"Hey - excuse me, homes!"
"We're from out of town."
Posted on 01/31/2006 12:08:58 AM PST by AZRepublican
A promising new black political figure is emerging in Ohio -- Ken Blackwell, a solid, pro-life conservative who has fought for lower taxes. He is seeking the Republican nomination for governor of Ohio and polls indicate that he has substantial support.
Unfortunately, Ohio's Republicans are a lot like Ohio's Democrats -- both are for higher taxes. On this and other issues, Blackwell is described in the current issue of City Journal as "often at war with his own party as well as the Democrats."
The Republican Party has not had much success attracting black votes in recent decades and conservative blacks have not had an easy time in the Republican Party.
Blacks have voted so overwhelmingly for Democrats for so long that Republicans have few incentives to try to gain black votes -- and little success when they do.
Political inertia can be powerful. The "solid South" voted consistently for Democrats for more than a century. Today, the Jewish vote is just as automatically for Democrats as the black vote is, and with even less reason, since Jews have little to gain from the welfare state and Israel's strongest supporters are religious conservatives.
When Republicans from time to time try to reach out to blacks, they tend to do so ineptly, if not ridiculously. For reasons unknown, they seem to want to appeal to black voters in the same ways that Democrats appeal to black voters, by adopting a liberal stance.
Why would anyone who wants liberalism go for a Republican imitation when they can get the real thing from Democrats? Republicans do not have a snowball's chance in hell of winning the votes of liberal blacks.
Nor are they likely to win a majority of the black vote as a whole any time soon. But if Republicans can get just a fourth or a fifth of the black vote nationwide, that can shift the balance of power decisively in their favor.
It is not rocket science to see that whatever chances the Republicans have of making inroads into the black vote are likely to be better among more conservative blacks.
Black religious groups opposed to abortion or homosexual marriage are an obvious group to try to reach. So are black business owners or military veterans.
Does anyone think that President Bush's awarding a Medal of Freedom to Muhammad Ali was likely to appeal to such groups? Yet this continues a pattern in which Republicans have tried to approach black voters from the left.
Back in 1997, when black Republican Congressman J.C. Watts denounced people like Jesse Jackson and then D.C. mayor Marion Barry as "race-hustling poverty pimps," House Speaker Newt Gingrich took it upon himself to apologize to Jesse Jackson.
To apologize for what another man said is to treat that man as if he were your child or your servant. Gingrich then added further insult by inviting Jesse Jackson to join him in his box for the Clinton inauguration for his second term as president.
Pulling the rug out from under your friends, in order to appease your enemies, may seem like clever politics to some people. But what could possibly have led Republicans to think that pro-Jesse Jackson blacks were ever going to vote for them?
Did they think that conservative blacks who might have voted for them were more likely to do so when Republicans embraced Jesse Jackson? Did they think that conservative blacks who might have considered becoming Republican candidates were more likely to do so after seeing how J.C. Watts had been treated?
Another conservative black Republican who had the rug pulled out from under him was Michael Williams, when he was in charge of civil rights at the Department of Education. Mr. Williams ruled that setting aside scholarships exclusively for minority students was racial discrimination in violation of civil rights laws.
This courageous ruling was over-ruled in the first Bush administration, leaving Michael Williams with egg on his face.
Ken Blackwell's candidacy for the Republican nomination for governor in Ohio is a golden opportunity for Republicans, not only in that state but on the national political scene as well. Still, Mr. Blackwell would do well to watch his back.
Sowell ping (for clyde now, for you when you get back, TC).
I had forgotten the incident with Gingrich and JC Watts. I won't forget it again.
because the governorship is a more dependable track to higher office such as POTUS. Guvs have exec experience, Senators - in their best days - are glorified lobbyists. I think only one senator has become president since wwII and that was JFK.
Besides, today's current crop of senators are imprinted with the image of losers/imbeciles - from daschle's obstruction to reid/kennedy/kerry frothings to herThighness' wet-finger-in-the-wind whims... nor are the republicans clean from this stain... mccain's stomping of the first amendment, frist's lack of backbone, specter...
who would want to be associated with such a group of political whores?
Yeah just like Jesse the Body and the Terminator. Just think two future governors starring in a classic like Predator.
I agree. I think the black community is starting to see past the DNC's race game. Since the Civil Rights bill The places where blacks have suffered the most has been in big cities run by democrats. The Dems know that highly successful minorities who own businesses are more likely to become Republicans than poor disenfranchised minorities. It sounds cynical to many people, but I honestly don't believe that the Dems want minorities to become wealthy.
Sowell bttt
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