I’m afraid I must disagree with the great conservative writer Larry Elder, whose January 1 column (“Barack the Magic Negro-gate”) on the controversy surrounding would-be Republican National Committee chairman Chip Saltsman misses the point about why Saltsman’s actions were so misguided.

Elder correctly notes that it was a black liberal writer, David Ehrenstein, who originally started the “Magic Negro” controversy with a March 2007 Los Angeles Times piece attacking Obama as a candidate whose hopes for victory depended upon exploiting white guilt.

“The article produced virtually no outcry,” Elder writes. “Conservative talk show host Rush Limbaugh then aired a [Paul Shanklin] song parody—set to the music of ‘Puff the Magic Dragon’—called ‘Barack the Magic Negro.’ Referring to the L.A. Times article, an Al Sharpton-like ‘singer’ called Obama inauthentically black. Why, complained the singer, should white folks vote for Obama rather than a true black man ‘from the hood’ like— me.”

Elder continues, “Chip Saltsman, a candidate for chairman of the Republican National Committee, sent the song on a CD with 40 other songs, in a Christmas mailer to committee members. Doesn't the mailer, asked several cable news programs, expose the Republicans—yet again—for their tone deafness on the issue of race?…Never mind the parody actually satirized Al Sharpton. The song implies that Sharpton hoped against an Obama victory, for it crushes Sharpton's argument about America's alleged institutional racism, a force so potent in a country so racist that Obama could not win. An Obama win threatens to reduce the significance of Sharpton-like black leaders. And never mind a black liberal—who started the whole thing—called Obama a ‘Negro.’

“When will the GOP—on the issue of race—go on the offense?”

The answer: Never, because it can’t.

Elder correctly notes that the Democrat Party has a long history of discrimination against blacks. The harsh political reality, however, is that this history does not matter, because the Democrat Party today is not commonly perceived as an antiblack party. The Republican Party, fairly or not, is commonly perceived today as a lily-white party with a handful of “token” nonwhite members. Because of this perception, Republicans have to be very careful about the appearance of racial impropriety. It may not be fair, but it’s a fact.

“But what about the infamous Republican Southern strategy?” Elder writes. “The co-author of the strategy, Pat Buchanan, wrote in 2002: Richard Nixon kicked off his historic comeback in 1966 with a column on the South (by this writer) that declared we would build our Republican Party on a foundation of states rights, human rights, small government and a strong national defense, and leave it to the [Democratic] 'party of Maddox and Wallace to squeeze the last ounces of political juice out of the rotting fruit of racial injustice.'"

The “Southern Strategy” Elder and Buchanan make reference to is actually misnamed, because it really didn’t have anything to do with the South. Nixon’s actual strategy was to turn out as much of the white middle-class vote as possible, regardless of region. This was not done because of racism, but because of business. Nixon and his advisors figured that, in 1968, middle-class whites were the political and cultural majority, and thus it made sense to gear the Republican Party to their interests and desires. It’s similar to how Hollywood studios today gear most of their films to teenage boys.

This strategy paid off for Nixon, as well as for Ronald Reagan and both Bushes. This strategy was not intentionally designed to alienate nonwhites, contrary to the allegations of the left. Republican strategists had no problem accepting votes from blacks, Hispanics and Asians who had issues with the Democrats. However, the GOP’s primary interest was in hunting where the ducks were.

It’s not an accident that the 2008 Republican National Convention had so little racial diversity. It’s also not an accident that, as Justice Clarence Thomas recounts on page 179 of his 2007 autobiography My Grandfather’s Son, he was “met with near-total indifference” when he offered to help Reagan’s 1984 re-election campaign: “One political consultant was honest enough to tell me straight out that since the President's reelection strategy didn't include the black vote, there was no role for me." The GOP is not anti-minority in any way, but its “business model” clearly depends on maximizing white middle-class turnout. Would Nixon and Reagan have won landslides if they didn’t primarily appeal to middle-class whites?

This “business model” is now defective for many reasons, such as the country’s changing demographics and the apparent increase in the number of middle-class whites who either disagree with Republican policies or accept wholesale the anti-GOP messages of the mainstream press and the popular culture. However, the GOP is still identified in the public mind with this “business model”—which is why Saltsman’s behavior was so stupid.

Because the GOP has been so dependent on the votes of middle-class whites, the mainstream press has long sought to depict the GOP as an entity that appeals to the baser instincts of middle-class whites, as opposed to the higher values of this group. Whenever Republicans are involved in race-related controversies, even silly ones, the Fourth Estate exploits these incidents in order to “prove” that the GOP is fundamentally racist. Thus, Republicans must be careful about not giving the mainstream media the tools with which to bash the party.

Saltsman exhibited no such caution. That’s why he’s a fool. Black Republicans like Elder and Ken Blackwell can yell “Double Standard!” and “Hypersensitivity!” until they’re blue in the face: it still won’t change reality. Even if one believes that the parody itself wasn’t bigoted (if one understands the backstory of the song, it doesn’t come across as bigoted, but a listener who is unfamiliar with the backstory will naturally think the song is some sort of crude Amos ‘n’ Andy-style racial parody), Saltsman’s decision to distribute the song was ill-advised.

“Today it's Democrats [and the media] who blatantly use the race card to malign Republicans as a collection of bigots,” Elder complains. He’s right—but that doesn’t make Saltsman any less of a joker.