Politics

[abaici]

Originally posted by Sistermadly
Interesting article...
http://www.blackcommentator.com/68/68_cover_dean.html

Interesting article. While people were up in arms about his "pick up trucks with confederate flags" comment, I got the point. The charactization was a little classist, but he's right. The democratic party needs those people. As the article stated, they need to vote for their interests, not their bosses.


Ok, I like Wesley Clark as a possible running mate. He provides the foreign policy/military experience that Dean lacks. He's also popular enough.

Dean has an interesting take on affirmatice action. One idea he forwarded was that affirmative action should be based on class, and not race. What do you think? I think it's an interesting stance

[Steeltrap]

Originally posted by abaici
Interesting article. While people were up in arms about his "pick up trucks with confederate flags" comment, I got the point. The charactization was a little classist, but he's right. The democratic party needs those people. As the article stated, they need to vote for their interests, not their bosses.


Ok, I like Wesley Clark as a possible running mate. He provides the foreign policy/military experience that Dean lacks. He's also popular enough.

Dean has an interesting take on affirmatice action. One idea he forwarded was that affirmative action should be based on class, and not race. What do you think? I think it's an interesting stance

That's something I will have to look into before I can articulate a good position. I was reading a British newspaper article about Henry Louis Gates, and he argued that affirmative action/integration/etc. has only benefited middle-class people and above, which many of us know but to me, is still interesting to read.
His point was that AA/integration/etc. does not and will not have the power to lift many people out of dire straits.

[Honeykiss1974]

While searching for information about Dean, I ran across this website

www.africanamericansfordean.com

[abaici]

Originally posted by Steeltrap
I was reading a British newspaper article about Henry Louis Gates, and he argued that affirmative action/integration/etc. has only benefited middle-class people and above, which many of us know but to me, is still interesting to read.
His point was that AA/integration/etc. does not and will not have the power to lift many people out of dire straits.

That's why it caught my attention. Many of us KNOW this to be true. I think back to my days as a high school senior. We used affirmative action to our benefit. I have seen it time and time again. Not, that we are not discriminated against, we were. However, we were not as you mentioned in dire straits. A great number of my classmates took the Princeton Review, we were enrolled in AP classes. We had opportunities some students didn't have. Is it fair that we put ourselves in the same category as students who did not have those opportunities due to their socioeconomic status. We realized the problem back then, but hey, we wanted to get into the colleges of our choice.

[Eclipse]

Originally posted by abaici

Dean has an interesting take on affirmatice action. One idea he forwarded was that affirmative action should be based on class, and not race. What do you think? I think it's an interesting stance

This is not too different from what many so called "compassionate conservatives" propose. While I think there should be efforts to level the playing field for all poor people (whether in Appalachia or the inner city), as long as we have studies that show that Jason Edwards will get a job before Tyrone Jackson, we can't do away with AA as we know it. Of course, I don't know too many Black middle class folks that are naming their children Tyrone and Quantavious, so maybe we get the double wammy. Kinda like be white and male in reverse.

[Professor]

I find it interesting that many folk would not support Sen. Clinton. I have read much of her book and she has some interesting viewpoints. I find myself always wanting to know what events and persons helped shape ones life.

During the Clinton era the US and most AA were in the best position that we have ever been. Bill did a great deal for the country. I think Sen. Clinton shares many of her husbands views and from what I've seen, she is a good choice. Have we forgotten all the good things that came out of the Big House when Clinton was at the helm.

[Sistermadly]

I remember the institution of heartless welfare "reform" policies.

I remember more African American men being incarcerated than under any other president in American history.

I remember "don't ask, don't tell."

I remember the pointless, ineffectual and patronizing "Conversations on Race".

[Professor]

I'm glad that we don't all share the same viewpoints - - -

I recall a US with a strong economy;
I recall a US with job opportunities;
I recall a record number of AA appointed to key positions.

Originally posted by Sistermadly
I remember the institution of heartless welfare "reform" policies.

I remember more African American men being incarcerated than under any other president in American history.

