Posted on 06/30/2014 4:38:08 AM PDT by Kaslin
Incumbent Republican Senator Thad Cochran’s successful game plan, which drove his run-off victory over Tea Party challenger Chris McDaniel for Mississippi’s Republican Senate nomination, was unconventional.
But most incredible was the success of this game plan – to reach out to liberal black churches and get Democrat black voters to turn out and vote for Cochran – despite being executed in broad daylight.
Soon after Cochran lost to McDaniel in the primary, necessitating a run-off because McDaniel fell short of getting 50 percent of the vote, papers reported the intent of Cochran’s team to turn out black Democrats to overcome the thin margin by which Cochran lost.
McDaniel knew exactly what to expect. The Cochran campaign told him. Yet he remained a spectator through it all. His counter strategy was no counter strategy and just continue what he was already doing. Appealing just to Mississippi’s conservative white electorate.
Sitting in the White House today is the most left-wing president in the nation’s history, elected twice without winning the white vote. I have written about the demographic changes taking place in the country and the need for Republicans to talk about limited government and traditional values to non-white Americans.
If this is true about the nation as a whole, it certainly is true in a state like Mississippi whose black population, at 40 percent of the state, is the largest in the nation. Half this black population is poor.
Cochran’s forces dumped money into liberal black churches, communicating that he is their champion because of the government pork he’ll continue to bring into the state.
But a news flash for McDaniel, which he should know, having served as a state senator, is that not all blacks are liberals. In Mississippi’s huge black population are many conservative black pastors who want freedom for their flocks. They know that black poverty is not about government money.
A few of these conservative black pastors in Mississippi are part of the national pastor network of my organization, CURE.
Former NFL star Brett Favre made an ad for Cochran in which he talked about Cochran getting “…critical funding for our schools.”
But in the latest Quality Counts report from the publication Education Week, Mississippi is rated 51st in the nation, among 50 states and Washington, DC, in K-12 student achievement.
The report continues, as reported in Mississippi Business Journal, that “Mississippi ranked among the lowest 10 states in providing young people a chance for success in life, financing schools and improving teaching.”
If the success of Mississippi’s schools was about “critical” funding from the federal government, why are they the worst in the nation?
The main victims of Mississippi’s dismal schools are black children.
In a Pew Research survey of last October, 25 percent of blacks expressed favorability toward the Tea Party, just 6 points less than whites.
But the McDaniel campaign seemed clueless that there were potential allies in Mississippi’s huge black population to counter Cochran’s liberal assault.
It is pathetic that some commentators are actually writing that Cochran’s government plantation appeal to blacks shows how Republicans can reach this community.
In a scene early in the Oscar-winning film Patton, General Patton, who was sent to take command of the demoralized American troops in North Africa in the early days of World War II, is shown looking through field glasses, watching a tank battle which would become America’s first victory in North Africa. He studied the tactics of his adversary German commander Field Marshall Erwin Rommel. As he watched, Patton bellowed out “ Rommel, you magnificent b------, I read your book!”
Thad Cochran laid it out for McDaniel – he gave him his book - but McDaniel chose not to read it.
There are plenty of black conservatives who understand that big government politicians – Democrats or Republicans – hurt their communities. They just need Republican candidates to recognize they exist.
Perhaps there is someone else who can answer my Reagan question?
That’s my point as well.
Reagan would have never pandered like this:
Reagan didn’t get the votes of ‘Reagan democrats’ by pandering to the left. They saw the validity of his arguments and voted for him.
My grandmother was a Roosevelt dem that had voted for Carter. She voted Reagan in ‘84. First Republican vote of her life, btw. She didn’t do it because he was promising ‘our handouts are just as good as the other guys handouts’. Which is what happened in the MS election.
Reagan went out of his way to deliberately target Conservative Democrats on the basis of Conservative ideals. Going after the blue collar, Catholic, union voters (later referred to as “Reagan Democrats”) is the historical analogy to what I and a number of are suggesting needs to be done with the Black community.
Reagan was a jovial, likable, telegenic, intelligent man. The role of President fit him like a glove. He cared about America and Americans. He was not above protectionist measures when faced with egregious examples of unfair foreign competition. It felt good to be American again, after nearly a decade of being dragged through the mud. The economy took off, after a very sharp recession that was induced to wring high inflation out of the economy. He was a leader. I do not recall his ever pandering outright to anybody, whether that was due to racial considerations, sex or anything else. But, he also didn’t disparage. He was a positive man who believed positive things, who happened to be pretty conservative. I was and still am proud to have cast my very first Presidential election vote for him. He’s probably the only one of which I can still say that.
