[Paleo Conservative]

I think I'll contribute to McKinney's run for the DemocRAT Senate nomination in 2004. If she won the nomination, it would stimulate a very healthy Republican turnout.

[Salvey]

she would provide the Democratic party with an image it doesn't need and provide Georgia and the nation generally with the spectacle of a politics they can do quite nicely without.

Oh, I don't know about that; I think such a spectacle would be enlightening and salutary for the body politic and the public weal.

[comebacknewt]

In the end, I think the McKinney loss helps Republicans when it comes to redistricting. Lately, the RATS have tried to move black voters out of majority black districts to other marginal RAT districts.

If you're an incumbant black, there is no way you are going to allow that to happen without a fight after watching what happened to Hilliard and McKinney.

Good news for us. Helps keep the RATS bunched together in the same district.

[FreedomPoster]

But how many crossovers were there?

At the low end, 15,000 or so, and probably closer to 20,000. There were probably 12,000 in the north part of the District alone, between Dunwoody / North DeKalb (the precincts reported in the Dunwoody Crier this week), plus the 5 Gwinnett precincts.

Regarding a Senate race, as I've said before, Run, Cyndy, Run!

McKinney pings all around.

[KC_Conspirator]

It's also good for the country. It's evidence that we are getting beyond the time when we have a black politics separate from the politics of the rest of the country. Ethnic origins will still count for something, as they always have in America, but ethnicity will be a factor that can be trumped by other things. Black politicians will now see that they have a political incentive not to move left and toward racial appeals, away from the rest of the electorate, but to move to the center and to try to appeal to a majority made up of voters of all backgrounds.

This is exactly why there are no black senators. Leftists will tell you because of racism, but thats a lie. Most black candidates come from majority black districts and have drifted far left because it was safe to do so. However, the consequences are that average Americans see their extremist views as unacceptable and therefore leftist black candidates can't win statewide.

[Illbay]

I think the unexamined truth is, that a black candidate who uses too many "y"s in her name, like an upper-class country-clubber's brat, is politically doomed.

She should have changed her name to "Winnie" and worn a dashiki during the entire campaign.

[mhking]

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.

[Torie]

Some of Barone's numbers are off (for example the 60% figure of black voters in the Dem primary is too high; I estimate it at 53%), but his larger point remains. A substantial percentage of blacks voted for Majette. I estimate the percentage at 30%, and Barone at 33%.

[aculeus]

Denise Majette was called a "Tomette" and the like by the McKinney forces. This didn't prevent her from winning 1 of 3 black votes against an incumbent. Evidently many black voters believed there were other issues more important than who is the most "black."

They raised "racial authenticity" as an issue? : )

[backhoe]

Jihad Cindy? McKinney won't go quietly... indeed, she may not go away at all...

[BlackRazor]

...the Democratic party, in Georgia and elsewhere, has figured out that it is in its interest not to maximize the number of black majority districts but to spread black voters around to several white majority districts where they can (Democrats hope) tilt the balance to the Democrats.

This is disappointing that the Dems have finally realized this. I've seen analysis of the 1990 redistricting process suggesting that the creation of heavily-concentrated black districts in that cycle directly contributed to at least 16 GOP House seat pick-ups by 1994 (all in the South).

[thucydides]

What Barone lightly treads over is the appalling fact that more than two-thirds of blacks in the district voted for McKinney. However, the point that redistricters are trying to spread their democrat voters so as to produce less secure, but more numerous democrat seats is interesting. This will tend to dampen McKinney style extremism. It may of course, backfire. Due to the natural extremism of the party, based on its need to inflame its ignorant constituencies as much as possible with racial paranoia so as to get 95% votes from minorities in the cities in order to offset other districts, anything less than overwhelmingly democrat districts risk turnovers.