This past weekend at the Republican Leadership Conference in New Orleans, attendees who voted in a straw poll gave almost 60 percent of their straws to Hispanic-American Ted Cruz (30.3 percent), who edged out African-American Ben Carson (29.4 percent), leaving all others, only one of whom broke 10 percent, in the dust.
In what should be considered embarrassing timing, LA Weekly Magazine is running a June 1 cover cartoon showing establishment and anti-establishment Republicans playing tug-of-war with an elephant in the middle. Among those pulling on the anti-establishment side is a hooded Klansman who serves as the primary puller (reproduced after the jump for fair use and discussion purposes; HT Joel B. Pollak at Breitbart via Godfather Politics):
As if that's not enough, astute viewers will note another rope puller on the anti-establishment side is wearing military camo and a hat with what could be construed as the Confederate flag.
Now check out the incredibly weak justification for the inclusion of the Klansman (bolds are mine):
Editor-in-chief Sarah Fenske explained the L.A. Weekly's cover art to Breitbart News on Sunday.
"The goal with any cover is to get people to pick up the paper and read the journalism within. They're not a literal illustration of the story inside (otherwise you might have seen a very dull caricature of Kashkari and an equally bland one of Donnelly)," she said.
Fenske allows that the goal of the cover was to mock the GOP: "Our creative director, Darrick Rainey, worked with the illustrator to incorporate some funny images of constituencies who might want to shape the future of a party that's fallen on very hard times in California: fat-cat bankers, Minutemen, Tea Party activists, etc."
She told Breitbart News that the choice of a KKK figure was inspired by a claim by David Duke in 2011 that Tea Party activists had urged him to run for president. "David Duke claimed some activists urged him to run for president in 2012; it's not inconceivable his ilk might want to be among them."
She provided no actual proof of Tea Party support for the KKK--an organization closely connected, historically, with the Democratic Party.
What a crock.
It's also "not inconceivable" that David Duke, a convicted felon who is not even a registered voter in Louisiana any more, was making up his alleged support from "Tea Party activists."
As noted, it's completely conceivable that the KKK was a Democratic Party organ for decades until its virtual marginalization several decades ago.
Would it have any basis in reality to draw a Democratic Party tug of war with a KKK member? No. But it also has no basis in the GOP, whose Leadership Conference just gave a strong majority of its straw poll support to non-white potential 2016 presidential candidates.
LA Weekly should be embarrassed. Instead, they seem rather proud of themselves.
Cross-posted at BizzyBlog.com.
