Bush's Black Voter Court Shakes Democrats

Republican National Committee chair Ken Mehlman told the recent NAACP convention that he'd pull out all stops to woo black voters to the GOP tent. A few hundred miles away his boss was busy touting his program for jobs, minority business, and homeownership at the Indianapolis Black Expo. Bush and Mehlman got a listen at both places, and they should have. Blacks have gotten precious little in return for their blind loyalty to the Democratic Party. The black poor are more numerous. They live in crime and violence plagued neighborhoods. Their children attend miserably failing public schools. Public services in their communities are abominable.

Increased black GOP voter support will give blacks greater leverage in the Republican Party to promote their interests. That in turn will force the Democrats to fight harder for those interests. The GOP has reshaped the black agenda to challenge the agenda of black Democrats and mainstream civil rights groups.

But Bush and Mehlman's black voter onslaught has nothing to do with political altruism. The GOP is playing for national and state dominance for years to come and even the most marginal bump up in the black vote for the party in key battleground states would assure that dominance. There are slight rumblings of a shift. The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Washington D.C. based black political research institute, found that between 2000 and 2004 the percent of blacks that registered Democrat dropped 11 percent. One in three young (under age 35) blacks said they were independents. The percent of blacks registered as Republican tripled. The not insignificant Republican increase and the Democratic slide among blacks have had major political consequences.

You need to read a book, "Creating Equal" by Ward Cornell. This is all about blacks in this country being equal right now. It's about blacks being in positions to insure equality for all people.
The book will open your eyes and the next time someone gets in your face you will have the true facts and answers.
This book has helped many of us deal with our lives in more productive ways no matter what our race.
This is the book the liberals can not begin to defend or spin. This the book and the man that did away with affirmative action in California's. This same mold has been successfully utilized is several other states as well. Ward Connerly demands that all students that have the qualifying grades and required classes should be enrolled in our state college system. Grants should be given to all students who are not able to pay for their own education without any preconditions about race or sex.

The problem as I see it, is that the Democrats turned their party over to the radical left wing, and only seated those Blacks who were left wing radicals, at their conventions, starting back in the sixties. It caused an immediate shift of conservative, and even moderate Democrats to the Republican or at least Independant parties.

The Democratic party stance on Affirmative action, Busing, The Watts Riots, Abortion and the Viet Nam war started a drift away from the Democratic party.

It was Briefly interrupted by the Nixon debacle. Sanity again prevailed after the Carter Malaise.

Year after year non radical Blacks have had to feel estranged from both parties. Partly to blame for that were the Conservatives who came to the Republican party from the Democrats, How could Blacks Trust them? Also, the mistaken idea that no Blacks would even harbor conservative ideas.

No-one ever bothered to point out to Blacks the concerns and ideals they personally shared with Conservatives. I think that is happening now, and it's about time.

Just offer them relaxed prosecution for drugs, lots of make work public employment, and reinstate unlimited ADC payments. They be votin' for the GOP every time.

Of course. In your mind, we can't think for ourselves. We can't come to a logical conclusion.

Apparently, in your petty little mind, those of us who have become more conservative, or even become Republicans, have done so for the promise of relaxed prosecution, "make work" public employment, and unlimited ADC programs.

Idiot.

Do you put starch on that sheet of yours, troll?

Double-barrelled Mega-PING! to both lists! If you want on, FReepmail me!

Thanks for the ping. While I often disagree with Earl Ofari Hutchison, he's always been civil.

GOP gains among black voters are no accident and are not due to happenstance. In August 2000, embattled GOP strategist Karl Rove told Washington Post national political writer Tom Edsall that the Republicans must reject "the use of such issues as affirmative action, and 'welfare queens' that past GOP candidates had employed in a calculated bid to polarize the electorate and put together a predominantly white majority." Mehlman repeated a variation on the line at the NAACP convention when he tendered his and the GOP's mea culpa for snubbing blacks in past years.

I'm not certain these two "ideas" belong next to each other, politically, as they are out of context, lacking pertinent, relevant, salient details. Nonetheless.

Bush and Mehlman aim to bury the sorry episode in Republican history when it blatantly pandered to racists and states righters, ultra conservative kooks and loonies, and hopelessly alienated black voters.

Some Earl hyperbole, IMHO. Left-wing Dem Black churches (in addition to the usual racialist-based political groups) did plenty of damage themselves -- in politicizing many issues that conservatives black are comfortable with and supportive of. I know in the SF Bay Area/Oakland, Black pastors TOLD their parishioners they would banish any parishioner who DIDN'T fight Prop 209 (and/or welfare reform). And given the way radical blacks have held others hostage (in the "community", so to speak) there's a reality vector, not to mention also a security issue involved in some of these issues. Ward Connerly's office was damaged and arsoned. By whom? and that sure sends a loud message to conservative black voters. It's a threat to them, as well.

So, while EOH is writing cleanly, he is NOT laying out the facts of this "disenfranchisement by GOP of "minorities"" very fairly. He's laying it all out in terms of "voting lines" but only voting lines sans all other very pertinent data. It's his choice, as author, certainly to do so.

Their strategy is to resurrect the part of its past in which Republicans championed black rights. The difference this time is that Republicans have radically redefined the fight for black rights. It's not for affirmative action, and more entitlement and welfare programs. It's pro-business, and homeownership, pro-Social Security privatization, and pro traditional family values. That appeals to young, upwardly mobile blacks.

Gotcha, Earl: This also appeals to blacks of all ages. Especially those who for whatever reason would like to see not only themselves, but their CHILDREN, AND GRANDCHILDREN owning homes and doing well.

Bush and Mehlman may be on to something.

EOH is right -- Bush and Mehlman are on to something.

Speaking of Bruce Gordon as we have in past, Southack, thought you find the following article interesting: Questions for the NAACP by Margaret Kimberley

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.