RNC Going Hip Hop – Updated

The Washington Times is reporting that Michael Steele says the Republican party needs a “hip hop makeover“. He won’t release all the details of his plan but admits the party needs to change.

”There was underlying concerns we had become too regionalized and the party needed to reach beyond our comfort” zones, he said, citing defeats in such states as Virginia and North Carolina. “We need messengers to really capture that region – young, Hispanic, black, a cross section … We want to convey that the modern-day GOP looks like the conservative party that stands on principles. But we want to apply them to urban-surburban hip-hop settings.”

But, he elaborated with a laugh, “we need to uptick our image with everyone, including one-armed midgets.”

“Where we have fallen down in delivering a message is in having something to say, particularly to young people and moms of all shapes – soccer moms, hockey moms,” he said, though he insisted that party messages won’t be different strokes for different folks. “We don’t offer one image for 18-year-olds and another for soccer moms but one that shows who we are for the 21st century.”

Mr. Steele, the former lieutenant governor of Maryland and former state Republican Party chairman, defeated four rivals in the sixth round of voting on Jan. 30 to become chairman of the 168-member RNC. At the end of 2006, after Republicans lost their House and Senate majorities, Mr. Rove nixed a growing movement among RNC members – state Republican Party chairmen and elected national committee members – to elect Mr. Steele as their next chairman.

I think this is a great idea if it’s done right. I’ve never understood why anyone found liberalism to be cool. In fact, most liberal policies are totally uncool, but they own the media and entertainment industry, so naturally younger voters identify with liberal politicians.

The media turned a pencil neck geek into a Messiah. If Michael Steele can find a way to make conservative values mainstream (without poppin’ a cap into a lib) more power to him.

Update: As it turns out, Mr. Steele’s timing couldn’t be better. It seems that high school students are more critical of President Obama’s economic policies than the media.

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