GOP Presidential Candidates Should Denounce Bigotry of White Nationalist Featured at CPAC

People For the American Way today called on GOP presidential candidates to speak out against the inclusion of a white nationalist leader this week at CPAC, the Conservative Political Action Conference.

The conference--which will be addressed by Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich, Rick Santorum and other GOP leaders--will be hosting Peter Brimelow, the founder of VDARE, a white nationalist website which frequently publishes the works of anti-Semitic and racist writers. Brimelow, an immigrant from Great Britain, has expressed fear of the loss of America's white majority, blames non-white immigrants for social and economic problems and urges the Republican Party to give up on minority voters and focus on winning the white vote. He said that a New York City subway is the same as an Immigration and Naturalization Service waiting room, "an underworld that is not just teeming but also almost entirely colored."

"It's shocking that the CPAC would provide a platform for someone like Brimelow," said Michael Keegan, President of People For the American Way. "Responsible GOP leaders should speak out against the bigotry and hatred that Brimelow and VDARE push on a regular basis. That's doubly true of anyone who aspires to the presidency of the United States. Mitt Romney, Newt Gingrich and Rick Santorum need to make it perfectly clear that they won't be silent when they're confronted with racism and anti-Semitism."

VDARE has published the work of people like Robert Weissberg, who says that black and Hispanic students are responsible for problems in the American education system, Marcus Epstein, the Youth for Western Civilization leader who karate-chopped a black woman after calling her a n****r (and later pled guilty to assault), and J. Philippe Rushton of the eugenicist Pioneer Fund.

"The inclusion of Brimelow is all the more galling given the fact that another group, GOProud, was excluded from the conference simply for advocating equality for gay people," said Keegan. "CPAC should make very clear that hatred has no place in our civic discourse."

The Southern Poverty Law Center lists VDARE as a white nationalist hate group and notes that "VDARE.com's archives contain articles like 'Freedom vs. Diversity,' 'Abolishing America,' 'Anarcho-Tyranny -- Where Multiculturalism Leads' and 'Why Immigrants Kill."