Perhaps the Republicans Need Black Friends. Leading Republicans seem to have a lot of problems with this "not being a racist" thing. Today, it was reported that Chip Saltsman, a candidate for chair of the Republican National Committee (RNC), distributed a Christmas CD to RNC members that included the song "Barack the Magic Negro."

The CD, called “We Hate the USA,” lampoons liberals with such songs as “John Edwards’ Poverty Tour,” “Wright place, wrong pastor,” “Love Client #9,” “Ivory and Ebony” and “The Star Spanglish banner.” Several of the track titles, including “Barack the Magic Negro,” are written in bold font.

The song, which debuted on Limbaugh’s show in late March 2007, latches onto an opinion column in the Los Angeles Times of the same title. That column, penned by cultural critic David Ehrenstein, argued that Obama could serve as a balm to whites who felt guilty about past treatment of African Americans.

There's a big disconnect here between Saltsman's smarts as a political operative and his ability to think about race and racism in the United States. According to sources, Chip Saltsman is a first-rate campaign manager and was described by Bill Frist as "a multi-talented superstar."

But Saltsman's response to the controversy over using "Barack the Magic Negro" as part of his campaign to become RNC chair is incredibly stupid.

Saltsman said he meant nothing untoward by forwarding what amounts to a joke more at Ehrenstein’s expense than at Obama’s. “Paul Shanklin is a long-time friend, and I think that RNC members have the good humor and good sense to recognize that his songs for the Rush Limbaugh show are light-hearted political parodies,” Saltsman said.

Given that it doesn't occur to Saltsman that he should care whether he's stigmatizing Barack Obama on the basis of race, I thought about recommending that Chiperino run these kinds of things by his black friends before he puts them out there.

But then it struck me that Chip Saltsman might not have any black friends and that not having any black friends is part of what's getting him into trouble.

The same might be the case with Republicans in general. Barack Obama got 96% of the black vote during the presidential election. Sure he was the first African-American nominee of a major political party. But Hillary would have done just as well with African-Americans if Obama had decided not to run. Likewise, there are no black Republican governors, Congressmen, or Senators, and there were only 36 black delegates at the 2008 Republican Convention (compared to 1087 black delegates at the Democratic Convention).

Outside of Shelby Steele and Michael Steele, there don't seem to be enough black Republicans to befriend top GOP figures like Chip Saltsman, steer them away from the use of racist symbolism, and help them develop some smarts about racial politics in our beloved country.

Perhaps the Republicans could start a "black friend" program to recruit African-Americans to help GOP presidential candidates, campaign managers, pollsters, consultants, and state party officials do a better job of presenting themselves to non-white populations.

Obviously, one could criticize this type of program as tokenism, but tokenism is a long if not an honorable tradition among white liberals. So, there's little justification for snobbery on the left.

More importantly, the Republicans have to start somewhere.