“The kind of folks, the African Americans who tend to run as Republicans,” Nevin said, “they aren’t usually from the John McCain or Colin Powell wings of the party. They typically come from the far right. They are the Tim Scotts, the Allen Wests, the Mia Loves.” Scott is a senator from South Carolina, West is a former congressman from Florida and Love is a congresswoman from Utah.
What does that mean?
Here’s a pretty clear example: In the weeks after Love won her seat, she became the first black Republican woman in Congress, and received all the media attention you’d expect to come with that. The spotlight stayed a bit longer when she publicly backed new House Majority Whip Steve Scalise (R-La.), despite reports that he gave a 2002 speech to a white supremacist group founded by former Klu Klux Klan leader David Duke. (Scalise and the event’s organizers told reporters that Scalise was unaware of the group’s ties when he appeared.)
“She didn’t simply say nothing or say, ‘No, I’m not going to try to knock him out of leadership,’ ” Nevin said. “Mia Love said, ‘I have no problem with it.’ For black voters, it’s one thing to not pursue the issues that the NAACP cares most about. But when you are not particularly concerned that someone is close to David Duke in the leadership of your party, there is something peculiar about that.”
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