Blacks, the GOP and Gated Communities

Lieutenant Governor Michael Steele has almost certainly increased his name recognition after his scathing (and anonymous) comments about George Bush and the Republican Party were reported Tuesday in the Washington Post.
It took less than a day for the media to smoke him out, and as TPM's Daily Muck reported, Steele responded by making nice with Bush (calling him his homeboy) and complaining that the interview was supposed to be off the record. A subsequently published email showed that Steele understood that the interview was conducted on background, meaning that quotes were allowed "under the condition that he be identified only as a GOP Senate candidate."
Had Steele provided reporter Dana Milbank with the usual bland blather, no one would care about the terms of the interview, but Steele was nothing short of incendiary:

The response to Katrina was "a monumental failure," he continued. "We became so powerful in our ivory towers, in our gated communities. We forgot that there are poor people."

The News Journal reports that Steele repeated some of the same themes last night to a group of black Republicans that calls itself the Underground Republican Party of Delaware.

Poverty and disempowerment, he said, was evident in the fallout after Hurricane Katrina.
"It was the first time in a generation we saw poor people," he said. "We forgot they existed. We pulled into our gated communities and flipped on FOX ... and we forgot. And on that fateful day, we woke up to reality."

So why is Michael Steele running for the Senate as a Republican? A comment from his interview with the Post offers a clue:

"You don't go to Congress to become the party that you've been fighting for 40 years."

Former Philadelphia 76er Charles Barkley, who has never been shy about speaking his mind, has long considered running for office in Alabama. As ABC reports, his ambition hasn't changed, although his party affiliation has:

For years, former Philadelphia 76er Charles Barkley has discussed running for governor as a Republican in his home state of Alabama.
This month, Barkley refueled talk about his future candidacy, except there was a change: He would run as a Democrat.
"I was a Republican until they lost their minds," the man once known as the "Round Mound of Rebound" said at a celebrity golf tournament earlier this month.