GOP's Diverse Presidential Lineup Won't Solve its Minority Problem
It has a knack for picking candidates who are alienated from their communities
If the GOP is the party for whitebreads, then why does it have the most diverse presidential lineup in the history of
the republic? Not just that, it has more minorities in high-office than Democrats whether it is U.S. senate or state gubernatorial mansions.
But does this diversity mean that the GOP does not have a minority problem? No, because minorities have a problem with the GOP. And the problem is that the party has a knack for zeroing in on unpopular minority candidates who lack broad appeal in their own communities and are therefore poor ambassadors for it. I note in my column at The Week,
This is true in ascending order of Hispanics Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, African-American Ben Carson, and — above all — Indian-American Bobby Jindal, who is expected to announce his candidacy at the end of the month…
Jindal is a man of remarkable accomplishments who ought to be the golden boy of a community that worships at the altar of elite colleges. Raised by freshly immigrated parents, Jindal was admitted to not one, but two Ivy League graduate schools, both of which he spurned to pursue a Rhodes scholarship at Oxford University. And he defied all odds to make history as the first Indian-American governor of the country.
"And yet poor Bobby doesn't cut it with American desis (natives of India)," notes Hoover Institution fellow Tunku Varadarajan. Why?
Go here to find out.