? What was the point of this? This was not a reply to anything Obama said, but to who he is. The Republicans do not understand that many Americans have judged Obama by the content of his character, not the color of his skin. Trotting out minority Republican after minority Republican won't get them any closer to public mindshare because it's all window dressing. We don't care if Jindal is a minority. We care what comes out of his mouth. We don't care if Palin is a woman, we care what she will do for us in office. We don't care if Steele is made the GOP Chair and, in fact, it looks like pandering to nominate and elect him Chair right after Obama was elected.
The GOP has got to stop being reactionary. Playing the same gender and racial game the Democrats are won't get them anywhere. The GOP must re-assess every single plank in its platform and find contemporary ways to make them popular. It's nice to hearken back to Ronald Reagan or Lincoln or Eisenhower or who ever it is who they can pull out of their ass to remind the electorate of glory days, but it's not 1979 no matter how much current events might remind us of that. Running Reagan's campaign won't and didn't get them the win they needed. I'm pretty sure Reagan himself would tell the GOP the same thing, "Know what the people of the country want." Right now the GOP only is concerned about appealing to other Republicans. They're completely missing the left-leaning, green, live-and-let-live Gen Y audience and have alienated much of the socially liberal, economically conservative Gen X. Adapt or die.
The problem with Jindal and Palin is that they're young, but young in the way the older generations of the GOP membership would like them to be. They're young fuddy-duddys and their rhetoric, from exorcism and denying evolution to shotgun weddings and shooting wolves from helicopters, doesn't fit with a nation who are constantly looking at the hardships around them, from drugs and helthcare to the parents of dead soldiers and foreclosure signs and thinking, 'there but for the grace of God go I.' Their message of personal and fiscal independence doesn't jive with the last eight years and the fact is none of us is an island any longer. We live within a complex interdependent society and I think Americans, at least for now, realize this rather acutely. The GOP must address this or continue to face ever greater marginalization.
