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.
Im not sure theyre 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, Im not sure theyre 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 hes 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. Im 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 its 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, theyve 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 doesnt 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 years convention in New York.
You will find - and I dare say, I hope it wont be true, but, Im almost positive that it will - that there wont be many Black Republican delegates at the national convention. And thats 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, its 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 - its 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. Roosevelts 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 wasnt until after Goldwater got up and refused to deal with the civil rights legislation, that began to break it. Thats 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.
Theres 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 dont 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 theyve given the impression that they care, he says. But, I think there are some people in the Black community whore never going to give the Republican Party a look.
Some Blacks have given the party a look and dont 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 dont have any Blacks in the Senate, but it just shows its just far worse in the Republican Party since they dont 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 doesnt exist today.
What is the Republican Party supposed to do? They're already compromising on one conservative principle after another. Expecting them to beat the drum for affirmative action and "desegregation programs" (which the US Supreme Court has largely found unconstitutional anyway) is stupid. Turning the GOP into a clone of the Democratic Party is not worth it - they've gone far enough as it is under President Bush, with his pandering to the Hispanic vote.
As a black American myself I have talked to many blacks about why they vote democrat. A spoke to a minister friend of mine and asked him how can a man of God support a man that is double minded and is for infanticide? His response "I am not voting for Bush he is a warmonger." I was stunned here is a man that debates the bible but is a political babe in the woods.
I am tired of blacks giving away their votes for nothing in return and for not embracing the American dream. My father had to fight in Korea so that me and my brothers could have a better life. I never had to go though growing up in the South during the 1930's and 1940's he did. Liberalism = ignorance.
George Foreman, as far as I know, has completely turned his life around. So I would have no problem with Gillespie campaigning with him.
Maybe the problem for conservatives/Republicans is that they really do consider all peoples to be of equal weight and ability, so there isn't a special outreach because we figure they are equal and just need the same handshake of welcome as others and that is it.
All people are equal and maybe if you really reflect that in your attitude and behavior, some see that as unwelcoming and that is just a **mess** of a interpretation of intent.
We're supposed to be hiring high-profile Blacks to get the message out that Republicans are pro-life just like all Black churches...that Republicans are against gay marriage just like all Black churches...that Republicans support private school choice vouchers for inner-city minority children just like all Black churches...that Republicans favor faith-based charity programs just like all Black churches...etc.
You might even detect a theme here.
If I remember correctly, Brooke was a RINO.
As far as securing Black Votes, the Republicans should try to get them, but by selling Republicanism to blacks, not by absorbing Democratic political philosophies which have already failed in the black community - like affirmative discrimination.
I do recall him as being a typical Northeastern Republican.
I don't have a problem with the GOP reaching out to black voters - but I would hope those black voters would be *conservative* and in touch with GOP principles, which would mean that these black voters wouldn't expect the GOP to push affirmative action, or push more money for welfare programs, etc. Race shouldn't be the issue - political conservatism should be.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.