What works?Most on this board are ideological, as am I. But most of our neighbors of all colors are watching the game or sitcom or anything but ideological rants.
They vote based on whom they think is friendly to them. Thus candidates spend a lot of effort on building the perfect image. The image of Republicans is split between friendly and unfriendly.
Bush freindly. Buchanan-PeteWilson-Tancredo-Dornan-JimRyan(here in Illinois) unfriendly.
In my minority majority suburb I got about 30-35% of the Black vote for Bush, and for the local Republican leader in 2001 as they are friendly. I didn't waste my time with unfriendly JimRyan in 2002. In my precincts, I am the Republican face. If I am freindly I get more votes. If I come accross unfriendly, I lose votes. (I come accross unfriendly to divorced and promiscuous women of which there are many in my suburb. I lose their vote 90-10.)
In the 2004 IL Senate race friendly Mr School Choice Jack Ryan is leading in the polls. I am backing Rauschenberger in the primary but can enthusiastically deliver for Jack Ryan in November if he wins the primary. Indeed, Jack Ryan in both the IL March primary and November will will be a major test of what does or does not work.
Jack is bucking most of the patronage dependent bi-partisan combine that has controlled IL Republicans for 30 years. At the State Fair those "thinka topinka" patronage employees of the State Party Chair were extremely hostile to the fact that Over 50 Blacks at the Fair on Republican day were supporting Jack. They will not work for Jack in November and Jack will need to find support elsewhere to win, as Fitz did 6 years ago with labor union support due to his populist spin on conservativism.
I am not just talking about Blacks, I am talking about PTA moms and nominal members of mainstream churches and many others not fixated on my ideological core issues.
I would whittle your listdown to one and hammer it and hammer it and hammer it until you break away that 25% chunck: school choice, school choice, school choice, school choice, school choice, school choice, school choice, school choice, school choice, school choice, school choice, school choice, school choice, school choice, school choice, school choice, school choice, school choice.
The democrats want you to stay in the worst schools and sentence your children to poverty. The republicans want to empower you to send your children to the best schools.
The concept of school choice gets about 80-85% approval in the black community. It is time the republicans bury the democrats on this one. It is there, it has been there, it is "low-hanging fruit".
Why the republicans have not pounced on this is beyond me
I'll take this a step further. After studying the history of politics in this nation between the parties...especially one part that is never taught...the history of early Civil Rights for Freed Slaves sponsored by the Creoles of Louisiana during Reconstruction..I was forced to come to a very ugly, scary, and sobering conclusion.
The Republicans failed to deal with the act of rebellion by the Landowner/Slave Party of the Democrats. The entire party should have been forcibly disbanded and outlawed. It's members in Congress and the Senate that participated in the Confederacy all impeached, and Union troops could've remained in force in the South as long as needed to ensure order was restored.
An entire culture, way of life as well as freedom and economic prosperity was nearly destroyed by Democrat-segregationists.They recognized that the Creoles of Louisiana idea to empower newly freed slaves by educating them, supporting them, uplifting them to their level would mean a permanent end to any future hope of controlling those of color for their economic gain. Not only that, since the Creoles had long proved the white supremacist notion of the inferiority of the person of color's ability to adapt to the white society's standard of living, they knew there would be a strong chance of success not only in uplifting the whole black race, but the Creole's propensity to pride in their culture would most likely rub off on the freedmen, and embolden them all the more. This called for the use of violence and fear tactics to keep the freed blacks at bay.
The Democrat party has historically proved itself adept at survival...especially at the expense of African Americans. Everytime they are forced up against the wall to finally let the blacks free to enjoy the rights of life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, they find some nifty way of enslaving blacks yet again. It was done through Jim Crow after slavery was ended, and the Creole/Abolitionist movement on national Civil Rights was crushed in Louisiana when reconstruction support from the Union was withdrawn. When a second Civil Rights struggle erupted in the 1960's, and it became clear that they were going to lose again..(Civil Rights act of 1964), they switched again. Unfortunately, Martin Luther King Jr. made a big mistake in publicly aligning himself with the Democrats...as much as Goldwater in the Republican Party would not sign on support for Federal intervention on Civil Rights on the grounds of State's Rights. He wanted Civil rights, but without Federal oversight. That was not only impossible for the time, it was flat out wrong. The U.S. Constitution was being violated by the entire Jim Crow South, denying the Federally Guaranteed rights to fellow U.S. citizens. This automatically triggers Federal intervention, as it is the duty listed in the constitution of the Federal Government to insure this for all of it's citizens. State's rights no longer apply here.
