Black Republican.Two words seemingly as antithetical as “civil war” or “Christian scientist” now head the Republican Party, as Michael Steele was elected chairman of the Republican National Committee on Jan. 30.Steele’s rise to national prominence began as the chairman of the Republican Party of Maryland. He was chosen to run for lieutenant governor by then-Rep. Robert Ehrlich against incumbent Lt. Gov. Kathleen Kennedy Townsend. Townsend’s candidacy was tainted by news of then-Gov. Parris Glendening’s involvement in a marital scandal and a very large budget deficit.After winning the election, Lt. Gov. Steele then campaigned for Maryland’s Senate seat in 2006, only to be defeated by Ben Cardin in a very tough year for Republicans.After spending time on the Fox News circuit — in which he guest-hosted a couple of times for Sean Hannity on “Hannity and Colmes” — he emerged as the RNC Chair, defeating Katon Dawson, a segregationist and a previous member of a whites-only country club.It took Republicans five hours and six ballots to choose between a black man and a segregationist.Maybe this is a new party.In his acceptance speech, he pledged to “bring this party to every corner, every board room, every neighborhood, every community, and we’re going to say to friend and foe alike, we want you to be a part of us, we want you to work with us.”And for those of you who wish to obstruct, get ready to get knocked over.”Last time I checked, Democrats control both chambers of Congress as well as the executive branch.One has to first pick their teeth up from off the ground and dust themselves off before they have time to knock anyone over.Steele’s selection only magnifies the many problems the Republican Party has with recruiting and maintaining a minority base.The GOP’s problems were exposed at last year’s convention, when the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies reported only 36 of the 2,380 Republican delegates were black, making it the most overwhelmingly white Republican Convention since the Joint Center began tracking diversity at conventions more than 40 years ago.It’s no wonder President Barack Obama won 95 percent of the black vote in the 2008 election.But the GOP continues to preach its long-standing commitment to diversity, continually citing themselves as “The Party of Lincoln.”First off, a Lincoln Republican is more similar to an Obama Democrat than, say, a Reagan Republican.Secondly, the Democrats and Republicans virtually changed ideologically in the 1930s and 40s, partly because of Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal and a new era of liberalism within the Democratic Party.In short, the Republicans ran out of good ideas.While Obama campaigned under a 50-state strategy while seeing through idiotic ploys on the part of Republicans to bait the Democrats into saying something stupid — including John McCain’s idea for a “gas-tax holiday,” which Hillary Clinton fell for, hook, line and sinker — Steele was busy inventing the chant “Drill, baby, drill!”Loosely stolen from the black power chant “Burn, baby, burn,” Steele invented the chant about offshore drilling — even though most experts agree drilling off our coastline will generate little to no impact for at least 30 years — and it became the beacon by which Republicans burned themselves on their way to an electoral embarrassment.Steele’s election displays backwards thinking under which Republicans operate. Instead of good ideas, they yield to their worst instincts.Republicans don’t need black leaders. They need actual leaders.——Contact Eric Freeman Jr. at [email protected]