There was an opinion column written in the Washington Post which has caused some people to cry racism. The article was shortened and reported on in the Huffington Post. The part that will get everyone’s panties in a bunch is the except the HP decided to highlight –

Today’s GOP is not racist, as Harry Belafonte alleged about the tea party, but it is deeply troubled — about the expansion of government, about immigration, about secularism, about the mainstreaming of what used to be the avant-garde. People with conventional views must repress a gag reflex when considering the mayor-elect of New York — a white man married to a black woman and with two biracial children. (Should I mention that Bill de Blasio’s wife, Chirlane McCray, used to be a lesbian?) This family represents the cultural changes that have enveloped parts — but not all — of America. To cultural conservatives, this doesn’t look like their country at all.

To me, context is key when calling something racist. The word is very powerful. There is an old debate saying that if you have to use Nazi in your argument you have lost the argument. The same can be said by using the word racist. It shuts people off from discussion because of the implication of the word. Once you call someone a racist or a Nazi, it’s very hard to continue the conversation in a civilized way. In the comments I read on HP, it seems many people couldn’t get past the word racist before determining the writer must be a GOP sympathizer who believed in the words he wrote. A simple hyperlink click took me to the full article, which paints a very different view than the one paragraph would suggest.

The full article talks about the viability of Chris Christie as a candidate for the Republican Party. The press, in this very early stage of the campaign, have dream candidates that on paper seem to be exactly what the country wants. Because the candidates may be colorful, with an interesting backstory or a politically different view than the mainstream, these candidates get a lot of buildup well before the primaries begin. Mario Cuomo, Mayor Bloomberg, Fr. Senator Fred Thompson, Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Mike Huckabee, John Edwards and others have been part of this pre-election presentation. In the end, especially on the Republican side, these press inspired candidates fail because the reality of the primaries is lost on the narrative of the press.

What the Washington Post commentary was pointing out, especially in the one paragraph highlighted, is Christie’s nomination isn’t a sure thing in this Republican environment. While the writer doesn’t want to call them racist but kind of does point out racist attitudes in the tea party, the fact remains that a moderate candidate trying to get the loyal Republican vote will have a hard time winning. The hard core Republicans who attend caucuses, and those are tea party members and sympathizers, don’t care about winning. They have taken to heart the theme of many protest songs, which is it is better to die on your feet than to live on your knees.

The Republican Party will probably continue to lose national elections, but the real danger of the tea party thinking is in state and local elections. People dislike Joe Arpaio in the state of Arizona but he continues to win elections. Women have the right to choose but many states with Republican majorities in the statehouse and the Governor’s mansion have passed laws hindering the operation of health clinics. Part of the issue with the Obamacare rollout on the computer network has been states with Republican lead governments that have hindered the setup of the exchanges and other components of the system. With Democrats unmotivated to mobilize and vote in off year elections the far right of the Republican Party will continue to make inroads on the state and local level, hurting people harder than if they have been elected to national office.