The Black Republican

Usually, when something goes in the "Race and Prejudice" section here at TBR, it's a rant. But today, we have two related pieces of good news to report.

Yesterday, seeing that I had so much reading piled up that there was no possible way I was going to be able to get to it all, I reset the RSS feeds on my account at Bloglines. That must have happened just before Michael Bowen posted at Cobb - and a good thing too, or I would have missed some lovely crowing and "thumbs in the face".

It's almost as if the RNC and I were reading the same page. Just yesterday in the other thread I was saying how much of a no-brainer it is for the right African American candidates to walk into the open arms of the Republican Party. Of course it's no walk in the park for anyone, including (Michael) Steele, but there is not, contrary to urban myth and Liberal lie, a color bar in the Republican Party.

Though familiar with Maryland's Lieutenant Governor, in my slumber I wasn't aware that "the Party is stepping up to the [$1,000] plate and putting some energy behind a serious black candidate" for the U.S. Senate there. That's the first piece of good news.

Looking for details, I came across a Washington Post article that fills us in.

Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele hosted the first major fundraiser in his as-yet-undeclared bid for U.S. Senate last night, attracting presidential adviser Karl Rove to headline a $1,000-a-person cocktail party in Washington.

The private affair was an attempt to introduce Steele to the ranks of national GOP donors who might not have encountered a man whose candidacy has become a top priority of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, the arm of the party that recruits candidates.

Steele said he was "very excited" to have captured the interest and backing of such national Republican luminaries as Rove. So too, it seemed yesterday, were his opponents.

Democrats dispatched about 35 protesters to the National Republican Senatorial Committee headquarters on Capitol Hill to heckle Steele. They blasted him for appearing with Rove, who has emerged as a central figure in the probe into the disclosure of CIA operative Valerie Plame's identity.

"No one who would use Karl Rove for a fundraiser is fit to represent Maryland in the U.S. Senate," said Tom Hucker, executive director of the advocacy group Progressive Maryland.

I suppose I could have counted the schadenfreude and the fair reporting from WaPo as additional pieces of good news, but the significant thing I wanted to point out here is that nowhere in the Post article is there any mention of race or color.

Progress on many fronts... and within the MSM, no less.