Posted on 01/08/2004 11:41:48 AM PST by Tumbleweed_Connection
Many black Republicans running for Congress are turning away from the identity politics of race and ethnicity and, in the process, seeking to reshape the way politicians and voters think about skin color and ideology. In 2004, 10 black Republicans are running for the House and Senate; these candidates come from Georgia, Indiana, Michigan, Mississippi, New York, North Carolina, Oregon and Rhode Island. Unlike many black Democrats, whose political roots go back to the civil rights battles of the 1950s and ’60s, these Republicans draw a distinction between politics and race, arguing that their worldview has little to do with what they look like. “Race does not come before my politics,” said Margaret Crosby, a black Republican running in Rhode Island’s 1st District against Rep. Patrick Kennedy (D). “I just happen to be in a black shell,” said Crosby, who picked up an endorsement by Black America’s Political Action Committee last month. By contrast, many of the 39 black Democrats in Congress view race and politics as intimately connected — similar to Malcolm X, the Rev. Jesse Jackson and the Rev. Al Sharpton. These Democrats maintain that social ills in America’s black inner cities — high unemployment, crime, AIDS and drug abuse, among others — must be dealt with by minority groups such as the Congressional Black Caucus (CBC). If not us, they say, then who? But the black GOP candidates dismiss in interviews what they call the race-based politics of the CBC and other black groups, such as the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People. Citing Frederick Douglass, a former slave who became an esteemed writer and political thinker, some of these Republicans say it is time that black Americans stopped thinking of themselves as blacks and then Americans, instead of simply as Americans. Butler University political scientist Marvin Scott, a black Republican running for the Senate in Indiana, said, “My campaign is not that I’m an African-American running for the U.S. Senate. I want to talk about lower taxes and school vouchers.” According to this thinking, black people are not de facto Democrats whose political fortunes are necessarily tied to federal largesse. Rather, these Republicans said, black people must free themselves of decades of groupthink. Indeed, some black GOP candidates voiced discomfort at speaking on behalf of black voters. Those Republicans say they prize individual freedom. They point out that it was the Republican Party under President Lincoln that made possible the Emancipation Proclamation. Peter Onuf, a University of Virginia historian, disputes the notion that today’s Republican Party descends directly from the party of Lincoln. Onuf said that in the 1960s and ’70s, the GOP absorbed disenchanted Dixiecrats who had opposed integration and ending Jim Crow. Still, black Republicans voice confidence that white voters, given the chance, will elect black candidates who share their values — including lower taxes, abortion restrictions and school choice. Emory University political scientist Merle Black, who is white and keeps close tabs on the Georgia Senate race, agrees. Black predicted that pizza tycoon Herman Cain, now running to replace retiring Sen. Zell Miller (D-Ga.), and Dylan Glenn, running in Georgia’s 8th District, both black Republicans, will win if they snag their party’s nominations. For all their talk of forging a new color-blind politics, some black Republicans have shown that they are more than willing to make use of race to attract votes. At times, these candidates appear to lapse into a sort of doublespeak — broadcasting a race-neutral politics to white voters, who make up the majority in their districts and states, while kowtowing to minorities by appealing to race. Cain, for example, has targeted black Democrats at black churches and at Atlanta’s Morehouse College, a traditionally black school, spokeswoman Nicole Barry said. Scott has visited 15 black churches this year; the candidate said he hopes to attract black voters with his race and message. Meanwhile, Hempstead Mayor James A. Garner, a black Republican running in New York’s 4th District, on Long Island, attended a training seminar for minority candidates in New York run by the Republican National Committee (RNC) before jumping into the race. Hoover Institution fellow Shelby Steele said the Republicans’ use of race mirrors that of liberals, whom Steele has accused of appealing to white guilt and black feelings of inferiority and resentment. Black Democrats argued that black Republicans’ effort to divorce race from politics proves these conservatives are uncomfortable with their heritage. Rep. Danny Davis (D-Ill.) said black candidates “cannot escape” their race. These Democrats also accused Republicans of tokenism — for example, Secretary of State Colin Powell and National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice — while using emotionally charged issues such as affirmative action to foment white anger. Black Republicans said they haven’t encountered that kind of anger on the campaign trail. What they have encountered, they said, are decent people — churchgoers, veterans, teachers, small business owners and others. And, they said, it’s time the GOP tapped into the growing reservoir of black voters who — like many whites, the black Republicans contended — are becoming more open to conservative politics. “[There is a] demographic tidal wave that is sitting out there,” said Winston-Salem City Councilman Vernon Robinson, a black Republican running to replace Rep. Richard Burr (R) in North Carolina’s 5th District. “The Republican Party can either get more minority voters or have more babies.”
| Rank | Location | Receipts | Donors/Avg | Freepers/Avg | Monthlies | |||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 42 | Kuwait | 100.00 |
1 |
100.00 |
3 |
33.33 |
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At times, these candidates appear to lapse into a sort of doublespeak — broadcasting a race-neutral politics to white voters, who make up the majority in their districts and states, while kowtowing to minorities by appealing to race.
Cain, for example, has targeted black Democrats at black churches and at Atlanta’s Morehouse College, a traditionally black school, spokeswoman Nicole Barry said. Scott has visited 15 black churches this year; the candidate said he hopes to attract black voters with his race and message.
Let's see if I have this right: black conservatives are only allowed to solicit votes from white folks. And, if they make an effort to get black votes, then they are kowtowing.
Right.
Gee, wonder why he threw this in. It doesn't have much to do with the topic. I guess the GOP missed absorbing Robert Byrd.
In the campaigns, my state rep(white) and my state senator's(Latino) ethnicity was never an issue. That's how it should be.
“The Republican Party can either get more minority voters or have more babies.”
Why not both?
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