Arkansas Senator Jason Rapert, the eternal face of American conservatism
by David Atkins
Meet Arkansas State Senator Jason Rapert:
You've got to change the hearts and minds of the people that live around you. You've gotta pray. It says 'Blessed is the nation whose God is the Lord. And I wonder sometimes when they invited all the Muslims to come into the White House and have them a little Ramadan supper, when our President could not take the time to go attend a National Prayer Breakfast--I wonder what he stands for. You know what, what they told is what you say speaks so loudly--excuse me--what you do speaks so loudly that what you say I cannot hear. I hear you loud and clear, Barack Obama. You don't represent the country that I grew up with. And your values is not goin' to save us. We're gonna try to take this country back for the Lord. We're gonna try to take this country back for conservatism. And we're not going to allow minorities to run roughshod over what you people believe in."
Somebody send this guy the new memo: it's not the values, it's the message. I'm sure if he just had better communications skills, his virtuous message would play well with Americans of all stripes.
In all seriousness, though, Republicans are reaping what they sowed. They rode this circus to power for 30 years using the Southern Strategy and now they get to live with it. Try as they might, the RNC isn't going to get away from this anytime soon. They can run Marco Rubio for President all they'd like, but countless politicians like this guy will be making headlines for years and years to come, wiping away Republican support from decent-minded communities everywhere.
It couldn't happen to a nicer bunch of bigots.
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