The GOP’s black ‘mad men’: Why the party can’t find its own Barack Obama

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A very different party

It didn’t used to be this way.

Republican Ed Brooke became the first black United States Senator since reconstruction when he won the Massachusetts statewide race in 1966. (The first two, Hiram Rhodes Revels and Blanche Bruce, both of Mississippi, were also Republicans, who served in the aftermath of the Civil War.)

And during the 1990s, Oklahoma’s first black congressman, J.C. Watts, was a mainstream figure who managed to ascend to the House leadership before leaving congress in 2002.

Brooke and Watts managed to achieve electoral success without totally burning the bridges between themselves and African-Americans. Perhaps they could do so because both men were part of a version of the Republican Party that was fundamentally different from today’s ultra-conservative GOP.

Brooke was so successful in his two terms in bridging the divide between the increasingly southern, Dixiecrat Republican Party and black Americans, that he was inducted into the New England NAACP’s Civil Rights Hall of Fame in 2008, alongside the liberal lion, Sen. Edward “Teddy” Kennedy. Brooke was, by today’s standards, a very liberal Republican. He battled with then-President Richard Nixon and supported legalized abortion. He lost his seat in 1978 to Democrat Paul Tsongas following a divorce scandal.

Watts became a star quarterback for the University of Oklahoma and an ordained minister before realizing his political ambitions in the “Republican revolution” of 1994. The former likely helped him win in a congressional district that was 90 percent white, and which hadn’t elected a Republican since 1922. The latter is a common route to political leadership for African-American men. When he was elected, Watts became the first black Republican elected to congress from the South, and he was one of just two black Republicans in the House (Connecticut congressman Gary Franks being the other).

Watts came into Congress at a time when the Republican Party was adopting a much more aggressively conservative tone. It was, after all, the congressional class that impeached President Clinton (something Watts voted for). But Watts never stood out for the kind of rhetorical fireworks that have become par for the course for nationally-prominent black Republicans today.

He also maintained some of the tropes of black leadership — so that while he ran on such issues as welfare reform and lowering capital gains taxes, Watts framed the former as better for black families and the latter as good for urban black businesses. He was active in the NAACP and eventually turned against legislative attempts to ban affirmative action, while expressing support for HBCUs. Watts did uphold a tradition not broken until Allen West was elected to congress in 2010 — neither he nor Franks joined the Congressional Black Caucus.

Only the extreme need apply?

With the current GOP firmly in the grip of the far right, it’s rare that a black Republican can rise very far without toeing the line — or even exceeding it.

West rose to fame within the tea party movement precisely because of his extreme rhetoric. Carson caught fire by “taking it to the president” and insulting the commander in chief, who is hated by the right, to his face. With the party base demanding that candidates hew to a solidly conservative line, it’s hard to imagine a more moderate Republican catching on, even if such a figure would help the Republican Party reach black, and suburban white, voters.

And because black leadership often comes from the Christian church, former George H.S. Bush adviser, Rev. Joe Watkins, says it shouldn’t be surprising that black evangelical candidates, often ordained ministers, rise to the top of the list when Republicans go looking for viable candidates. And they bring with them the ultra-orthodox views of the multiracial evangelical movement.

“Although the majority of African Americans vote Democrat, there is still a significant bent among people of color towards shared religious values and beliefs,” says Watkins, who pastors a church in Philadelphia. “As a result, it’s not unusual to see some candidates of color display more conservative church taught social leanings – especially if they closely identify with the church.”

But Watkins says the GOP “will need to broaden its tent by appealing to a wider range of voters if the party is to succeed in national elections in the coming election cycles. So those GOP candidates of color who may have a deep religious faith will need to draw on the Biblical mandate to love others – including those who may not agree with them on some issues – if they hope to be successful.”

Democratic strategist Jamal Simmons sees the Republican Party losing ground on attracting a more diverse base.

“I think they had a much stronger start a couple years ago, but they kind of lost their momentum on this front,” Simmons says, citing South Carolina Senator Tim Scott as an example of the kind of black Republican who emerged with the tea party wave in 2010, but who fits the model Republicans should build on.

“The leaders in the Senate like him, and see him as a rational human being they can work with,” Simmons said of Scott. But he said the other Republicans, black and white, who are most prominent in the party are a function of where the party is ideologically in the age of Barack Obama.

“I think it’s endemic to the party itself,” says Simmons. “It has to do with the control that the right wing has because of redistricting, and their kind of, overly emotional reaction to Barack Obama, that they are driving themselves further right.”

Simmons says the party’s fundamental conundrum is, “how do they get out of the box of being captive to their most extreme elements?”

“Scott got appointed to the Senate seat [in South Carolina], so we’ll see if he’s able to win the seat outright.”

Scott has not entirely escape the rhetorical clutches of the right. Even before he was tapped by another of the GOP’s diverse would-be stars, embattled South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley, to fill out the United States Senate term of tea party firebrand Jim DeMint, who left congress to run the Heritage Foundation think tank, Scott had amassed a staunchly right wing record, suggesting President Obama should be impeached if he tried to raise the debt ceiling in 2011, and floating a bill that would kick entire families off of food stamps if one member participated in a labor strike. As a Senator, he has voted against gun purchase background checks, and for gargantuan subsidies to Big Oil.

Simmons says that may not be a complete picture of the quiet, conservative Senator. “My impression is that he is paying lip service to the right wing elements, but I think if you look at his substantive work, I know that he and [Massachusetts’ appointed black Democratic Senator] Mo Cowan, they have a pretty good relationship in the Senate and Mo thinks highly of him. And I think there’s a chance to do business with Tim Scott that I never felt was there with Allen West and certainly not with someone like Alan Keyes.”

The GOP can only hope Rev. Jackson isn’t a also a birther.

Follow Joy Reid on Twitter at @thereidrepot.