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Black Republicans Question Party's Commitment
NCM ^ | 6/17/04 | Hazel Trice Edney

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.


TOPICS: News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: blackrepublicans; gop; rnc
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1 posted on 06/18/2004 8:22:02 AM PDT by Nasty McPhilthy
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To: Nasty McPhilthy

"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.” "

It is easier to reach out to those who are willing to reach out to you.


2 posted on 06/18/2004 8:26:52 AM PDT by CzarNicky (The problem with bad ideas is that they seemed like good ideas at the time.)
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To: Nasty McPhilthy
The only thing the GOP needs to do is let everyone know that everyone is welcome and that everyone benefits equally by being part of the party. Other than perhaps making a special effort to make sure certain groups get THAT message there should not be anything special going on in terms of what happens when you belong to the party. What we don't need is a conservative variating of the dim party which segments people into groups. The policies and planks benefit everyone equally. If you want to be segmented, baby sat, stroked, coddled, lied to, led on and humiliated -- join the Democrat party.
3 posted on 06/18/2004 8:28:03 AM PDT by Lee'sGhost (Crom!)
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To: Nasty McPhilthy

Freedom, security, and prosperity benefit Americans of every color. There shouldn't be a different agenda depending upon skin color.

If 90 percent of blacks really believe that they can't make it unless standards are lowered for them, or unless more money is confiscated from white Americans and given to them, then I guess the Republican party will never get their votes.


4 posted on 06/18/2004 8:28:20 AM PDT by lady lawyer
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To: Nasty McPhilthy
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.

LOL. Reagan was never hostile to civil rights, he was hostile to free handouts. If we have to abandon conservative ideas to get the black vote, it ain't gonna happen. That's not gonna happen. This article implies that the GOP has to abandon conservatism, to get the black vote, when in fact blacks tend to hold many conservative principles. We need to capitalize on the areas we agree, not change to cater to a certain group.

5 posted on 06/18/2004 8:29:10 AM PDT by Always Right
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To: Nasty McPhilthy; mhking

BC ping

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.


*** Perhaps many black Americans resented being sold down the river once again just to get the southern vote or this 'southern strategy' as they call it.


6 posted on 06/18/2004 8:34:22 AM PDT by cyborg
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To: Lee'sGhost

Well said. The GOP's conservative message is enough for blacks and minorities to join. We are all Americans, there's no need for Republicans to pander like the Rats.


7 posted on 06/18/2004 8:37:03 AM PDT by ServesURight
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To: Nasty McPhilthy

Don King??????

That's pretty embarrassing.


8 posted on 06/18/2004 8:40:22 AM PDT by Our man in washington
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To: Nasty McPhilthy
"We want to do better than the 9 percent that President Bush got in 2000."

I've noticed that minorities and women who don't think the world owes them generally end up being Republicans.

9 posted on 06/18/2004 8:41:09 AM PDT by MEGoody (Kerry - isn't that a girl's name? (Conan O'Brian))
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To: Nasty McPhilthy

According to this article in order to attract blacks the Pubbies need to:
1. Support Affirmative Action
2. Quit appointing "far right wing" judges
3. Hand out more dollars targeted to blacks

In other words, just morph into the Dim party and the black vote will come.

thanks, but no thanks


10 posted on 06/18/2004 8:42:27 AM PDT by bereanway
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To: Nasty McPhilthy
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

Ah, there's the rub.

This is not black / white. It's liberal / conservative.

Let's be honest about it.

11 posted on 06/18/2004 8:43:18 AM PDT by Republic If You Can Keep It
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Comment #12 Removed by Moderator

To: Nasty McPhilthy
Where to begin? This article is a train wreck.

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.

Just when you thought Al Gore's youth oriented cable news network was the worst idea you ever heard. Leave it to the lilly white Gillespie to tour the country with a convicted felon who enriched himself pillaging black boxers and throwing them to side of the road after their careers were shot. If the Dems can't make a metaphor out of this, they are more inept than I thought.

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

Uh...and what race is Clarence Thomas again? Thomas may want to change his name to something more ethnic because once again, the left fails to mention his race in the article. Justice Shabazz K. Thomas.

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.

I am surprised the article doesn't mention how the RNC made Condi and Colin do a stepinfetchit routine at the Convention. I would think two qualified blacks (whose race is never mentioned except in articles such as this) at the upper echelon of the administration would constitute a little more than showcasing. They seem to actually be governing at the highest level. Showcasing was Clinton trotting out Vernon Jordan every time he needed a photo op.

“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.

Yeah, Nixon was a real paragon of race relations. Why don't we set the Republicans relationship with Blacks back another 40 years? But that Bush ought to just put a white sheet over his head.

