Katon Dawson The Next GOP Darwin Award Nominee?

My Top 3

It’s only a few days now until the Republicans sit down and vote for a new Chair of the RNC. There are several candidates to choose from, but I’m beginning to think Katon Dawson of South Carolina has the inside track. Yes, he’s been named one of the 25 scariest conservatives. There are those in South Carolina that thought Lindsey Graham so liberal they wanted to draft Dawson to take on Senator Graham. Though even right wing extremists have trouble with Katon awson having been a member of a Whites Only Club 12 years before noticing the policies of the club, I’m not thinking that will disqualify him among the GOP base. As I have noted before, and as Jesus’ General notes as well, Katon Dawson is now the favorite of Donald Wildmon, that extremist right wing religious mullah whack job who runs the American Family Association. Katon Dawson just may have the momentum to become the next GOP Chair, and I’m here to say that may keep the GOP in the wilderness of politics much longer.

To some degree Katon Dawson is saying all the right things on his way to changing his image so that he can at least fool Republicans into thinking he isn’t an extremist right wing whack job. Here’s how he puts his priorities to CNN:

I am running to serve as chairman of the Republican National Committee because I’m ready to help lead our party’s turnaround, Dawson said in a prepared statement. We need to turn around our fortunes in many regions of the country. We need to turn around our grassroots organization, our fundraising, our use of technology and new media, and our candidate recruitment. We must move forward with the confidence that our message of optimism, hope, and freedom still resonates in the hearts of our fellow

Of course that’s about as white bread a Reagan-esque policy viewpoint as there is. Still, the guy seems awfully clueless. He claims the GOP has a message of “optimism, hope and freedom,” when the fact is that there are only small regional pockets of the US who actually believe that. In this last election the GOP brand carried the negative attack, as is usual, with pride. Negatives are welded to the GOP brand, and that leaves little room for optimism and hope. As to “freedom,” there are surely Americans who believe the contradictory notion that spying on Americans and torturing others helps make freedom possible. That segment of the population is already part of the GOP membership. the rest of us are not fooled.

In a recent OpEd piece in Politico Katon Dawson again says almost all the right things. I’ll give him credit for knowing what the right values are that just might win back votes for the Republican Party. But when Katon Dawson gives other interviews, the result isn’t so inclusive and sane. In a June interview with Soren Dayton of The Next Right, Katon Dawson does just that when asked to comment on attracting African American voters. From The Next Right:

I asked if increased African-American turnout would create a problem for some legislative seats, and he responded, again, quite confidently, “we should win some seats we would not win normally,” due to “partial birth abortion, gay marriage, which are the pillars of the Democratic

One would expect a question about African American turnout to focus, perhaps, on African Americans, especially in South Carolina, a state where that turnout for Barack Obama was a key to his primary victory. Oddly, Katon hit the answer that must come every time Donald Wildmon pulls the string, that gay marriage and partial birth abortion, the divisive issues that failed Republicans this year, are still what the GOP should depend upon. Most telling is that Katon Dawson claims these issues are the “pillars of the Democratic platform.” Yes, lying and demonization through lying are right up Dawson’s alley. The actual facts here are that Democrats never campaign on either issue.

This is a Darwin moment in the making for the Republicans, and it may be very telling as well as ironic. The wing of the GOP that doesn’t believe in Darwin, led by such as Donald Wildmon and his fellow extremist Christian mullahs, is threatening to deal a death blow to the GOP by continuing with the same old same old divisiveness. OK, we in the Democratic Party can cheer a bit at such a development, but it is fascinating, almost like watching one of those videos where a guy hits himself in the nards with a rake or something. These Republicans just don’t seem to get it.