Posted on 06/18/2004 8:21:57 AM PDT by Nasty McPhilthy
Black Republicans Question Party's Commitment NNPA, News Feature, Hazel Trice Edney, Jun 17, 2004
WASHINGTON (NNPA) – As the Republican Party tries to gain a larger share of the Black vote in the 2004 presidential election, skepticism over whether that will happen comes from a surprising source – Black Republicans.
“I’m not sure they’re going to even try,” says Arthur Fletcher, Jr., former assistant secretary of labor in the Nixon administration. “Nixon won the White House without a Black vote two times, Reagan won the White House without a Black vote two times. Bush won the White House without a Black vote one time. Bush junior has won it without a Black vote. When they look at their dollars and realize that the Hispanics are chomping at the bits to get aboard, I’m not sure they’re going to make a bona fide effort to attract Blacks.”
Republican Party Chairman Ed Gillespie, who has been touring the country with Black boxing promoter Don King, says he’s working to prove that the Republicans are serious about the Black vote.
“We want to do better than the 9 percent that President Bush got in 2000. I’m confident we can do that,” Gillespie says. “The president has done a lot to reposition the party and reach out to African-American voters.”
Gillespie says the “No Child Left Behind Act,” despite criticism that it’s under-funded, has resulted in higher test scores for inner city students; the Black business ownership rate increased 17 percent last year, and funding for historically Black colleges and universities (HBCUs) is to its highest level ever, a 40 percent increase. “These things are all resonating with African-American voters as I travel the country.”
But former Republican Sen. Edward Brooke, the first Black elected to the U. S. Senate in the 20th century, is unimpressed.
“I saw some hope in Ed Gillespie as the new chairman of the Republican Party, that he would recognize the need to make the Republican Party inclusive and open up its doors to Black voters and organizations,” Brooke says. “But in order to achieve that goal, they’ve got to, from the very beginning, make it known to Black voters that they stand for issues, that they support issues that affect the lives of Black people. The Republican Party should be far more representative of the entire population. And it doesn’t have that.”
Bush opposes affirmative action, a major issue for many African-Americans. He opposed an affirmative action program involving the University of Michigan Law School last year that the Supreme Court upheld. He announced his opposition on Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s birthday.
He has further alienated Blacks with appointment of Far Right judges and his pledge to fill any Supreme Court vacancies with judges similar to Clarence Thomas and Antonin Scalia, the two most conservative members of the court
At the Republican convention in Philadelphia four years ago, the GOP hired many Black entertainers and attempted to showcase Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice, who became the two most prominent Blacks in the Bush administration. According to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, there were only 85 African-Americans among the 2,066 delegates or 4.1 percent.
Brooke, who served two terms in the Senate from Massachusetts before losing his re-election bid in 1978, predicts no significant increase at this year’s convention in New York.
“You will find - and I dare say, I hope it won’t be true, but, I’m almost positive that it will - that there won’t be many Black Republican delegates at the national convention. And that’s sad,” he said.
By contrast, there were 872 Black delegates (20.1 percent) at the 2000 Democratic National Convention, a figure that is expected to increase this year in Boston.
“The Republicans, it’s all a photo op. If they think going out with Don King is somehow going to get young African-Americans out to vote for - Don King - it’s laughable,” says Democratic Chairman Terry McAuliffe.
“When I travel, I travel with Representatives John Lewis, Stephanie Tubbs Jones, I go out with African-American leaders who have fought their entire lives for rights; not Don King.”
Gillespie says he started traveling with King after being approached by him with a plan to reach out to Black voters. “Very few people have been more successful in marketing and promotions as Don King has been in our country,” Gillespie says. “And his advice is good advice. I listen to it and he helps us - no pun intended - punch through with our message, and one that resonates with African-Americans.”
The Republican Party has a mixed history with African-Americans. Until Franklin D. Roosevelt’s “New Deal,” most Blacks were registered Republicans. But once African-Americans started voting Democratic, they never went back. Today, African-Americans generally favor the Democratic candidate in presidential elections by a 9 to 1 margin.
It was not unusual for Republican candidates to get 30 of the Black vote until the party picked Sen. Barry Goldwater, an archconservative from Arizona, as its presidential candidate in 1964. With strong Black support, President Lyndon Baines Johnson was re-elected in a landslide.
“It wasn’t until after Goldwater got up and refused to deal with the civil rights legislation, that began to break it. That’s where the break came,” says Milton Bins, a longtime Black Republican activist.
“Nixon was the first one to provide money for desegregation. Nixon was the first one to go after providing money to historically Black colleges and universities and he had a program to deal with Black folks,” Bins says.
“But since Nixon, they have really squandered their efforts to have a real program to deal with Black folks, not just something called outreach, but a serious program.”
There’s a way to test whether the Republicans are serious about the Black vote, says Bins. “You can measure it in terms of the dollar commitment.” Gillespie declined to divulge his budget.
“I don’t want to tip my hand because Democrats tend to take the African-American vote for granted,” he says. “I hope they do the same again this year because I may just pick their pocket.”
Former four-term Republican Rep. J. C. Watts (R-Okla.), who served as chairman of the House Republican Conference before retiring two years ago, says the Republican Party could learn some things from Democrats.
“In spite of the fact that Democrats have done symbolic things and nothing substantive, at least they’ve given the impression that they care,” he says. “But, I think there are some people in the Black community who’re never going to give the Republican Party a look.”
