Posted on 11/15/2005 2:33:30 PM PST by FreeKeys
In the post-Civil War era, inspired by Abraham Lincoln and Union victory, those blacks who could overcome state requirements aimed at preventing their voting usually voted Republican.
President Dwight D. Eisenhower overwhelmingly was supported by blacks when he ran for re-election in 1956.
Then came Senator John F. Kennedy, D-Mass., in the 1960 presidential race. Blacks switched and voted for JFK. They helped him win that squeaker election against Vice President Richard M. Nixon.
What happened? At the time I had just begun my broadcasting career and was working at WLIP in Kenosha, Wisconsin. Working alongside me on weekends was DJ Hal Mason. Since I liked the sort of jazz he played on his show, we became good friends. I asked him why blacks suddenly had abandoned the party of Lincoln and switched to the Democrats, whose policies in the South, after all, were aimed at keeping blacks in their place.
Mason explained to me that Democrats worked the black community hard. Democrats attended events all year long. They showed up at black churches, at picnics and at businesses where blacks were employed.
Republicans, he explained, rarely campaigned except perhaps immediately prior to an election and then the Republican Party, he said, showed no interest in the black community as such.
Mason's comments made a deep impression upon me. For years after that, I tried to interest blacks in the conservative cause. The word "conservative" itself was poison in the black community, as it was looked upon as being synonymous with segregation.
President Nixon made an effort to reach the black community through small business initiatives. I played a small role in that effort. It worked, but Democrats continued to get the votes.
I tried in various ways over the years, first working with black mayors, then later with supporters of Justice Clarence Thomas, such as Phyllis Berry Meyers, to reach the black community. The efforts did not produce a great deal, although Meyers' initiative was the most productive. She taught me that to attract black Democrats, we must work through the church. We didn't have the keys to doing so. Democrats continued to receive the votes of black citizens.
In the past election, in Ohio and various other locations across the land, blacks were reached through the church on the marriage issue. Indeed, out of that has grown a working arrangement with African-American pastors and the Arlington Group (the coalition of social-issue conservative groups).
Led by the Reverend Bill Owens of Tennessee, this effort is at last bearing fruit. I had tried over the years to find the way that the values we represent could be explained to leaders of the church. Finally, we have that key in Owens, the Reverend Keith Butler of Michigan, and many others.
Meanwhile, Kenneth B. Mehlman, now Republican Party chairman after having been campaign manager for the George W. Bush 2004 presidential campaign, also shares my passion to bring aboard the black community – in his case, to the Republican cause.
For example, surveys show that the single most pro-life subset among American voters is American males. Republicans tend to be pro-life. Many Democrats are pro-abortion. Yet these same black males vote for Democrats.
Why? Because Democrats still show up at black churches and functions in the black community all year long. Republicans rarely are seen.
The Marriage Amendment to the Ohio constitution drew an unusually high turnout in the black community in northern Ohio, and some black voters voted for President Bush because Bush supported the Marriage Amendment and Senator John F. Kerry, D-Mass., opposed it.
So, while Mehlman certainly understands what needs to be done, black leaders such as Reverend Owens tell me that Republicans pay only lip service to them: "For us, it is still the back of the bus where the Republican Party is concerned."
Owens was shocked to find out that many conservatives feel the same way about the party. No wonder both conservatives and blacks get upset stomachs when they consider the GOP.
In Ohio, the Republican Party is in a shambles. Governor Robert Taft has contributed to ruining the party. Some surveys have reported his popularity to be as low as 20 percent. Taft and his scandals, as well as the behavior of Republican Senator Mike DeWine, who is up for re-election in 2006, have enraged conservatives.
Along comes Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell. First elected for two terms as state treasurer and then in 2002 secretary of state, getting nearly 50 percent of the black vote, Blackwell stands apart from the scandals. He alone supported the Marriage Amendment in Ohio, which received 500,000 more votes than did President George Bush for his re-election bid.
All other elected officials, such as Taft, DeWine and the other Republican senator, George V. Voinovich, opposed the Marriage Amendment. Blackwell not only supported it, he also campaigned for it. And he also campaigned for tax limitation. He has a commanding presence, is articulate and is the only hope for Republican retention of the Ohio statehouse next year.
So, what did the Party do? Did it embrace Blackwell to demonstrate that blacks are not given lip service but are welcomed by the party? No. The Republican Party recruited a candidate to run against Blackwell. Many Ohio GOP leaders evidently would rather control the wreckage than have the independent-minded conservative Ken Blackwell as governor.
Same thing in Michigan. Establishment Republicans had dropped out of the Senate race against incumbent Democratic Senator Debbie Stabenow. That left Reverend Keith Butler, the only Republican elected to the Detroit City Council since the 1920s. Over the years he has fed and clothed and housed thousands upon thousands of the poor.
So, did the Republican Party embrace Butler to demonstrate how, in this new era, blacks are part of the Republican Coalition? Not on your life.
