Posted on 04/09/2008 7:07:36 PM PDT by jazusamo
If Senator John McCain needed to prove that he is a real Republican, he did it when he continued an old Republican tradition of utterly inept attempts to appeal to black voters.
Senator McCain was booed at a recent memorial on the anniversary of the assassination of Martin Luther King, Jr. In typical Republican fashion, he tried to apologize but the audience was not buying it and let him know it.
Why would Senator McCain choose a venue where his rejection was virtually guaranteed? Not only did he not get his message out, the message that came out through the media is that this black audience rejected him, which is readily portrayed as if blacks in general rejected him.
The Republican strategy for making inroads into the black vote has failed consistently for more than a quarter of a century. Yet it never seems to occur to them to change their approach.
The first thing that they do that is foredoomed to failure is trying to reach blacks through the civil rights organizations and other institutions of the black establishment. The second proven loser is trying to appeal to blacks by offering the same kinds of things that Democrats offer-- token honors, politically correct rhetoric and welfare state benefits.
Blacks who want those things know that they can already get them from the Democrats. Why should they listen to Republicans who act like imitation Democrats?'
These are not the blacks whose votes Republicans have any realistic hope of getting. Nor do the Republicans need the votes of all blacks. If just 20 percent of blacks begin voting Republican, the Democrats are lost.
The question then is how to have a shot at getting the votes of those blacks who are not in thrall to the current black "leaders" and who on many issues may be conservative.
First of all, you don't get their votes by approaching them from the left, when that is neither their orientation nor yours. Issuing stamps honoring Paul Robeson and Kwanzaa are not the way to reach those blacks whom Republicans have any realistic chance of reaching.
Trying to reach blacks through civil rights organizations that are totally hostile to your message is like a quarterback trying to throw a pass to a receiver surrounded by opposing defenders. That just leads to a lot of interceptions and touchdowns for the other team.
That is essentially what has been happening to the Republicans, as far as the black vote is concerned, for decades on end. Someone once said that a method which fails repeatedly may possibly be wrong.
The truth is something that can attract people's attention, if only for its novelty in politics. There is no need for Republicans to try to pose as saviors of blacks. Democrats do that and they have more experience doing it.
A sober presentation of the facts-- "straight talk," if you will-- gives Senator McCain and Republicans their best shot at a larger share of the votes of blacks. There is plenty to talk straight about, including all the things that the Democrats are committed to that work to the disadvantage of blacks, beginning with Democrats' adamant support of teachers' unions in their opposition to parental choice through vouchers.
The teachers' unions are just one of the sacred cow constituencies of the Democratic Party whose agendas are very harmful to blacks.
Black voters also need to be told about the tens of thousands of blacks who have been forced out of a number of liberal Democratic California counties by skyrocketing housing prices, brought on by Democratic environmentalists' severe restrictions on the building of homes or apartments.
The black population of San Francisco, for example, has been cut in half since 1970-- and San Francisco is the very model of a community of liberal Democrats, including green zealots who are heedless of the consequences of their actions on others.
Then there are the effects of tort lawyers in raising prices, liberal judges turning criminals loose and other influential Democratic Party constituencies whose effects on blacks are strictly negative.
Where should these and other messages be delivered to blacks, if not through the existing black organizations?
That message can be delivered as part of televised speeches addressing other major issues facing the country. It can be delivered as part of advertisements in the general media and separately in advertisements in newspapers, magazines and television programs with a black audience.
Logistics are not the problem. Insistence on following a repeatedly failed game plan is.
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Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site is www.tsowell.com.
Yes, but McCain would not know straight talk if it stared him straight in the face and shouted through megaphone straight into his ear.
Words of wisdom heeded by few Republicans.
Newt Gingrich is not a tin-eared moron on this issue. These are excerpts from an article that appears on his website in response to Barack Obama’s speech on race. While many here would be upset to know that Newt gave Obama a lot of credit for giving that speech, Newt also took the opportunity to issue a rational and thoughtful conservative response to the speech. Here’s some of what he said:
“I do think there’s an authenticity and legitimacy to anger by many groups in America...And I think it’s important to recognize that anger can be a source of energy to create a better future, in which case it’s a good thing. But if anger is a self-inflicted wound that limits us, it is a very bad and a very dangerous thing. And we have to be very careful about the role that anger plays in our culture.”
...
“Tragically what has happened is that cultural and political leaders have used anger as an excuse to avoid reality, as an excuse to avoid change, as an excuse to avoid accountability. Because everything that is wrong is somehow somebody else’s fault.”
To balance out ethnic gaps, educational bureaucracy needs to be eliminated. Inner city high school students should be offered the chance to graduate in fewer than four years to avoid being bored. Teachers should push the “drum beat for entrepreneurship,” because historically, ethnic groups have risen by starting their own businesses.
Good call. That Gingrich piece could be the basis for the message McCain should use.
Well worth reading, for sure.
The Obama Challenge: What is the Right Change to Help All Americans?
Newt Gingrich Speech to the American Enterprise Institute - Televised on C-Span 3/27/3008
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1993438/posts
Problem is ,McCain is ONE HUGE PANDERER,He thinks he is a Democrat so he thinks Blacks will consider him one of them.
In other words he does not have a Clue
So McCain apologized for shooting MLK?
So all these years the feds had the wrong man after all.
Lock him up and we’ll get a new candidate, maybe a republican, this time.
White liberals hate Black people.
Dr. Sowell nails it again.
Bookmarked.
Yep. Whether they have a “D” or an “R” by their name.
The policies we propose are not for black Americans or white Americans. They are for all Americans. We believe that the only differences between the two are superficial and should not be used as a basis for policy. Anyone who deprives any citizen of full Constitutional rights based on these perceived differences shall be called to answer with full force of Law.
“Why the hell was a war hero booed? He fought so the ingrates could boo him.”
Who cares. I’ll boo him if I get the chance because he is a socialist.
We are expecting way to much of McCain if we think he is smart enough to figure this out.
“Thomas Sowell for President! He’s my write in candidate.”
Dittos
“Newt Gingrich is not a tin-eared moron on this issue.”
On a lot of issues. About a month ago on Rush’s show he completely jumped the shark on Global Warming.
Here is one of the problems with anyone like Newt "getting the word out". THE MEDIA WON'T COVER IT IF THERE IS A POTENTIAL TO GET MINORITIES OFF OF THE DEM PLANTATION. It just ain't gonna happen. The only time big media will let any positive toward blacks coverage out is when they have an angle they can exploit and demagogue the latest challenger to the status quo.
That is exactly what Bush's much critisized Education Bill does. After three years they were on notice and after five the funds would be cut off. Now that the time is up the left is screaming bloody murder.
Now tell me, why couldn’t THIS guy be our candidate?
I dunno...my upper middle class black co-workers still buy into that NAACP bullsh*t hook, line, and sinker.
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