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.).

Uhhh, yeah would that because your party, Mr. Rangel, spent an ungodly amount of money to defeat Gary Franks in Connecticut and then when it was clear there was no way JC Watts would lose his House seat, your spent attempted to demonize him the same way you demonize Clarence Thomas?

13 posted on 06/18/2004 8:48:36 AM PDT by bigeasy_70118
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To: Nasty McPhilthy

Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.


"non-existent “welfare queens” "

If the writer thinks for one minute that
A) welfare Queens never existed
B) Those in the black community are any more happy about busting their butt all day long in part to support the welfare queen her kids and her kids kids than people in the white community is about supporting the welfare queens in their neighborhood (and her kids and her kids kids) he is sadly mistaken.

The black community has fought itself to a point that there is too much common ground with "mainstream america" to keep them on the plantation anymore.


14 posted on 06/18/2004 8:48:50 AM PDT by bad company (God speed Dutch)
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To: Nasty McPhilthy
?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.?

These statements are contradictory.

15 posted on 06/18/2004 8:50:15 AM PDT by skeeter
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To: Nasty McPhilthy

Concentrate on hispanic issues without making a public statement about it. Poachers always follow the money.


16 posted on 06/18/2004 8:52:42 AM PDT by T. Jefferson
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To: Nasty McPhilthy
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.
...........
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.

If blacks vote Democrat at a 9-1 ratio, but only attend the conventions at a 5-1 ratio (20.1 to 4.1), that seems to indicate that Republicans are making a significant effort to maximize the contribution of the blacks who are in the party.

17 posted on 06/18/2004 8:52:42 AM PDT by JohnnyZ (Yes, I do think I'm funny, why do you ask?)
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To: rdb3; Khepera; elwoodp; MAKnight; condolinda; mafree; Trueblackman; FRlurker; Teacher317; ...
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.”

Let's get the notion straight -- Brooke is more liberal than conservative, regardless of party affiliation. What Brooke does not realize is that the GOP doesn't have to change itself, it only needs to address those needs and values (i.e, family values, hint! hint!) that much of middle class black America already embraces. The Democratic party pays lip service to those values, and does so from the pulpit, which keeps the middle class in black America quiet and placated...for now.

The GOP needs to point out that the Dems only provide lip service. The GOP needs to get into those same pulpits and community forums. The outreach needs to be there -- but contrary to Brooke's bleatings, the Republican party need not change it's core values to do that; only it's method of outreach and communication.

“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.

Well, yeah. I have a major problem with Don King being one of the standard bearers for the GOP in black America. There are far too many other black Republicans and conservatives who have achieved far more than Don King's sideshow. Having him as a spokesperson is a huge mistake, and I've communicated that feeling to the GOP leadership.

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.

If we can go from 95% of blacks voting Dem this year to 92 or 90%, I'll be pleased. That will be, IMO, a significant change. Some people (as evidenced by some of the nay-sayers on FR) won't be satisfied with that, and insist that the black vote be completely written off as a result.

You've got to crawl before you can walk. The liberals are scared to death of people like me. They'll never admit it, but they are running scared. Because I'm their worst nightmare -- a black man who dares to question their "authority;" a black man who dares to say that there is a better way. And one who can get voters to listen for a moment, and think for a moment.

If I can do that, they'll stop their lemming-like lock-step long enough to realize that there is a way to break out and move on.

Black conservative ping

If you want on (or off) of my black conservative ping list, please let me know via FREEPmail. (And no, you don't have to be black to be on the list!)

Extra warning: this is a high-volume ping list.

18 posted on 06/18/2004 8:55:22 AM PDT by mhking
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To: Nasty McPhilthy
The wonderful secret is this: if the Republican Party can persuade just a small percentage more of black Americans to vote for them, the Democrats will become a permanent losing party in America.

The Democrats' only stranglehold in terms of demographics is in the African-American community...nearly every other segment of the population distributes the vote more equitably. When the day comes (and it will come, I am certain) that 90% of blacks do not vote for the Democrat Party Operative in every election, the Jackass Party will become a party that loses nearly every time.

19 posted on 06/18/2004 8:56:10 AM PDT by Recovering_Democrat (I'm so glad to no longer be associated with the Party of Dependence on Government!)
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To: Nasty McPhilthy
The Republican party is the only party in American history to place "African Americans" in positions of real power, as opposed to ceremonial appointments. JC Watts, Clarence Thomas, Colin Powell, Condi Rice. Give me the name of one black Democrat in a position of power above these, past or present. SC Justice Marshall is the only one I can think of.
20 posted on 06/18/2004 8:57:21 AM PDT by Mr. Bird (Ain't the beer cold!)
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