Reagan didn’t pander.
Reagan (and his campaign) did engage in deliberate, targeted and often personal outreach to bring Conservatism into new areas.
It’s funny to think of where Christianty would be (or rather, wouldnt be) today if Christ and the Apostles just sat back and said “We have all these great ideas, all we have to do is sit back and let people come to us to learn about them)
Thank you for your input. Historically speaking, I still have some catching up to do. But from my years of listening to Rush I had gathered that Reagan did not balkanize the populace. He sold conservatism. He sold it like nobody has done since. He did indeed win Dem crossover voters. I do not know how many black votes he accrued. But my understanding is that conservatism, presented powerfully & accurately enough, appeals across racial lines.
The idea that black Americans are fundamentally different is irksome. What do they want that white conservatives don’t want? We want prosperity, freedom, good schools, safe neighborhoods, a strong defense dept., a healthcare system that, unlike Obamacare, actually works, and a government that fears us, not vice versa. How are blacks’ needs unique?
Educating people on why & how conservatism is in their best interests is not pandering. Can you cite a specific occasion, with a link, in which he singled out blacks & spoke to their unique needs?
That is an amazing post. It felt so good, just to read it. I’m sorry I missed the Reagan years. What a time to be a liberal. But your post helped me live it vicariously, at least for a moment or two. Thank you!
Too many of them have been bought, Fantasywriter. Just too many. That’s where the entire populace is headed. People generally don’t bite the hand that feeds them. I’m aware of the innate social conservatism of many if not a majority of black people, I’ve attended church with black friends numerous times. It’s a curious disconnect, between the religious beliefs and the political behavior. I’ve thought as you do in the past. It doesn’t seem tenable anymore though, sad to say. I’d love to be proved wrong.
I already covered this. See my post 83.
I’m on my smartphone, but if you want to do the research you might want to start with his receiving the endorsement of Ralph David Abernathy in 1980.
Of course you qualify your statement with the term “unique needs”, which no one is really talking about and could be interpreted as a strawman.
McCain did that. He got less than 5% of the black vote in ‘08.
Romney did it as well. He got even less of the black vote than McCain.
Reagan even got lifelong democrats like my grandmother to vote for him. And her in her late 60’s at the time.
He didn’t do it by being a better democrat. He did it by continual enunciation of conservatism. And showing that in his first term.
My grandmother didn’t vote for the ‘moderate democrat’ running with an R next to his name, she voted for a conservative.
I agree with what you said. The GOPe, working in conjunction with the Dems, has done a lot of damage. The entitlement mentality is strong. Yet Reagan faced many obstacles as well. His likeable, positive nature, as you pointed out in your first post, overcame many of them for his first win. The wave of prosperity he ushered in during his first term carried him to a great victory for his second win.
I really don’t see how it’s fundamentally different now. Yes, the entitlement mentality is deeply entrenched. But the right conservative, with a sufficiently powerful message, could quite easily win a first term, if only by a couple of percentage points. Like Reagan, they could sweep to a major second term victory on the strength of the positive developments engendered by their conservative policies. All is not lost. It just takes one really strong candidate to turn the tide, at least temporarily.
So are you saying that Blacks (or at least enough to make a difference) are unreachable, and therefore not worth the effort?
What I recall are McCain and Romney going before unrepentant Liberal organizations like the NAACP, more to show that they had (and hence wouldn’t get beat up by the press for doing so). They weren’t evangelizing Conservatism.
If black voters’ needs aren’t unique, then why is a unique sell necessary? Just sell conservatism, a al Reagan, & win voters across racial lines.
Get beat up in the press for not doing so, correction to my above.
I hope you’re right, but that hope appears to be fading. My pessimism stems from the fact that actions of the Republican party today would have been condemned by most Democrats of the Reagan era. Genuine conservatives are being increasingly marginalized, even painted as enemies of the state, and not just by Democrats. Republicans are joining in.
Because you have to go TO them in order to sell them.
How many union plants did Reagan go to during his campaigns? Should he have not gone there?
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