John McCain's White Convention

Having just returned last week from the Democratic National Convention in Denver where the delegates and guests looked like America - white, black, Hispanic, Christian, Jewish, working class, young and old - it is a little disheartening to watch John McCain's nearly whites-only convention in St. Paul.  The Washington Post reports:

ST. PAUL, Minn., Sept. 3 -- Organizers conceived of this convention as a means to inspire, but some African American Republicans have found the Xcel Energy Center depressing this week. Everywhere they look, they see evidence of what they consider one of their party's biggest shortcomings.

As the country rapidly diversifies, Republicans are presenting a convention that is almost entirely white.

Only 36 of the 2,380 delegates seated on the convention floor are black, the lowest number since the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies began tracking diversity at political conventions 40 years ago. Each night, the overwhelmingly white audience watches a series of white politicians step to the lectern -- a visual reminder that no black Republican has served as a governor, U.S. senator or U.S. House member in the past six years.

McCain's campaign staff doesn't seem to mind that they represent only one part of America.

The good news, Republicans said, is that they think Sen. John McCain can still win this election with the kind of demographics on display in St. Paul.

Campaigns ought to be about building coalitions that bring people from all walks of life into the political process as equal partners so that together we might address the issues that threaten our common good.  John McCain's coalition of mostly old wealthy white men (+ one woman as VP that even McCain doesn't know anything about) doesn't have the experience or the wisdom to lead this nation.  It would simply be another four years of the failed policies of George W. Bush.