Some Blacks have given the party a look – and don’t like what they see.
For example, former president Ronald Reagan is being lionized this week as creating the modern-day Republican Party. Yet, Reagan, who will be buried this week at the age of 93, was a polarizing figure who spoke of non-existent “welfare queens” and was hostile to civil rights.
Even Black Democrats acknowledge that both parties have a lot of work to do.
“It says a lot about the Democratic Party as well since we don’t have any Blacks in the Senate, but it just shows it’s just far worse in the Republican Party since they don’t have any in the House as well as the Senate,” says Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.).
“So, it means that their goals to have a small government, low taxes, not supporting health, education and social security is not the tradition of Blacks and they have swung too far to the right, so that if there was the possibility of an Ed Brooke, it doesn’t exist today.
Somebody needs to tell Hazel that it's not about race. It's all about Conservatism vs Liberalism. Race-based handouts are sooooo 60's.
Agreed. What's wrong with Herman Cain? Walter Williams? JC Watts? Michael King?
It's an uphill battle, but one that with time, can yield some significant gains. The gains won't be instant (no, there won't be a massive change in the number of blacks voting for Bush in November). But nothing worth having ever is.
Exactly.
and they choose Don King to get black votes. Heads oughta roll for that one.
I believe that Justice Marshall was appointed By nixon.
They had one, boy was she pathetic. LOL!
Maybe Cain in GA may be another GOP anomaly.
I wonder how they'll splain that one, seriesly?
Fantastic Post!
I am one of those who believes that in ten years we can cut the # of blacks voting Dem down to 70% or so. What needs to happen is the funding of soldiers of conservatism in the inner city. Send them to Oakland, send them to LA, send them to New York, send them to Philadelphia, send them to Chicago, send them to Washington DC. If someone had the money, a George Soros type on the right, they should fund, say 10 activists going out amongst the people and spreading the word of conservatism.
It is important that blacks in the inner cities are reminded that the problem with their schools comes from the fact that they keep on voting for Democrats to sit on their school boards and oppose their getting school vouchers. Someone needs to remind them that gun control that keeps guns out of the hands of the law abiding citizens is championed by leftists. Someone needs to remind them that the patron saint of abortion, Margaret Sanger, started Planned Parenthood in a effort to hold down the birth rate of blacks. Someone needs to remind them that the welfare system, as it is presently configured, tends to encourage out-of-wedlock teen pregnancy leading to an extending of the cycle of poverty. Someone needs to remind them that the police are only their enemy if they break the law and that all law abiding blacks should welcome more and more of them.
We are always told about the legions of rich white Republicans. If they really exist, I would hope there is one or two out there willing to pich into a fund consisting of about $1 Million per large city in an effort to move the black vote from 10% to 30% within ten years. There are many blacks who will respond to logic when forced to face it. Let's get out there and force them to face it!
That would be LBJ who appointed Marshall.
Excellent post Mr. King.
Disagree about Don King - I'd take anyone who wants to help out.
Not every Republican/conservative is of the straight-arrow image - some might be called rouges or mavericks, if you will. The guys who do South Park lean more to our side than they do to the Left. If they wanted to campaign for President Bush and other Republicans, would you dismiss them as clowns - or even yet, DECLINE their offer because other folks might not like them? On the one hand, us folks on the right complaint hat all the celebrities seem to back Rats. Then when a Britney Spears or a Don King DOES come out and backs Republicans and/or conservative positions on something, they're trashed.
The GOP would be foolish to decline sincere offers of assistance from anyone who might get people's attention. That includes Don King.
Very well said! These "Republicans" are more proof that the party is moving to the center, they just don't get it!
If Kerry started campaigning with Marc Rich, we would lionize him. I am willing to take the help but not from a felon like Don King.
Please tell me what the republican controlled house, republican controlled senate, and republican controlled presidency have done to reverse or eliminate any of the laws, policies, regulations, etc that favor certain groups of people over others?
You just need to know your place, Mike. They'll be cool with you, then.
: )
Would you deny help from George Foreman if he wanted to help re-elect Bush? He is a former criminal as well...
Might there have been 537 black voters in Florida who voted for George W. Bush? If you accept the figures that 9% of black voters vote GOP, statistically, it is highly unlikely that Florida's black voters didn't help put Bush in the White House.
My biggest problem with Don King is that he's a clown, a court jester!
I'm sorry, but there are plenty of people who give a far less "troubling" appearance than Don King.
I've got no problem with him being a Republican. Hell, I've got no problem with him singing it from the rooftops! But he is not the picture I want to present to blacks who are on the fence about the GOP.
As I said before, there are far, far larger numbers of other people who would present a more presentable appearance than Don King.
“The Republicans, it’s all a photo op. If they think going out with Don King is somehow going to get young African-Americans out to vote for - Don King - it’s laughable,” says Democratic Chairman Terry McAuliffe.
The Dems are the ones pursuing the photo op. Their 20.1% was reached by mandatory quota. It's also the reason their convention organization is in shambles. Quota types got put in charge rather than the competent folks with experience (remember Oliphant down in Florida?)
Not that there aren't competent folks of all races who could do the job; they just don't seem to rise to the top in the DNC.
"reverse or eliminate any of the laws, policies, regulations, etc that favor certain groups of people over others?"
That's a good point but off topic from my statement.
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