Originally Posted by
HPL
Hardly, Larry might appeal to the Repub base, but I doubt that he would be of much help with the communities we need. I heard a couple of days ago that 1/3 of the population is now either on straight out welfare or on some other kind of gov. assistance (not including social security or medicare as those are earned). I think the republicans can pretty much write those folks off outright. We need to attract some of the folks from the "minority" communities. I think the we can still mostly forget about attracting many blacks (too much racial pride involved and I can't really blame them) but you can't tell me that there was no one out there with a last name like Garza, Ramirez, Silva, Alaniz, or something similar that could have been chosen. Find someone who can present their speeches in fluent Spanish. Don't really care if they are currently well known, and a relative unknown might actually have been a plus. Someone who grew up hard scrabble and can convincingly portray him or herself as regular folks (I know, who really wants Joe average for president?). There are certainly smart, conservative, successful, hispanic businessmen and even legislators out there. I know that it seems shallow and manipulative to use that kind of strategy, but before we can put our ideas into action, we have to be in office. Perhaps Ryan will show something that will help bring the centrists into the fold, but he just looks like more of the same to me.
Foregoing the ethnic strategy, I have always liked Bobby Jindal, and although I don't think she was interested, I like Rice. Jindal seems to be fiscally responsible, not white, well spoken (once you get around that accent)and very bright. Rice is demonstrably brilliant, talented, a woman, and black.
