Posted on 12/02/2002 5:54:46 AM PST by Theodore R.
Sunday Dec. 1, 2002; 2:13 p.m. EST Brazile: Blacks Poised to Bolt Democratic Party
Donna Brazile, who managed Vice President Al Gore's presidential campaign two years ago, sent a memo to Democratic lawmakers last month warning that they need to do more to reach out to African-Americans or risk losing their support in coming elections.
"The Republicans are in the House," Brazile said in the controversial memo, quoted in Sunday editions of New York's Newsday. "They came in through the window and they want to play."
The former Gore official, who now heads up the Democratic National Committee's Voting Rights Institute, urged party officials to "roll up their sleeves and box (the GOP) out." Otherwise, Brazile cautioned, support from the Democrats' most loyal constituency is likely to "slip away."
"The party is ready for that challenge," she added, "but it remains to be seen" whether they'll take it.
Although African-American turnout in 2002 was similar to that of other midterm elections, Brazile still termed it "unsatisfactory," noting that blacks flocked to the polls in droves two years earlier to vote for Gore.
Brazile attributed the diminished turnout to the fact that the party spent less money in 2002 on minority outreach, while the GOP launched an intensive radio ad campaign in urban markets.
Others complain that party chief Terry McAuliffe offered only tepid support to African-American candidates. University of Maryland political science professor Ron Walters told Newsday that McAuliffe didn't give black Democratic gubernatorial hopeful Carl McCall the campaign cash he promised "until it was beaten out of him."
"The love affair is over between African-Americans and the Democrats," political strategist Jaques DeGraff said. "In massive numbers we still can't go and pull that Republican lever, but we can still stay home."
It might pay to start running some comparison ads on urban radio stations.
Teddy, on what do you base this? She has 2 of the most prominent blacks in the state who have openly opposed her, Sen Don Cravins of Arnaudville in the Southern part of the state and Sen Greg Tarver of Shreveport in the Northwest. The very conservative Woody Jenkins received 8% of the black vote in 1996, most of it on the prolife issue. How do you figure with all the divisions in the black community and a much less threatening figure in Suzie Terell who is from Orleans, that she does not get at least as much of the Black vote as Jenkins.
Moreover, I do not sense that there is any great motivation among blacks to vote. The polls showing Landrieu ahead have assumed an astronomically high black turnout, much higher thatn whne David Duke was running for governor. That is not going to happen.
White haters such as Brazile will never be convinced by logic. Unfortunately, I think she is the africanhyphenamerican leaders (jerkson/sharpton/farrakhan) mouthpiece within the democrat party. They expect their subjects to march carefully in lockstep with their agenda.
So essentially Donna's upset because voter turnout in a midterm did not approach that of a Presidential year. And they're paying her as a consultant?!? Geez.
POWER BABY POWER---- NOT EDUCATION!
True, the whitey haters never will go to the right, but if a crack is in the black base, a wedge should be driven to exacerbate it. Race is the only issue amongst the hyphenated among us. Some could go right just to give it a chance, whitey haters like Brazile could go left to a black Perot or Nader. Either way, breaking the DimRAT lock on the black vote would be a good thing.
If the average black realizes he has been a chump of the 'RATs, he could get POed and a real feeding frenzy may start.
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!)
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New poll shows Senate race a dead heatMomentum favoring Terrell says UNO survey
12/02/2002
A new poll released Monday says that the Senate race in Louisiana is now a statistical dead heat and that the momentum seems to be favoring the challenger Suzanne Terrell.
The poll, conducted by Dr. Susan Howell of the UNO Survey Research Center, surveyed 700 voters. It showed that overall 44 percent of those polled favored Mary Landrieu, 43 percent favored Terrell and 13% were undecided.
Along racial lines, Landrieu had the support of 75 percent of the African-American voters surveyed, Terrell had 10 percent and 15 percent were undecided. White voters favored Terrell by a margin of 56-31 percent, with 13 percent undecided.
The poll cited both long and short-term factors working in Terrell’s favor for the election.
It says that in the long term, aside from the Clinton victory in 1996, the percentage of white voters in Louisiana who identify themselves as Democrats has gone down. In the short term the poll cites the surge in popularity of President Bush and the results of the 2002 mid term elections in which Republicans gained control of the Senate.
A large majority, 61 percent, of white voters said they strongly approve of Bush’s performance. Among those voters, 77 percent favored Terrell, while only 12 percent favored Landrieu. Among those who merely approve of Bush, or who disapprove, Landrieu has a large edge, but that is a minority of the white voters polled.
The poll concludes that the outcome will depend on the percentage of African-American voters who go to the polls and the amount of the white vote that Landrieu can obtain.
free dixie,sw
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