Posted on 11/22/2002 9:23:56 AM PST by chance33_98
Attention Party Indians and other Native American voters: Ranking the "modern" U.S. presidents
Posted: October 31, 2002 - 8:00pm EST by: Suzan Shown Harjo / Columnist / Indian Country Today
With the Nov. 5 election day fast approaching, seasoned vote counters say dozens of congressional races are too close to call and party leadership of the Senate and House is up for grabs.
In some states, both Democrats and Republicans are in a mad scramble for Indian votes and cash. In South Dakota, Indians often provide the margin of victory in congressional races, usually for Democrats, and Republicans are watching Indian voter registration like hawks.
South Dakota’s high-volume charges of voter fraud in reservations are not helping Sen. Tim Johnson, D-S.D., who has a good Indian policy record and deserves Indian votes returning him to the Senate.
The scandal also could hand the state’s only House seat to Gov. William J. Janklow (R), who deserves to be retired from his long career of disservice to Native Peoples and denied the opportunity to promote anti-Indian legislation in Congress.
Republicans in South Dakota say Indians there vote blindly for Democrats, irrespective of what’s best for them. Democrats and a voter rights lawsuit say many Indians are discouraged from voting at all. In this year’s congressional races, it is in the Indian interest to vote for the Democrats, sending Johnson back to the Senate and Stephanie Herseth (D), rather than Janklow, to the House.
Party politics are nothing new to Indian politicos. One of the most strategic was the late-Reuben A. Snake, Jr., (Winnebago/Sioux), a kindly leader who played hardball to better the lives of his people in Nebraska. In the 1980s, they suffered injuries and indignities under the regime of an entrenched local sheriff he dubbed "Small in the Saddle."
Snake convinced the Winnebago Democrats to switch parties and vote for the sheriff’s opponent in the contest for the GOP nomination. The new Republican Winnebagos block-voted "Saddle" out in the primary and then counted coup by electing the Democrat in the general election.
The rule of thumb used to be that Indians would work on property rights when the Republicans were in and poverty programs under the Democrats. A more deadly political axiom was that Republicans exterminated and Democrats terminated. In fact, Indian genocides and slow-genocidal policies were carried out by leaders of all parties in power in the Capitol and White House, and the same holds true for efforts to reverse those destructive policies.
Now that some Indian nations have money, office-seekers and campaign fundraisers fawn over tribal leaders and shake the Indian money tree, even in places where coffers are full, seats are safe and Indians haven’t lived for a century or two.
Democrats raised a bundle of Indian money in the 1990s, offering breakfasts and photo ops with Pres. William Jefferson Clinton for $150,000 per tribal leader. There was even a fire sale: three leaders of different nations could put on the feedbag for $50,000 each.
Presidents courting Indians is nothing new. Gen. George Washington recruited Indian nations to help win the Revolutionary War. As president, he maintained federal relations with the Indian allies, hedging against conflicts with foreign countries and the powerful states.
Pres. Abraham Lincoln courted chiefs from the Great and Southern Plains in an 1863 meeting in the White House, where he asked for and received their neutrality in the Civil War. They likely did not know that one year earlier, he signed the death order for 38 Dakota men at Mankato, Minnesota. Most Great Lakes Indians are Democrats, in no small part because Lincoln was Republican.
Pres. Andrew Jackson didn’t court Indians; he killed Indians, mostly Muscogees (Creeks). He carried the campaign to Congress, where three Indian-fighting comrades chaired the Indian affairs committees before and during his presidency, greasing the way for Indian removal legislation. Cherokees, Chickasaws, Choctaws, Muscogees and Seminoles were marched at gunpoint to Indian Territory, and tens of thousands died on those Trails of Tears. Most citizens of these nations are Republicans, because Jackson was a Democrat.
Early in his presidency, Clinton stated publicly that Jackson was his favorite president. This appalled Muscogee Second Chief Shelly Stubbs Crow, a nurse on the First Lady’s health task force, and she told the president so. Crow reported to other Muscogees that Clinton was shocked to learn of Jackson’s Indian history.
A few Indian Republicans say the Clinton administration was the most dangerous of all time for Native Peoples. This is no truer or less laughable than the claim of some Clinton Indians that theirs was the best of all administrations for Indians.
These same Indian Republicans claim the current administration is the best ever for Indians. No kidding. They actually say this out loud, usually during brown-nosing meetings with administration officials, but to other Indians, too, so they might believe it.
This claim is, at best, premature. Taking the optimistic view, Pres. George W. Bush’s administration hasn’t had enough time to do much of anything for Indians. At worst, the claim is preposterous, given the record as it stands now, what with the Interior secretary being held in contempt of court in the trust funds case and all.
Which administrations and parties have been the best and worst and what have modern presidents done for and to Native Peoples? I have ranked the presidents who served between 1963 and 2000 in terms of tangible, substantive, far-reaching accomplishments, considering also how they used the bully pulpit, how long they were in office and what else they did with their time.
Pres. Jimmy Carter is tops in my book. I confess bias (but not error), because I am a former political appointee in the Carter Administration and an unabashed fan of the former president. He made serious campaign promises to Indians and, amazingly, kept them. I fault him only for listening to campaigners who advised putting off Indian actions that might cost votes until the second term.
The top two administrations in this ranking, Carter and Bush 41, never got second terms and served only four years each. The last two, Clinton and Reagan, are the only ones with eight years in office. Ford’s ranks just above those and had the shortest tenure, two years and five months. The administrations in third and fourth place, Nixon and Johnson, each served a little over five years.
It could be said that credit for certain accomplishments attributed to one president really should go to another -- that Pres. Richard M, Nixon laid the policy foundation for the self-determination act, even though Pres. Gerald R. Ford signed the law, or Pres. Lyndon B. Johnson ended terminations, even though Nixon signed the first un-termination law - but, both credit and blame even out rather neatly from each administration to the next.
The presidents’ Indian policy rankings, from best to worst:
I've heard that Al Gore invented the slot machine....
He shuffled it, dealt it, cut it, as a boy, no less.
Regards, Ivan
At some point, the plight of a people, whether, black, brown, whatever, falls on THIER shoulders. Make better decisions idiots, and your lives will get better. Worshipping Jimmy Carter is NOT an example of making better decisions.
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