I Was The Blogger Who Asked the Question Behind Michael Steele’s Collard Greens Comment

The 2009 Young Republicans National Convention was fairly uneventful. It took place in Indianapolis that year. I rented a car and stayed outside the hotel where the event was taking place. I got very sick on that trip and I learned to drink properly. However, this trip would go down in history because of the one single question I asked GOP chairman Michael Steele.

In 2009, Barack Obama had just won the autumn before. The story at the time was his ability to reach out to minorities and LGBTQ folks and build a big-tent democrat party. In the GOP side, things were looking bleak. In response the GOP appointed Michael Steele as chairman to show that the GOP was just as diverse as the Democrats. Ah, simpler times! Democrats had swept into Congress and the White House on the extreme unpopularity of the out-going President George W. Bush and everyone was looking for answers. 

My involvement in GOP politics had started when I was 14. I was working on various campaigns through high school and I had started to get involved in the local Young Republicans chapter. I ended up being president of my chapter and I briefly served as state secretary. I moved up to Greeley, Colorado for college in 2007 and I had just graduated in 2009. I was 21, young, and a person of color–just the person the GOP was trying to reach out to in future elections. I was invited, as a journalist, to contribute a question to an interview with Michael Steele going on in a small room near a large reception for the convention attendee’s. 

I decided that the question I should ask is what his plans were to bring in people of color and others into the party.  I asked him what his plans were and I made the joke that I would bring potato salad. This question went around the world including the outro-segment of The Daily Show. It was also lambasted on a little-known-at-the-time news program called The Young Turks: 

At the time, I had no idea that this quote would get the kind of response that it did. It’s gone down as one of the most silly things any GOP chairman has said in recent memory. If you want to see me ask the question (and look good in a great jacket that I miss terribly!) take a look at the original video: