The RNC’s Ed Gillespie wants everyone to know that his party is making great strides with diversity. As proof, he’s pointing to this year’s delegate list.
Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, former U.S. Treasurer and 2004 California delegate Rosario Marin, and Maryland Lt. Gov. and 2004 delegate Michael Steele today announced a 70 percent increase among minority delegates compared to the 2000 Republican convention.
Sounds good, but what does that do to the total diversity? It’s impossible to know, because some of the delegates’ names are being kept secret. I guess we’re just supposed to take Gillespie’s word for it.
In Florida, which does for democracy what Ann Coulter does for civility, the list of 112 delegates to this year’s Republican convention is being kept under wraps.
Citing privacy and security concerns, Florida Republicans are refusing to make public a list of delegates who will attend the convention later this month in New York City.
Party officials said they’re keeping the list confidential after fielding fears from delegates who didn’t want their identities divulged before the convention.
This really doesn’t make any sense.
In fact, as Jesse Taylor noted, Florida’s Dems didn’t hesitate to make its list available. Indeed, they practically invited reporters to give them a call.
The Florida Democratic Party last month e-mailed reporters a list of delegates with contact information and provided thumbnail sketches of some of the more interesting delegates.
If delegates, who earn the title by way of party elections, were really concerned about security, then why on earth did they become delegates?
As Jesse so ably put it:
Here’s a thought: if you’re concerned about your privacy, don’t voluntarily become a pseudo-public figure. And in terms of safety, the threat is being at the GOP convention, regardless of whether or not anyone knows your name. The giant gathering of 30,000 people with the president and the vice-president there is the appeal, not Sally Miller of Tallahassee.
If you don’t want to face a security risk, my advice is that you don’t go to the convention. But being the public representative of a party to the national convention really doesn’t entitle you to hide your name.
I have to assume that this had little to do with delegates’ privacy and everything to do with the Republicans’ obsession with message control. These rank-and-file Republicans from the nation’s most important swing state are likely to say all manner of crazy things when, for example, the New York Times gives them a call before the convention begins. The surest way to control the message is to limit access to potential messengers.
Of course, the flap only gives Dems another chance to remind people about the GOP’s obsession with secrecy.
Democrats took the opportunity to suggest the confidentiality is part of a pattern of secrecy.
“This is the same administration that has fought for three years to hide the records of Dick Cheney’s meetings with energy executives,” said Matt Miller, a spokesman for the John Kerry campaign in Florida. “We should not be surprised they’re hiding their delegates.”
And hiding Bush’s secret military service files, and the secret correspondence between the Pentagon and the White House about no-bid contracts for Halliburton, and the truth about what the administration knew about the Medicare bill before Congress approved it, and the White House secret documents that laid laying the legal foundation for prisoner abuse scandals…