Posted on 06/29/2004 11:46:04 PM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
Get ready for the unpleasantness. It's coming.
The revelation that blacks are about to become the majority in the Democratic Party in Georgia ratchets up the tension within the party and between the parties. One example came this weekend in Savannah, where the Georgia Association of Black Elected Officials gathered to hear U.S. Senate candidates.
The keynote speaker, the 82-year-old Rev. Joseph Lowery, endorsed U.S. Rep. Denise Majette, who has a virtual lock on her party's nomination. In a jab directed at Republican U.S. Senate candidate Herman Cain, a black man who succeeded in the private sector, Lowery equated skin color with ideology. Black is liberal. Colored is a slur. "There is a myth going around that to be rich and famous you have to be a Republican," he told the audience. "And some colored folks are falling for that. No black people, but some colored people."
The status gradations are lost on this white boy. But not lost is the intent to diminish by ridicule any African-American who might be drawn philosophically to a party of strong defense, limited government, low taxes and personal responsibility. When you listen to Cain, for example, or to Dylan Glenn, a candidate for Congress in the 8th Congressional District, it's pretty clear they would never have been comfortable as Democrats.
Blacks who share their conservative views might be cowed into silence, but with every passing election the ridicule becomes less effective. Blacks moving to the suburban lifestyle of neighboring counties are, like whites before them, on a journey that will take them from the Democratic Party as it is being defined.
People who choose suburbia are expressing independence. A suburban lot, like a farmer's field, defines an arms-length, non-intrusive relationship with government. Once you start looking at government across a quarter-acre of fescue as a homeowner, perspectives and politics change. You want government that respects boundaries, that is small, affordable and efficient even as it protects the commons.
In the cities, government may exist to provide jobs while providing minimal services when and however it sees fit. If you're a beneficiary, or without voice, that's acceptable. To those who pay for services, it's not.
Clearly, then, Lowery and others who insist on keeping blacks from drifting away from the Democratic Party are on a doomed-to-fail mission.
Majette will win the Democratic Party nomination. Majette's 4th Congressional District had the highest turnout of all the state's congressional districts, 79,000 voters, in the March presidential primary. When Majette beat Cynthia McKinney in the primary two years ago it was close to 120,000.
March turnout in the 6th District, home turf of the expected major challenger, Cliff Oxford, was about 40,000.
After Majette wins the Democratic primary, she will lose by a landslide. Georgia does not knowingly and intentionally send liberals to the U.S. Senate. When the electorate finds that it did, it recalls them at the earliest opportunity. Her politics make her unelectable statewide.
Will she lose because she's black or because she's liberal? The same can be asked of every black Democrat running statewide.
Georgia does not elect liberals statewide.
The Sierra Club, an organization identified with the liberal wing of the Democratic Party, last week offered a "dirty dozen" list of legislators who don't share its views on how to manage and protect the environment. Included were the usual cast of Republicans and conservative Democrats such as Reps. Bob Hanner of Parrott, Mickey Channell of Greensboro and Jay Shaw of Lakeland.
That's a significant list. The day will soon come when the liberal wing of the Georgia Democratic Party does what it did nationally. It will move the party left and drive conservatives out.
As that happens, blacks who aspire to political office have a choice. They can be liberals. Or they can be elected. But they can't be both.
ping
Seems to me that Joseph Lowery always was one of the nastier of the bunch, like Thurgood Marshall, his hate was driving his sanctimony.
Hopefully he'll live long enough to see the light.
I guess. Or show some grace and shut up.
Someone told me that the "Belway Boys" made the point last Saturday that Kerry is doing 74 and Bush 13 amongst Blacks. I didn't see that show but if those numbers are real, lurch is cooked. Bush could fail to pick up a single point of the last 13 and still double what he did in 2000.
Would anyone who saw that show and remembers where the numbers came from, please tell me via FR mail?
Thanks
African-Americans are extremely color-conscious -- something whites don't understand. When describing another, the first characteristic mentioned is the skin color.
I asked a black foster-child what one of his male acquaintances looked like (I wanted to know which one he was talking about), and he replied "Like my sister". I was confused how a boy could look like the girl, until it hit me -- I realized he was referring to skin color.
If Kerry is serious about diversity then he'll pick Rev. Al Sharpton for VP. President Bush has 3 of the highest cabinet positions with African Americans in them. The Democrats talk the big talk but then purposely hold minorities down to continue the discussion as political, Republican blame.
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