According to the Huffington Post a coalition of Republican Muslim-Americans have written a letter to top GOP leaders warning them not to bring the mosque debate into this years election cycle.

Jack Kemp, the man we credit with the supply-side economics revolution of the 1980s fully supported Enterprise Zone legislation that went largely ignored until Bill Clinton signed the Federal Omnibus Reconciliation Act of 1993 that provided tax credits and other incentives for “Empowerment Zone/Enterprise Communities”. Incidentally, Jack Kemp was openly critical of the version approved by Clinton.

More importantly, Jack Kemp didn’t ignore the inner city like to many Conservatives and Republicans du jour. Jack Kemp didn’t let right-wing rhetoric blockade legislative attempts, grounded in conservative principles, to help “the least of these”. Kemp unequivocally cared about Black America and the stakeholders in the inner city-fortunately- not in the paternalistic way that Liberals show they “care”. As Director of HUD (Housing and Urban Development) between 1989-1993, he attempted, but failed to push for residents in “Projects” (inner city low-income housing units) to partially own the housing developments that they lived in because Kemp argued that, “When people lack jobs, opportunity, and ownership of property they have little or no stake in their communities.”

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie on Tuesday in an interview with POLITICO outlined a path for the GOP to rebrand as the party keeping “our eye on the cash register,” while also praising some Democrats for taking the right approach to tackling major issues like education.

HHR Blog had the opportunity to interview GOP candidate Victor Armendariz a Mexican-American running for a seat in Georgia’s 4th congressional district.

Tom Campbell’s campaign to be the California GOP candidate to challenge Barbara Boxer this fall for Senate has run on tough times. He is being outspent by his main challenger Carly Fiorina, who has backing from social conservatives who don’t like Campbell’s socially liberal record.

Campbell is now low on funds and has pulled his television ads. Now, he has chosen to go viral, using the internet and phone to get his message out.

I’ve supported Campbell and even given some money to his campaign, since he tends to reflect my own views. I want to believe his last ditch effort as well as independents who vote in the June 8 primary will make him the winner, but I fear Fiorina is going to win. Fiorina might be able to buy her way to winning to the primary, but as the LA Times shows, only Campbell is able to beat Boxer this year.

Another example of the GOP picking the pure candidate over who could actually win.

Michael Steele knows the party he pledges allegiance to has alienated quite of few of those who look like him.
Speaking candidly about race and Republicans, the Republican National Committee chairman bluntly acknowledged that the GOP has done little to convince blacks to support them on the ballot.

As he explained to DePaul University students last week: “We have lost sight of the historic, integral link between the party and African-Americans. This party was co-founded by blacks, among them Frederick Douglass. The Republican Party had a hand in forming the NAACP, and yet we have mistreated that relationship. People don’t walk away from parties, their parties walk away from them.”

I’m surprised he didn’t make the obligatory reference to Abraham Lincoln in answering why the party of red rarely resonates with the black and brown faction of the electorate.

With minorities on their way to becoming the majority in this country, the Grand Old Party is doing a disservice to itself by consistently propping up older white male Protestants candidates — and women who sound exactly like them.

With the ever growing immigrant population from Latin America, the Republican Party will lose more ground to the Democratic Party unless we turn things around.

Governor Palin is an ethnic escapist dream where simple rural girls best slick urban intellectuals.

If President Obama is serious about becoming the centrist he attempted to run as during 2008 and pull in his party’s extremism, he has a good chance of being able to gain some considerable legislative wins during 2010 and, perhaps, lessen the losses for his party in November.

For most Republicans the history of abortion extends back no further than the Supreme Court’s 1973 judgment in Roe v. Wade that struck down state laws banning the practice. A better sense of where we came from might help us understand where we are and why we have been unable to reach a legislative compromise on this issue.

Abortion has been practiced for millennia and we have literary evidence of it going back to ancient Egypt and India. Classical doctors and philosophers wrote about abortion and the early Christian Church wrestled with the practice. It has been variously banned, approved, encouraged and curbed at different times and among different cultures.

“Light-skinned” African-American; “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one” is what the accused, US Senator Harry Reid, admitted saying in reference to the current President of the United States. Members of the jury I want it noted that both the senator and the commander-in-chief are members of the political party ( Democrat ) which brands itself as African-Americans secular saviors. I want the record to reflect my shock ( yeah right! ) that a Democrat of such stellar standing would stoop to racist language more fitting a Republican. This imaginary opening statement is from a trial by public opinion envisioned to address these comments. As y’all can see, I’m no fan of racists or Democrats per se.

Memo to Black Folks and progressives: You’ve got your share of ideological Klansman too!! They just mask it better than counterparts on the political Right. We should welcome this revelation about the good Senator as proof that prejudice isn’t conveniently confined to White folks with ” R” for Republican after their names. Lest we forget, Southern Democrats met all 20th Century federal civil rights legislation with rhetorical pitch forks jabbing. These jabs were punctuated by police gunfire and billy club blows targeting down South civil rights protesters. Officers in these violent jurisdictions were proud ” yellow dog Democrats ” since that was the only party in the South at that time. I’ve seen too much racism from Dems local and otherwise to fall for their ” Black people’s best friend ” routine. The GOP has set new lows in modern racism itself but at least their racists are up front about it. I respect honesty over patronizing lies any day of the week.

I believe innocent life should be defended at all costs and the guilty should be punished. I believe this country has the right to defend itself preemptively, and I believe for the most part we make an effort to do so as honorably as possible without compromising our safety, and while that may not always meet the standards of international laws it meets the standard of the Constitution and that’s golden by me. I believe the money we earn is ours, and only what is absolutely needed should go into taxes for social programs that we know work or are incentive based. I believe charity should be a product of free will, and its best when it is a product of free will going where the individual intends it, doing what they designate, and going to those they believe deserve it. This is the core of conservatism. It is good. And I choose to live it.

This week “National Public Radio” profiled Marvin Rogers an urban Republican who has been featured on HHR many times.

Marvin is the type of Republican that Jack Kemp would have been proud of here is a guy who is truly ‘on the ground” in urban areas spreading a genuine message of personal empowerment.

Let me explain. I’m a fairly well-educated guy that lives in the city, drive a Prius, gives to public radio and likes organic food. But if you think that his means I’m some kind of lefty liberal, you are so wrong. I don’t support the President’s health care plan (even though I do think there is room for reform). I am upset at his high spending habits. That should be something that would want to make the GOP go after people like me. But as Michael Petrilli notes, many in the Republican Party are not interested:

In all the stories about former GOP candidate Dede Scozzafava and why she pulled out the race, there has developed a certain meme as to why she did not win in a three way race: she was a bad candidate.

In more than a few blog posts not only from her detractors, but from those who say they want a more expanded GOP, this meme has stuck and it even has an image, one of Scozzafava going to campaign in front of conservative challenger Doug Hoffman’s headquarters surrounded by Hoffman supporters. For many this is proof positive that Scozzafava was a dunce, a weakling, an all around inferior candidate.