I remember "don't ask, don't tell."

I remember the pointless, ineffectual and patronizing "Conversations on Race".

[Sistermadly]

Originally posted by Professor
I'm glad that we don't all share the same viewpoints - - -

Yup - ain't it beautiful?

[Sistermadly]

GOP Makes 'Top Priority' Of Converting Black Voters
Party Hopes Bush Focus on Minorities Can Win 25%

By Darryl Fears
Washington Post Staff Writer
Thursday, December 25, 2003; Page A04


It was a historic moment for the Grand Old Party: At the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, black conservatives took center stage, delivered speeches in prime time, raised their voices in a gospel choir and locked hands with the white men who, by an overwhelming majority, run the party.

By the end of the convention, the future national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and secretary of state, Colin L. Powell, had emerged as black conservative stars, and a concerted effort by Republicans "to invent new black leaders" -- as former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) once put it -- was well underway.

Now, as the 2004 presidential election unfolds, Republicans want to convert that focus on black appointees into black votes. Their goal, they say, is to win 25 percent of the black vote, which the party has not come close to doing in nearly 30 years.

"If we get African American votes, [the Democrats] are in deep trouble," Gingrich said in a recent interview. In presidential elections, roughly nine of every 10 black votes are cast for Democrats.

To win hearts and minds, the GOP is planning a campaign featuring television and radio ads touting President Bush's reaching out to the African American community and elements of the Republican message that appeal to a wide swath of black voters, such as support for school vouchers.

"We have to make our case in media that African Americans listen to," Gingrich said. "It will be a much more intense effort . . . to reach out in advertising and education and systematic outreach. We have to realize the reality of [Black Entertainment Television] and radio stations that we are not used to being on."

Ed Gillespie, chairman of the Republican National Committee, said increasing his party's share of the black vote is "a top, top priority."

The party is looking into establishing chapters at historically black colleges and universities, he said. Gillespie recalled Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele (R) telling him that the GOP should target black voters between 18 and 35 "because they are most likely to not identify as Democrats."

During a trip to Pittsburgh in July, Gillespie said, he met with Marc H. Morial, the new president of the National Urban League. While in Detroit last month, Gillespie said, he talked for two hours with editors at the Michigan Chronicle, one of the nation's few black daily newspapers. The party has arranged with American Urban Radio to broadcast a weekly message to the huge African American audience the network reaches.

Gillespie declined to specify how much the party will spend, saying he did not want the Democratic leadership to know. "But we're budgeting for it," he said.

At the Bush-Cheney '04 campaign headquarters in Arlington, spokeswoman Sharon Castillo said, "We are taking no vote for granted." The campaign, she said, will recruit minority voters through radio and television and the Internet. Castillo said she could not be more specific because the campaign is still developing.

Still, Democrats and some analysts said it is unlikely that Republicans can persuade African Americans to vote for President Bush and other conservatives next year.

"The Republican Party's problem with African Americans is that its leadership is mainly made up of white men from the South," said David A. Bositis, a researcher for the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies here, a liberal African American think tank. "The black community has no trust in them."

Over the past 40 years, black voters have been wedded to the Democratic Party, whose leaders embraced the civil rights movement against southern segregation. The defection of southern whites from the Democratic Party helped transform the GOP.

But now, Republicans are echoing black Democrats such as strategist Donna Brazile and presidential aspirant Al Sharpton, who say their party has taken black voters' allegiance for granted. An RNC spokeswoman cited recent quotes from Sharpton, Brazile and others to make their case .

Nevertheless, no black critic of the Democratic Party has advocated switching to the Republican Party. Ron Walters, a University of Maryland political scientist who has written on conservative public policy and the black community, said black and white conservatives have no presence, and almost no respect, in the black community.

Among the 9,040 black elected officials counted in the Joint Center's Roster of Black Elected Officials, 50 are Republican and more than 3,700 are Democrats. A Joint Center spokeswoman said the others were elected in nonpartisan races, so the liberal-conservative disparity could be lesser or greater.

