THE DEMOCRATS BLACK PROBLEM:

Sharpton Blasts "Favorite Son" Plan: Says Democrats Are Afraid of Him (BENJAMIN SMITH, 12/13/02, NY SUN)

The Rev. Al Sharpton, moving ever closer to a run for president, yesterday blasted a leading Democrat's plan to steer black voters away from him in 2004.

Al Gore's former campaign manager, Donna Brazile, says she may push popular black officials to run for president in their home states as "favorite sons." That strategy, she says, would increase black voters' impact, while pulling the rug out from under Mr. Sharpton in key southern states.

Ms. Brazile's plan, and Mr. Sharpton's response, mark the beginning of a back-and-forth some Democratic insiders fear will poison the party's 2004 primaries and undermine their chances of unseating President Bush.

So while blacks vote for Democrats at rates over 90%, even as Democrat officials bypass qualified black candidates like Cory Booker (NJ) and Alan Page (MN) and work to thwart the 2004 presidential candidacy of Al Sharpton and the Senate candidacies of folks like Carol Mosely-Braun and Cynthia McKinney, it is we Republicans who are supposed to don the hair shirt and denounce ourselves as racists? Posted by Orrin Judd at December 13, 2002 11:47 AM