The Democrats simply changed their colors again, and convinced the politically naive black population at large that they were responsible for our new found rights. They used the Civil Rights connection emerging black leaders as a way to gain control over a block of newly found votes, control which was mandatory, or else those newly enfranchised blacks would wise up, and vote the entire Democrat segregation machine out of power enmasse...giving the Republicans the majority nationwide. It would be like the Reconstruction period all over, but politically. The Black Civil Rights leaders were essentially "Bought off"..given wealth, prestige, and the semblance of power..so long as they kept the "slaves" in line, and on the plantation. I.E....beholden to the Democrat Party. We had to be convinced to stay with our masters..through fear of the outside world, dependency on our government, and lowered confidence in ourselves to be able to make it in this country ourselves. All the exact opposite of what the Creoles would have taught 100 years prior. We also were pulled away from truly following God, as well as many of the moral groundings that accompany the faith. Again, opposite of what the Creoles stood for. Policies were put forth that strangely discouraged the formation and maintaining of stable families...welfare for one. Abortion and liberalization of women in the home to the point of destroying their ability to properly nurture their children. Pushing men to the fringes as fathers and husbands, and inserting the "massa" of big government (dominated by Democrats in big cities)as the "father". This all had the effect of stumping African American assimilation into society, limiting us to the poorer areas of major cities. The schools were allowed to degrade in those cities, while the Teacher's Union grew in strength and power. This further eroded our families in the ensuing generations...virtually keeping future blacks beholden to the masters of their parents and grandparents.
Sounds extreme? Study history...not according to the Democrats, but according to historians. Plenty of websites. So far, the socialists have not been able to rewrite history wholesale, as the Internet is too big.....yet.
Here is a website into the Louisiana State Museum. I would think the State of Louisiana should know it's own history well enough to tell it....
The Creoles have been dissed long enough. Republicans need to learn how to have a backbone like these people and follow through with destroying the Party of the Rebel Eternale....
http://lsm.crt.state.la.us/cabildo/cab11.htmhttp://www.loyno.edu/history/journal/1991-2/battle.htm
Republicans, of the post reconstruction era, abandoned efforts to franchise and mainstream blacks in a silent compromise of the last two decades of the 1800s. Those efforts, as much as the democrat KKK, allowed Jim Crow to be established in the south, but also in rural states up north such as Indiana and elsewhere.
Likewise, in efforts to break the "solid south" of the Democrats, Republicans let "States Rights" issues become a code-word hiding place for unreformed Segregationists to migrate to the Republican Party with only slow ripening efforts to internally seperate bigotry from "keeping politics local."
True, see my post about the Creoles and how they were first out of the gate with true Civil Rights for the newly freed slaves during Reconstruction. The Republican party lost it's nerve and struck deals with the Dems, abandoning the Creoles of color, and their poorer freed slave brothers/sisters...sentencing them to 100 years of segregation.
Only to have to repeat the struggle again 100 years later.
However, the thing about State's rights Republicans becoming Democrats I believe is a myth. Since the Dems had the majority power all during the 20th century, it would make no sense to switch sides from their point of view to become Republican. They held the power, and they made the rules. As for Republicans, if any did switch to Dems, it was because they were the rare "Liberal Republican" sort of speak. Republican in name only, they voted and acted like a Democrat racist. Very few Repubilcans fit this bill, and even so...labeling the entire GOP racist would be wrong as they would not have agreed with the "fake Republicans" to begin with. Then, I could see the Republican switching to the true party he belonged in.
