“Our party is going to be led by younger and more diverse elected officials,” crowed former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who lent his support to a number of the candidates, in an e-mail. “They are united in embracing a rollback of government’s power, American entrepreneurial capitalism and a zeal for reform.”

In the short-term, a diverse group of GOP office holders next year would translate into a new set of potential surrogates for the party’s presidential candidate in 2012. Particularly in battleground states, having a woman or minority statewide official could help in those communities where Republican White House hopefuls have lagged. (Politico 6/11/10)

I’m just in awe of the raw pandering, the utterly non-subtle employment of false advertising in the Republican’s attempted re-branding of themselves.

I know folks who tend to the right also tend to decry identity politics, primarily because Democrats took advantage of it during the last 3 decades to widen their voter base and create a more sustainable platform with changing demographics. But let me be clear, this surface-deep diversification of the Republican party’s electoral repertoire is not identity politics, it is marketing.

That remains particularly so and is exposed by Jeb Bush’s admission that indeed nothing about the Republican platform is changing, nor is the substance of the GOP even up for consideration – “…a rollback of government’s power…capitalism and a zeal for reform,” says nothing as to why women, Indian Americans, African Americans or Hispanics should lend their support to the Republican candidates; rather, the shamelessness of this political strategy is such that the only upside seen by republican strategists is that new demographics may be tricked into voting Republican because there are politicians who look like them on the Republican ticket.

Despite the rampant contradictions in the mindset that allows republican strategists to believe that by merely showcasing some minority-background candidates they will enfranchise historically under-represented groups, these folks are doing so while championing a platform that falls in line with much despised Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer’s outwardly xenophobic immigration policy, a platform that continues to blame poor people for being poor and one that continues to uphold the mentality that the only proper role for government is protecting white, Christian males’ interests. Furthermore, extending past race a bit but plunging into gender, what in the world does a Republican platform offer to support women’s interests? They explicitly condone the restriction of reproductive choice (so a woman’s very fundamental choice whether to bear children or not, according to republicans, is to be decided by our federal government), republicans continue to wage war against Planned Parenthood (recently singling them out in the health care reform debate by attempting to remove all federal funding for the group that provides regular women health services to already under-served populations), and these are still the same folks whose war on poor, single mothers that had forced the hand of the federal government to inject moral qualifications for government support (a la welfare) continues to this day by shifting more and more resources away from social services (most of which are used by women).

None of that however, could stop Politico’s Jonathon Martin from inserting this massive load of bullshit into the above quoted article:

The congressional and gubernatorial primaries held so far this year have put the GOP on the verge of electing an array of diverse new faces to high office, which stands to upend the party’s country club image and perhaps even diminish one of the most enduring punch lines in American politics.

Does it seem like Martin gives one iota of a shit about policy? Or about how politics effects real people’s lives? Does it seem like Martin thinks that what politicians and political parties say needs to be backed up by real actions? Or does it seem like Martin thinks republicans just needed some candidates that look a little different?

Same platform, same policies. Republicans continue to represent the “country club” image because their policies directly benefit the same group that they have for the last 40 years.

If a handful of minority ethnic / female candidates in one election cycle can change that historical fact, then I’m Martha Washington.