Posted on 09/25/2004 3:29:34 AM PDT by Cincinatus' Wife
..voter intimidation........The Orlando Sentinel and The Associated Press reported the allegations in July, but the story attracted little attention until it was repeated by Bob Herbert, an op-ed columnist for The New York Times, several weeks later.
"The long and ugly tradition of suppressing the black vote is alive and thriving in the Sunshine State," Herbert wrote.
Since then, the allegations have been repeated in numerous newspapers, on National Public Radio, at Salon.com and elsewhere.
Six House Democrats, including U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown of Jacksonville, asked Attorney General John Ashcroft to investigate. That was followed by an identical request from Democratic U.S. Sens. Bob Graham of Florida and Hillary Rodham Clinton of New York.
.... At a church on Orlando's west side Wednesday, the voters league shared its concerns with members of an international group that is in Florida to monitor the November election.
....FDLE administrators have said allegations that they intentionally intimidated black voters are unfounded.
Officials said they selected several female agents to help with the interviews so voters would be more at ease. Most of the interviews were conducted the same day in June, and no voters have been contacted since then, they said.
FDLE officials also have said the stories of intimidation were trumped up to distract from the ballot-tampering accusations lodged against Thomas.
"We welcome the investigation," FDLE spokesman Geo Morales said.
Some prominent members of Orlando's black community give little credence to reports of a systemic effort by the FDLE to stifle the minority vote.
.... Daisy Lynum, a black city commissioner who has always been quick to speak up about racial inequities suffered by her constituents, said a few of those interviewed by the FDLE did feel intimidated by the visit. But that wasn't the FDLE's intent, she said......
(Excerpt) Read more at orlandosentinel.com ...
I remember very well the cover of the Miami Herald the Sunday before election day 2000, talking about how Jeb's One Florida plan would effectively shut out all blacks from the state university system (it didn't). I also remember the massive phone banks and Church busses being used to drive invalids and altzhemers cases from the ghetto to the polls.
Is it possible to give the liberal hand wringers a chill pill and call it a day... ?
In 1948, super-attorney Clark M. Clifford, then a liberal advisor to HST, prepared a memo saying that the "Solid South" has been and can continue to be "safely ignored" in Democrat presidential campaigns. Well, in 2004, we can still say that the black vote can be "safely ignored" by the Democrats. No matter what, blacks will be just as loyal to Kerry as they were to his soulmate George Stanley McGovern 32 years ago.
Eventually she claimed Donna Brazil's sister had had to supply three different forms of ID.
Blacks MUST start realizing that the scares repeated every election year haven't happened.
Has George W. Bush denied education, starved old people, polluted the water, locked people out of home ownership.
What? What is it that will make them break from the awful enslavement of the Democratic Party?
I myself have seen white robed men on horseback driving herds of black folk away from polling places.
At night the sky is bright from the flames of burning crosses, and churches.
Yes siree ... we've got trouble right here in River City, and it is spelled Dimocrat dementia.
Let the demagoguery begin.
The last two paragraphs are priceless.
_____________________________________________
GOP needs new tactics to recruit black voters (Sept 25, 2004)
BY ALBERTA PHILLIPS
aphillips@statesman.com
I always have been amused by white folks' perception that blacks are liberal, especially when I'm sitting in a pew on Sunday mornings.
In any number of African-American churches nationwide, you might easily get the idea that you were at a meeting of the Republican-leaning Christian Coalition, based on the text of the sermons.
Black ministers and many in their congregations fall on the same side as the Republican Party's conservative wing when it comes to gay marriage, abortion, school choice and school prayer. There is a heavy dose of personal responsibility in sermons -- urging fathers to take responsibility for their children, women to yield to men as heads of the household, and youths to reject drugs, crime and friends who steer them into trouble.
Those, too, are popular themes with the GOP. Even so, the party has failed to make inroads with blacks, who once were as loyal to the elephant as they now are to the donkey.
I could fill this space with reasons why the Republican Party is persona non grata with many black people. I'd certainly include the party's two-faced stance on respect for life and the family -- it wants to halt abortions but expand state executions; celebrate the family but toss poor children off government health-insurance programs.
But at the top of my list of why the GOP has failed to convert blacks is that it has dispatched the wrong messengers to recruit them. To win the trust of whites, black Republicans have emphasized their conservative credentials and played down their heritage. Deemphasizing their culture made them more attractive to whites but less appealing to blacks.
That's why many African Americans reject leaders such as Ward Connerly, who made a name by eliminating affirmative action in higher education in California, but why Colin Powell is still popular. Powell, the first African-American secretary of state, never wavered in his support of affirmative action. If anything, he shored up his support among African Americans by breaking with his boss, President Bush, who opposed the University of Michigan's affirmative-action policies.
Black arch-conservatives actually do more harm than good in wooing blacks because, let's be honest, African Americans view them largely as sellouts. Absent certain cultural credentials, a black face is not enough to win votes or recruits.
'The community asks us one question first, second and third: `Are you still black?' '' said Michael Williams, Texas railroad commissioner, a Republican.
After getting nowhere with extremely conservative blacks, the GOP is changing its tactics. Perhaps it knows that it can't remain the majority party in Texas, or keep control of all three branches of federal government, with white votes alone. To stay on top, it has no choice but to attract minority voters in significant numbers. Increasing Bush's share of the black vote to 20 percent could help swing this year's presidential election, Williams said. Bush took 9 percent of the black vote in 2000.
That's why boxing promoter Don King has hit the campaign trail for Bush and why Williams, too, is crisscrossing Texas and the country. And it's why Jacqueline Hawkins has formed the East Austin Republicans Club.
''We aren't about a hard sale at this time, but make no mistake, we let people know why this president deserves another four years,'' Hawkins said.
Williams and Hawkins believe that, with the right messengers, the Republican message of expanded homeownership and lending for small businesses, as well as Bush's initiative to divert government money to faith-based programs, is an easy sell. They've got a point.
But they recognize that if the party truly wants to compete for black votes, it must overcome blacks' image of the party as one that is insensitive to the less fortunate and hostile to civil rights.
After all, it was the Republicans' embrace of segregationists and their policies -- and Democrats' support for civil rights -- that drove blacks to trade in their elephants for donkeys.
This is a disgrace. They report allegations. If this is happening, let's charge someone, bring evidence and get a conviction. If you don't have any evidence, which you don't then quit whining.
Why doesn't this loser just write. "It has been repeated in every LIBERAL SOCIALIST RAG in the nation." The only surpression that is taking place in this country right now is democrats who try to keep black kids in hell hole projects, and delapidated educational institutions that would be better used as bomb shelters.
Dems use the poor for thier social engineering projects and keep on insisting the indoctrinators teach SELFISHNESS as a valid educational subject.
"After all, it was the Republicans' embrace of segregationists and their policies -- and Democrats' support for civil rights -- that drove blacks to trade in their elephants for donkeys."
I don't suppose that presenting the writer with the fact that just the contrary is true would cause a change of mind?
...and it's embarrassing.
Maybe now would be a bad time to admit I live in Orlando! ;-)
'... John asked her to name ONE. Just ONE..."
That question has been asked many times of many different people and as of yet I haven't seen an answer. Are they EVER going to get over the 2000 election? I fear the same rhetoric will be heard after this election. I hope the margin is big enough to rule out any recount otherwise we're going to see a repeat of the 2000 election antics.
That Miami Herald piece isn't about truth, it's about socialist ideology clinging to LIES.
I see I forgot to post the LINK (Post #11)
http://www.miami.com/mld/miamiherald/news/opinion/9745840.htm
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