Steve Scalise's job is safe, and the GOP thinks it's turned a corner

Scalise’s survival might actually mark a turning point for conservatives and the press. For most of his public life, Family Research Council President Tony Perkins has been pilloried by the Southern Poverty Law Center and other groups because he once spoke to the Council of Conservative Citizens, and because he managed the 1996 Senate campaign that contracted a Duke-connected group for voter contact. Scalise had taken some of the same pummeling, and survived. Why?

“It’s the trump card that they’ve worn out, the race card,” said Perkins. “It’s–anybody who has spoken to any group associated with any group is like that group. And that’s not sustainable. You look at who the president has had at the White House, child molesters who’ve been at functions, who’ve raised money for him–they don’t say the president embraces that. You look at what people had said about Scalise, and I’ll say it, too: I’ve never heard him utter in public or private under a word that could be seen as a racist. Sometimes, you’re invited to speak to unfamiliar groups. Part of the whole deal in politics is persuasion.”