What has happened to the Republican Party?

By Richard K. Barry

I'm not a big fan of making too much of bad behavior when it comes from individuals of one party affiliation or the other. There are stupid people everywhere. You get into a lot of trouble when you point fingers because the next time it's going to be someone on your side who said or did the dumb thing.

Having said that, sometimes bad behavior by a few can signal what the many are thinking, but you have to be careful.

Still, facts are facts and should be reported. And people should draw their own conclusions about the extent to which statements and policies of decision makers are in some way consistent with the statements or actions of the bad actors. Personally, I'm convinced the Romney campaign has shifted to a new Southern Strategy, as I've written, and their views on immigration have been creating a huge problem for them with Hispanic voters. I'm not surprised that a few feel they have permission to be jerks.

A lot of people found two instances very disturbing at the GOP convention thus far. The first, widely noted, was this: 

Two people were removed from the Republican National Convention Tuesday after they threw nuts at an African-American CNN camera operator and said, "This is how we feed animals."

Multiple witnesses observed the exchange and RNC security and police immediately removed the two people from the Tampa Bay Times Forum.

The convention released a statement saying, "Two attendees tonight exhibited deplorable behavior. Their conduct was inexcusable and unacceptable. This kind of behavior will not be tolerated."

The second case was reported by Jack Hitt at Harper's Magazine:

As I was standing in line for a sandwich next to an Italian and a Puerto Rican correspondent, a controversy was unfolding on the floor. The RonPaulites, whose furious devotion to a single idea have made them the Ellen Jamesians of the right, were protesting a decision by RNC officials not to seat members of the Maine delegation, which was split between Paul and Romney supporters following rule changes made just prior to the convention. There were energetic shouts of "Aye!" and "Nay!" as a Puerto Rican party functionary — Zoraida Fonalledas, the chairwoman of the Committee on Permanent Organization — took her turn at the main-stage lectern. As she began speaking in her accented English, some in the crowd started shouting "U.S.A.! U.S.A.!"

None of us could quite believe what we were seeing: A sea of twentysomething bowties and cowboy hats morphing into frat bros apparently shrieking over (or at) a Latina. RNC chairman Reince Priebus quickly stepped up and asked for order and respect for the speaker, suggesting that, yeah, what we had just seen might well have been an ugly outburst of nativism.

Mitt Romney is already headed towards an statistically insignificant portion of the African-American vote. It looks like some of his supporters are trying to help him achieve the same results in the Hispanic community.

Here's a clip of the incident involving Ms. Fonalledas:

(|Cross-posted at Lippmann's Ghost.)