Posted on 10/14/2006 6:53:35 AM PDT by sitetest
Residents in Western Maryland and on the Eastern Shore say there are many whites among them who will not vote for a black candidate, such as Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele, who is running for the U.S. Senate.
"Here in rural parts of the state, race might be an issue. It shouldn't, but it might," Greg Slick, a physical education teacher at North Hagerstown High School, said at a recent Friday night varsity football game. "They are not openly going to say it."
Mr. Slick, 52, a registered Republican who is white, said he will vote for Mr. Steele. But he added that the World Knights of the Ku Klux Klan is not based in nearby Sharpsburg by accident, despite public outcry every summer over the group's annual rally at Antietam National Battlefield.
"Someone is drawing them here," he said.
David Marshall, 54, a white waterman from Crisfield on the Eastern Shore, said he is sure some of the people he works with will vote against Mr. Steele because of his skin color.
However, he said he and his friends will vote for Mr. Steele, regardless of his race.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
I checked for this article, and didn't find it. If it's a duplicate, my apologies in advance.
Rob, you asked for info about the Maryland race.
Southern Md. has some of the same attitudes...
Yeah, right. Since most of rural MD goes GOP, Reps are racists. Steele may gain votes from black racists who won't vote for a white candidate.
Of course, it is only racist Republicans that would not vote for Steele. As we all know, there are no racist Democrats. (cough, cough)
Pinging some folks who have shown interest in Maryland races.
LOL!
Vote for our candidate or you're racist!
How lame can you get?
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Why someone votes or doesn't vote for a particular person is immaterial. I don't think voting or not voting on someone based on their skin color is any worse than voting for someone because they are attractive or not voting for someone because their ugly..
Can't we all just get along??? lol
Wonder if they studied to see how many blacks voted for the white Cardin as opposed to black Mfume in the Maryland dem primary?
Reminds me of Bobby Jindal's campaign for governor of Louisiana.
And to all those "Republicans" who won't vote for Steele... think about how things might have been different if Jindal had been in office during Hurricane Katrina rather than that incompetent Democrat governor!
Democrats who won't vote for a black man....
They weren't afraid of him in 2002.
Dear kabar,
Mr. Steele appears to be getting good (for a Republican) black support. Numbers have been between 25% and 33%.
Ordinarily, that would be enough to give a Republican statewide candidate about 55% of the vote in a two-way contest, since ordinarily, the Republican picks up nearly 2/3 of the white vote. Mr. Ehrlich got about 52% of the vote in 2002 with 22% of the black vote.
Yet, Mr. Steele hasn't been polling all that near to 50%. One poll that broke out the racial composition showed Mr. Steele getting around 54% of the white vote. If that holds, Mr. Steele loses, even with a third of the black vote.
sitetest
Dear misterrob,
"Democrats who won't vote for a black man...."
Yes, that's largely true.
Maryland's a strange place, politically. Democrats outnumber Republicans 2 - 1. Yet, outside of the three biggest jurisdictions, Baltimore City, Montgomery and Prince George's Counties, the state usually votes Republican. Balance the 21 jurisdictions that vote Republican against the 3 that vote Democrat, and you wind up with a solidly, but not spectacularly blue state.
Although the state usually goes Democrat, it doesn't do so by anything approaching a 2 - 1 margin.
But that doesn't mean that these folks who vote Republican are actually Republicans. A lot of them aren't. A lot of them are old time conservative Southern Democrats. But the emphasis should be on "old time" and all that implies regarding race.
I used to live in Prince George's County. In 1960, the county was 90% white. After forced busing to desegregate the schools was started in 1973, whites started abandoning the county in droves, mostly to the southern Maryland counties. By 1980, the county was majority black.
The folks who fled weren't all racists. But plenty of them were and many of them still are.
And lots of them are registered Democrats.
sitetest
My thought exactly. I know quite a few folks who did not vote for Jindal because he has brown skin. They learned a valuable lesson.
Ya'll are reading my mind this morning!
On the other hand his opponent is a Jew. What a quandary! So does this mean the Southern racists will sit on their hands? I doubt it. Many of them will vote a straight Republican ticket. They may know that Bob Ehrlich is a strong supporter of Maryland agriculture.
If Steele is defeated it will be because of Baltimore and insane Montgomery County. Liberals in Montgomery, Jew or gentile, black or white, will not vote for Steele.
And O'Malley will be elected governor. It's a very sad time for Maryland.
"On the other hand his opponent is a Jew."
Albeit without a Jewish-sounding name.
And those whites who moved from PG to Calvert Co. in the 1980's overwhelmingly elected a black sheriff (Vonzell Ward) over the incumbent white sheriff from an established family.
The story has too many "my friends will vote for him but I suspect others (who I don't actually know) won't" that it smells like a hit piece. I predict that Senator to be Steele will be received warmly throughout 'red' maryland.
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