Senator Elizabeth Hanford Dole, chairman of the Republican Senatorial Campaign Committee (RSCC), recruited a sheriff to run against Butler. Moreover, she bragged about it as one of her sterling accomplishments, since her recruiting fell short in many other states.
True Republicans are helping Lieutenant Governor Michael S. Steele, who seeks the open Senate seat in Maryland, because he has a strong Republican governor who is backing him all the way. When Dr. Alan L. Keyes twice ran in Maryland, he received little or no help from the Republican Party.
After all these years, the Republicans finally have an opportunity with Blackwell and Butler to show the black community that the doors are wide open. Both candidates strongly articulate conservative values. What is the problem?
Granted, Butler is an underdog against Stabenow and thus far has low name recognition. Blackwell actually is the front-runner for the moment, and if the GOP machine doesn't destroy him, he just might be elected governor. What a chance for the GOP to demonstrate a welcome to black conservatives.
After observing developments in Ohio and Michigan, however, one must conclude that perhaps Reverend Owens is correct when he says that Republican leadership encouragement is mostly lip service.
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Paul M. Weyrich is the Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation.
Same mistake President Bush has been making. The Democrats lied for years, and the Republicans didn't bother to correct them--until the lies were firmly implanted in people's minds, when it was too late.
As Woody Allen once said "90% of life is just showing up".
Woody Allen also said, "The worst orgasm I ever had was right on the money."
But that's another story.
I would be careful, then, not to touch the money.
Republican's record on blacks beats the Democrats hands down
Eewwwwww!! Did I start this line of thought?
"There are lessons to be learned if they haven't been already."
Lesson 1: Elizabeth Dole has the same political bent as her husband, without the funny sarcastic comments.
You sure that wasn't just a partially deaf reporter, and he wasn't saying "Soon-Yi" instead of "money?"
I have not seen a stronger or more appealing candidate in years than Ken Blackwell. It's time for Blackwell in Ohio. He's a true conservative. That's why the Republican elite doesn't want him around and the Democrat elite thinks he's Satan!
I have not seen a stronger or more appealing candidate in years than Ken Blackwell. It's time for Blackwell in Ohio. He's a true conservative. That's why the Republican elite doesn't want him around and the Democrat elite thinks he's Satan!
OK, SOME of us have learned; others, obviously have NOT.
#6 and #11 -- Thanks for the links!
Oh -- and is it true that Michael Moore is now chair of the El Paso County Republican Party?
Your expertise will probably be needed...
Eisenhower actually lost the black vote though he got 40 percent, much higher than Nixon.
Nixon in '60 got around 1/3rd of the Black vote, far higher than he would receive in '68 - which was only around that 10% figure (after many Black voters had become radicalized). One reason why Ike didn't do substantially better with Black voters was because Northern Blacks, who were virtually ALL the Black voters in the country (the ones registered in the South were virtually Republican to the last, but very few were voting), were living in cities where they voted en masse for the 'Rats (since post-1932, the last election that saw Northern Blacks voting majority GOP) because of the political machines in place. Even though Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. endorsed Ike in '56, I don't know if it carried that much of an impact. Powell himself might've served as a Republican in Congress in the early years, but opted for the Democrats because they were the already-entrenched political power both in NYC and in DC.
An unfortunate bit of business regarding Ike was that it was he, and not Nixon, that began the "Southern strategy", and it was used to ruthless effect as early as 1952. Here in TN, in Memphis, the local Republican apparatus was Black-run and entirely pledged to Sen. Robert Taft (the Black Republicans were more CONSERVATIVE than their White counterparts !), and were effectively taken over and deposed with Whites supporting Ike. It was actions like that that sadly saw virtually all Southern Blacks forced towards the 'Rats within a span of only 10 years in the South.
You are also right about the Southern strategy but it should be noted that both Stevenson and Kennedy (who won the enthusiastic endorsement of none other than James Eastland) also pursued Southern strategies.
It would be interesting to find some raw data on the percentages that Blacks supported the various Presidential candidates after 1928 (when Hoover received anywhere from 70-85% of the Black vote). I've never seen the figures for myself, only an occasional mention in an article here or there.
In defense of Stevenson & JFK, it was essential they hold those Southern states for obvious reasons (one reason Stevenson did not put JFK as his '56 running mate was because he had to put a Southerner as his #2, Alabaman John Sparkman in '52 and Tennessean Estes Kefauver in '56).
They never had to worry about pursuing the Black vote in the South prior to the 1960s since so few were enfranchised (and, of course, you could point up the hypocrisy of it going back to FDR, these great "liberals" who derived much of their power from a feudal Southern Democrat party).
The Republicans were forced to pursue the strategy in the South solely because their old bastions of power were shrinking in population and influence (and were becoming far more Democrat post-FDR). It's is perhaps not too hard to imagine what would've been left of the party had it stayed where and what it was then (perhaps looking to Massachusetts is a prime example - 50 years ago, the GOP was still a powerhouse there, albeit just about to undergo a radical transformation - today, it is not only not competitive, there is no state party anymore and a petrified GOP bench).
Forgive me, I'm veering off in another direction here...
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