Our View: Why would anyone defend a speech to racists?
House Majority Whip Steve Scalise has admitted that in 2002 he spoke to a group founded by neo-Nazi racist David Duke. Scalise now calls it a mistake, but the Louisiana Republican didn’t worry so much about it back then.
On Tuesday, House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy defended Scalise, calling him a friend.
Standing by your friends is laudable, but McCarthy must recognize that such loyalty comes with a price. Perhaps McCarthy will recall his loyalty to a Louisiana politician the next time he looks over the election results from the Golden State, and wonders why Republicans don’t do well in California.
Back in 2002, McCarthy was elected to the Assembly from Bakersfield and Scalise was a Louisiana state legislator using tax breaks to lure Hollywood productions from the Golden State to the Bayou. By then, Duke had already attained infamy by running neo-Nazi and Ku Klux Klan organizations, spewing racist venom, serving in the Louisiana Legislature, and campaigning for U.S. Senate and for Louisiana governor. Duke gained even more notoriety in 2002, admitting in federal court that he defrauded supporters and filed a false income tax return, for which he was sentenced to 15 months in prison.
That was the year Scalise spoke to Duke’s European-American Unity and Rights Organization.
After initially dodging questions about that appearance, Scalise has changed tack: “It was a mistake I regret,” he said in a statement. “I emphatically oppose the divisive racial and religious views groups like these hold.”
We don’t claim to know what Scalise was thinking when he appeared before a group of bigots. But it’s clear he wasn’t there to call them out, or chastise them for putting all of Louisiana in a bad light. A basic rule of public speaking is to know your audience. It would be rare for any political candidate to attend any gathering blindly. Politicians like Speaker John Boehner and McCarthy know this rule. Yet, both are defending their pal Scalise.
“Congressman Scalise acknowledged he made a mistake and has condemned the views that organization espouses. I’ve known him as a friend for many years and I know that he does not share the beliefs of that organization,” McCarthy’s statement says.
As part of the national Republican leadership, McCarthy has little choice but to stand by Scalise. As a Californian, he should know better. In November, California Republicans sought to rebrand themselves, but hampered by the national GOP, it didn’t work. While the rest of the nation was turning increasingly red, California Republicans lost a congressional seat.
“House Republicans seen daily on television defining the party brand increasingly hail from districts where winning the support of Latinos, Asians and African Americans is not essential for their own re-election,” wrote Ron Nehring, in The Sacramento Bee in September when he was running for lieutenant governor.
There are few places in America where that is truer than Scalise’s congressional district. Of 781,000 residents, 633,000 are white. That’s 81 percent. Scalise got 77 percent of the district’s vote.
McCarthy wants to do an intensive review of the House GOP’s campaign operation to figure out why Republicans don’t do well in California.
Perhaps it’s not as much about how Republicans ran their California races as how they are perceived. Speaking politely to anything called the European-American Unity and Rights Organization is inexcusable. And anyone making excuses for the inexcusable, as McCarthy is doing, ultimately shares some of the blame. It’s a hard perception to overcome.
This story was originally published December 30, 2014 at 6:48 PM with the headline "Our View: Why would anyone defend a speech to racists?."