To the issues that divide the Republican Party, there comes one more. Some Republicans find humor in the song “Barack the Magic Negro.” Some most definitely do not.
The debate was joined last week after a candidate for party chairman from Tennessee, Chip Saltsman, distributed the parody, which was broadcast on the Rush Limbaugh radio show last year and questions President-elect Barack Obama’s racial authenticity.
Speaking to The Hill newspaper on Friday, Mr. Saltsman, a longtime Republican operative, described it as a “light-hearted” gift that would be received in “good humor” by members of the Republican National Committee.
In a party that had big losses this year among minority voters, not everyone took it that way.
“I am shocked and appalled,” Mike Duncan, the current party chairman, said in a statement released Saturday. Mr. Duncan is competing for a second term against Mr. Saltsman and four others.
“This is so inappropriate that it should disqualify any Republican National Committee candidate who would use it,” Newt Gingrich, a Republican former House speaker, said in an e-mail message. Referring to Mr. Obama, Mr. Gingrich said, “There are no grounds for demeaning him or for using racist descriptions.”
Saul Anuzis, the chairman of the Michigan Republican Party and another candidate for party chairman, said, “This isn’t funny, and it’s in bad taste.”
There are two black candidates for the post, J. Kenneth Blackwell, a former Ohio secretary of state, and Michael Steele, a former lieutenant governor of Maryland. On Saturday, Mr. Blackwell dismissed the fuss as “hypersensitivity.”
“All competitors for this leadership position are fine people,” he said in an e-mail message.
Source: New York Times
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