Mia Love, Mayor of Saratoga Spring, Utah spoke at the National Republican Convention in support of the Romney-Ryan presidential ticket. Her theme was "The America I know".
“My
parents immigrated to this country with $10 in their pockets and the hope that
the America they learned about really did exist. When tough times came, they
didn’t look to Washington. They looked within,” she said. She
described the America she knew growing up as “centered on self-reliance, filled
with all of the possibilities of living the American dream”.
As I listened to her remarks, I wondered who is Mia Love? Well, Mia Love, a Mormon, is running for Congress, hoping to be the First Black Republican Woman in Congress from Utah's 4th District. I know "the Republican Party is trying to do it's best to produce a diverse face" and Love's personal story provides a counter to the party's difficulties with African-American and women voters. John McCain, Paul Ryan, and other Republican luminaries have helped Love in her efforts to defeat the incumbent Democrat Jim Matheson whom she trails by seventeen points. She's been coached on public speaking by a member of Mitt Romney's team. sounds like a win-win situation. The Romney-Ryan campaign gets the endorsement of an articulate, ambitious African -American woman and Mayor Love gets help with fundraising and is introduced to the nation from the G.O.P convention floor.
"I can win those votes: the independents, the moderates, the women voters, the people who've kept Jim Matheson in office for a dozen years through six elections," she said at Utah's Republican nominating convention in April. She's also said that she does not expect to face racial and gender barriers.
Utah, the Beehive State, isn't that diverse, ideologically or racially: It's both both ruby red and lily white, 84% white and 2.5% African-American, At home, at least, there just aren't that many black folks or moderates whom Love can court for votes.Saratoga Springs is 93% white and 1% African-American. Yet, her convention speech could put her on the radar of donors across the country, whose dollars might enable her to tighten the race.
Love's politics are in line with conservative Republican orthodoxy. She is anti-abortion, favors lower taxes and a repeal of President Barack Obama's health care law, and also wants to close the Departments of Energy, Education and Environmental Protection. States,
she said, should take back those duties along with health care. She's also a darling of Tea Party groups.
Love has been vocal in her disdain for black lawmakers in Congress. Earlier this year, she told the Deseret News that she would join the Congressional Black Caucus if she were elected, and then "take that thing apart from the inside out."
She's said that CBC lawmakers "profit from promoting an unsustainable entitlement system rife with failed poverty programs that perpetuates the culture of government dependency and discourages self-reliance among black Americans," and said that black voters need to know that their representatives "want to keep them on the 'government plantation.""It’s demagoguery. They sit there and ignite emotions and ignite racism when there isn’t," Love said. "They use their positions to instill fear. Hope and change is turned into fear and blame. Fear that everybody is going lose everything and blaming Congress for everything instead of taking responsibility."
The real questions are: can Mia Love help the Republicans with African-American and women voters and can Republican help Mia Love win her bid for Congress?
0 comments:
Post a Comment