Conservative groups such as the Center for New Black Leadership and Black America's Political Action Committee, or BAMPAC, are optimistic about changing that.

This summer, BAMPAC released a poll showing that young African Americans are less likely to identify as Democrats, even though they continue to support liberal candidates. Those findings track with the results of an earlier poll by the Joint Center.

Younger black Americans, said Alvin Williams, BAMPAC's president and chief executive, "are potential swing votes for Republicans."

"I do think seeds are being planted," Williams said. "I believe in a few years, you could see the fruit, an increase in African American voting for Republicans."

In appointing Rice his national security adviser and Powell his secretary of state, Bush gave black officials a higher profile in his Cabinet than any other president. Bush has also nominated Janice Rogers Brown, a black California Supreme Court justice, to a seat on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit, considered to be a steppingstone to the Supreme Court. But Senate Democrats and the Congressional Black Caucus are fighting Brown's nomination.

"The core of the political leadership in the African American community has for a long time come from the left and had a very deep interest in maintaining a virtual monopoly on . . . the African American community," Gingrich said. "I think there's virtually no future in Republicans reaching out to that group."

In 1983, when he was a young congressman during the Reagan administration, Gingrich sparked a controversy when he said: "It is in the interest of the Republican Party and Ronald Reagan to invent new black leaders, so to speak. People who have a belief in discipline, hard work and patriotism, the kind of people who applauded Reagan's actions in [invading] Grenada." The idea still applies, he said.

In a recent interview, Rep. James E. Clyburn (D-S.C.) denounced Gingrich's statement as "patronizing and insulting to black people" then and now, and said such comments are "probably why Republicans get the bad results that they do" when they attempt to reach black voters.

Clyburn is one of the leaders in the Congressional Black Caucus who Gingrich believes Republicans should work around. Conservatives, Gingrich said, should reach out to younger, more moderate members of the caucus.

Rep. Denise L. Majette (D-Ga.) fits that description. She is 48 and moderate, and was a favorite of conservative white voters who crossed party lines to help her defeat then-Rep. Cynthia McKinney in a Democratic primary last year.

Black people should stop stereotyping conservatives and listen to what they have to say, Majette said. But she also said Republicans should embrace the leadership that "already exists."

Bush's tax cuts have benefited the wealthy, not black people, Majette said. The president also has not fully funded his No Child Left Behind education law, she noted, and has proposed far-reaching changes to the early childhood Head Start program, which many black parents rely on.

"You look at program after program, initiative after initiative, and you see that the Republican administration is not being faithful to the African American community," she said. "Their actions ought to speak louder than their words."

The GOP's standing among black voters was not helped last year when Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott (R-Miss.) celebrated Sen. Strom Thurmond (R-S.C.) by saying the nation would have been better off today had Thurmond been elected president in 1948, when he bolted from the Democratic Party and ran as a segregationist Dixiecrat.

But after Lott resigned his leadership post, black conservatives used the moment to seize a larger role in the party. After a series of meetings with the party leadership, black conservatives emerged with a promise of more involvement in the party and more funding. They in turn promised to seek more black votes.

One prominent black conservative, Harold Doley, who has served under five GOP presidents, envisaged a two-pronged drive: one engaging potential black voters on television and radio, and another sending appointed black leaders into the community

The potential of the push is an open question. Nearly half of black respondents in a Joint Center poll had almost no knowledge of one of the most prominent black Republicans, former representative J.C. Watts (Okla.), Bositis said. By comparison, 100 percent knew of Jesse L. Jackson, a former Democratic candidate for president, and 70 percent knew of Sharpton.



© 2003 The Washington Post Company

[enlightenment06]

yo, we should get the Blacks and Latinos together to form the Brown party. Within the next twenty-five to fifty years we'll be the majority. We could not only bring about changes to domestic policy, but we could revolutionize foreign policy. What ya'll think?

