The point is, if Thompson voted for the bill, he would be accused of supporting affirmative action because the bill provides exceptions for continuing affirmative action in ‘traditional black universities’
Yes, you can concoct a strawman argument that incorrectly confuses non-objectionable affirmative action ‘outreach’ programs with objectionable affirmative action preferences, but its FUD.
Those exception are of no account, and there was no bill out there that went further than the Gramm Amendment or the Dole -Canady bill in stopping preferences.
“The point is, if Thompson voted for the bill, he would be accused of supporting affirmative action” ... no, he would have been accused by liberals of ‘destroying 30 years of civil rights’. And if he is real lucky, he’d get called a racist, just like the real front-and-center valiant conservative activists who were trying to end affirmative action preferences ...
CONSIDER WHAT THOMPSON HELPED STOP IN 1995:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-srv/politics/special/affirm/stories/aa072895.htm
“Senate Majority Leader Robert J. Dole (R-Kan.) introduced broad legislation yesterday that would go beyond a recent Supreme Court ruling and end race- and gender-based federal affirmative action programs.
The bill, the product of months of discussions, fulfills a promise Dole made earlier this year and gives the GOP’s leading presidential contender a marker in the tense national debate about where remedies to discrimination should begin and end. The same bill was introduced in the House by Rep. Charles T. Canady (R-Fla.).
“For too many of our citizens,” said Dole, “our country is no longer the land of opportunity but a pie chart, where jobs and other benefits are often awarded not because of hard work or merit, but because of someone’s biology.” Dole said his bill would “get the federal government out of the business of dividing Americans and into the business of uniting Americans.”
Affirmative action proponents, however, portrayed the legislation as anything but unifying, saying it would wipe out 30 years of civil rights enforcement policies. The bill demonstrates how far Dole is on the issue from President Clinton, who said last week a review of federal affirmative action programs showed they work and that cases of reverse discrimination are rare. Ironically, Dole once supported some of the same policies he now wants to abolish.
...
Yesterday, Dole and Canady were flanked by a “rainbow coalition” of conservative Hispanics, blacks, white women, Asian Americans and white men in an elaborate ceremony at the Capitol intended to signal broad public support for the bill. So far, Dole has eight co-sponsors in the Senate. Canady said he has 70 in the House.
Called the “Equal Opportunity Act of 1995,” the Dole-Canady bill would end the use of “racial and gender preferences” in federal contracting, hiring and other federally conducted activities. It would not ban the government from engaging in “outreach” and recruitment, the new GOP buzzwords for affirmative action.
...
As one indication of the Senate’s mood for dealing with affirmative action right now, an amendment to eliminate set-asides for minorities and women was overwhelmingly defeated last week. Sen. Phil Gramm (R-Tex.), the amendment’s author and Dole’s chief presidential rival, has since scaled back on his promise to offer his amendment on every appropriations bill that reaches the Senate floor, acknowledging he has little chance for success. “
So there was a major effort in 1995 and 1996 to end affirmative action *PREFERENCES*, not affirmative action as a whole, but the more objectionable preferences policies.
Conservatives like Gramm and Dole were front and center on it. Where was Thompson?