James T Harris

You may remember a few weeks ago a black McCain supporter named James T Harris had the audacity to stand up at a rally and tell the world that Americans are angry. He challenged McCain to go after Obama with all guns blazing, and the crowd ate it up. Then, of course, came the backlash. He got death threats and hate mail, and was called a traitor and a sell-out for his Republican politics and McCain endorsement. It culminated with a dramatic mid-interview exit on CNN.

Today he was in the Fox Strategy Room with us, and I have a new best friend. How refreshing. Here's a candid and courageous conservative who isn't afraid to talk about ugly issues and painful realities. We had a great discussion today, and I have a feeling we'll hear a lot more from him in the near future.

I've been called a traitor to my gender plenty of times -- a female impersonator, too. Young women aren't supposed to be Republicans, and if we are, it means we're anti-woman. Black and minority Republicans get painted similarly, and I can speak from experience when I say, it isn't fun. Or fair.

I'm reprinting here (from my book "Why You're Wrong About the Right") one of the most insipid characterizations of the black Republican I've EVER read:

"In 1999, Bill Maxwell, a black columnist for the St Petersburg Times, wrote a scathing critique of black Republicans that should make anyone, regardless of skin color, bristle:

By all standards, some creatures are just plain strange, making us do double takes because their comparisons or habits or appearances defy our sense of logic and our way of viewing reality. Take the wildebeest, the warthog, the hyena, the brown pelican, the Shar-Pei. These animals, seemingly wrougth by committee, make us laugh or shake our heads. Another such creature, of the human kind -- and perhaps the strangest of all -- is the black Republican. Do not laugh. This is a serious matter, given yet another Alan Keyes run -- absurd as it may be -- for the White House. He is the talk show host who exhibits an obnoxious Messianic complex that emerges each time he appears on TV to debate his white counterparts. My grandfather, a smart Pentecostal pastor who died five years ago, would have said that Keyes, along with others like him, is 'out there cuttin' up 'round them white folks.' This was my gramps' portrayal of black sycophants, whose raison d'etre was pleasing their white 'superiors.'"