ETA: this is purely hypothetical. neither the Latino nor Black community is that monolithic. it's just an idea

[Steeltrap]

Originally posted by enlightenment06
yo, we should get the Blacks and Latinos together to form the Brown party. Within the next twenty-five to fifty years we'll be the majority. We could not only bring about changes to domestic policy, but we could revolutionize foreign policy. What ya'll think?

ETA: this is purely hypothetical. neither the Latino nor Black community is that monolithic. it's just an idea

Thank you for pointing it out, frat, that neither group is monolithic. Just look at Florida, although I've heard that younger Cuban-Americans with fewer memories of being run out by the dictatorship may lean somewhat Democratic.

[PharoahsPhirst]

Lets flip this a lil bit...Is it really in Hillary's best interest to run as or even become VP? Better still is it in the parties best interest to have her as VP instead of Senator?

In both cases, I don't see where it is in Hillary's best interest or the Party's best interest. Now if she were to win as VP that might set her up in a nice position for '08 or 16 but a lot of that would depend on the decisions made in the Dean White House.

As for John Edwards...That kat is simply too young and too inexperience politically the be P...VP he'd be great for.

[TonyB06]

A Political Booty Call: Democratic and Republican Outreach to Blacks
Date: Monday, Dec. 29, 2003
Author: Deborah Mathis


It’s that time of the decade. A presidential election is rounding the bend and, right on cue, the Republican and Democratic parties are beginning to squabble over which deserves the black vote come Election Day._

The GOP’s “big tent” rhetoric has been dusted off and reworked new millennium style, with keywords to appeal to young adults, 18-35, who are black. The Republican National Committee has a media blitz in the works just for them._

The Democrats are marshaling their troops, fearful once again of desertions or mutinies by a black constituency that has been the party’s mainstay ever since Franklin Delano Roosevelt made government beholden to ordinary folks. The Democratic National Committee knows that black defections – or inaction – will kill whatever faint hopes it has of defeating George W. Bush next November.

The GOP has concluded that young black Americans are the party’s ripest prospects because they are turned off by politics-as-usual and see the world differently than their parents who, statistically, lean Democratic._

Republicans say the typical young black voter is not a Jesse Jackson or Al Sharpton disciple, is tired of the old guard in general and craves new leadership. So they’re going to march out some fresh black Republican faces and offer them as the great black hope. Who knows? Some may even have dreads.

This premise appears to be modeled on the young white American, whose rebellion against “the establishment” necessarily includes his or her parents, whereas young black Americans’ disaffection for the old world order usually exempts their parents, who were never really part of “the establishment,” and, indeed, have their own issues with the status quo.

For most of us, race is not incidental to experience, particularly not our political choices. Race is the prime dynamic that informs our traditions, habits and beliefs. Ancestral experiences are not dismissed as irrelevant or obsolete.

While each generation brings its own flavor to black American life, an appreciation for old school ways and old school wisdom is timeless. I don’t care how much airtime it buys or how many Condoleezzas it parades, no political party can tool a message that beats what Mama knows.

The Democratic and Republican parties’ dueling courtships are not entirely wasteful nor will they be fruitless. Republicans will win over some souls with their flash and dash, the allure of change, the carrot of membership in a party with muscle and fuzzy promises of power-sharing._

Democrats will persuade most of its base to hang in there by exaggerating its fidelity to black sensibilities and glossing over the shortage of blacks in the party’s upper echelons and persistent complaints that black candidates and officials get short shrift from headquarters. The DNC can only thank its lucky stars that the only viable alternative is no longer affiliated with Lincoln and a precious proclamation, but with Bush and a purloined presidency.

Certainly it is nice to be noticed, nice to be wanted. Only, one cannot help but catch the whiff of opportunism that wafts over both parties’ attentiveness. The timing is too nifty. The come-on is overdone. The pleading is too urgent.

For all the flattery, it is nothing more than the political equivalent of a booty call. Sweet nothings tonight, home alone in the morning.

[Professor]

I think blacks should really look at both parties - I don't think either does a great deal to advance issues concerning AA. If fact, the dems seem to take for granted that they have our support. As more and more AA jump ship perhaps it will serve as a wake up call.