December 17, 2002
THE SWORD'S OTHER EDGE:
Yielding high ground seeking atonement (Mona Charen, December 16, 2002, Washington Times)The most contentious, emotional and bitter arguments between the two parties often touch upon race. Both Republicans and Democrats have played the race card, but in the last two decades, the Democrats have honed and perfected the art. They have done so because only by riling their black supporters and exacerbating racial tension can Democratic candidates continue to win elections.The day Democrats fail to secure 80 percent or 90 percent of the black vote, they cease to exist as a major party. Or at least, they would be forced significantly to remake themselves as a party.
That's certainly true, but there's an important corollary that's nearly unmentionable, one which explains the reasons that powerful mainstream Democrats have been relatively silent about this whole affair, and why it is now more important for Democrats than for Republicans that Mr. Lott surrender his leadership position: if Democrats become identified as the Black Party they're toast too. All the stuff about how great this is for Democrats is a crock. Nearly everyone will acknowledge that they don't need it to gin up black votes and that they risk alienating white males. Meanwhile, the one advantage that you hear cited most often, that it helps them among suburban white females, simply flies in the face of what we know about how those women vote. These are after all the same suburban women who have made it impossible for many Republicans to support school vouchers, because, if we can be blunt, they don't want black kids attending school with their kids. I know, I know, just like anti-immigration sentiment there are ways to spin this that avoid the obvious racial overtones, but that's all it really is: spin. Women, it should come as no surprise, fear the "other" and prefer the security of homogeneity at least as much as men. That may be different than racism but it's so close that the differences hardly matter. Posted by Orrin Judd at December 17, 2002 5:09 PM
School vouchers are strong with blacks and with conservatives, but weak with centrist voters and white Democrats. It is going to be hard to build a coalition for them as long as blacks refuse to give their votes to Republican blackers. The teachers' unions will always keep the Democrats in opposition.
Posted by: pj at December 17, 2002 6:08 PMThe tone of this is almost as disheartening as an NPR
political report.
Can't somebody vote for somebody on the basis of
something besides skin color?
By the same token, the Lott issue is important to the GOP not because it makes it harder to attract black voters, but because of its potential to alienate white conservatives and moderates who would not support a party with racist leaders regardless of its other policies.
Posted by: David Cohen at December 17, 2002 6:28 PMI agree with you, Harry.
Posted by: Bruce Cleaver at December 17, 2002 6:43 PMThe entire premise of the GOP as a refuge for Dixiecrats is that it made Republicans a viable national party again and saved the careers of the Strom Thurmonds of the world. How'd that work if there wasn't a racial component? And in a political climate where the next big issue for black leadership seems likely to be slave reparations, how can race not be an important factor in our future?
Posted by: oj at December 17, 2002 6:56 PMThe Democrats have a death grip of their core constituency of Blacks, unions, and Govt. workers that nothing will dislodge. You cannot possibly outbid them for these votes and it insanity to try. The danger is that a Southern Democrat--a Jimmeh of a slick Willy--may pretend to be "born again," or something like that, keep the core and pull in the middle, and it's all over. What are you going to waffle on in order to to chase votes among a 12% bloc that votes 90+% Democrat? Quotas? Reparations? Out-of-district busing? If we don't have the nerve to stand by our principles against the "R" word, we may as well pack it in now.
Posted by: Lou Gots at December 17, 2002 7:18 PMI made a similar comment -- but a Lott more bluntly -- on http://jonjayray.blogspot.com
on 14th.
So I am pleased to see a more diplomatic version of it.
Well, it's nice to see that there are all these non-racist
conservatives, at least in the blogosphere. I never met any when I lived in the South.
But the non-racist conservatives had better rise up on their hind legs and make a statement at the next convention, or the black voters will draw conclusions, and they won't be wrong.
Bush II has been like a Messiah for the Republicans on the issue of color, not just black but also Hispanic, and the yelps of the Democrats show how badly he scared them. But it's easy to paint him as a lone aberration in a party that is not non-racist.
I don't believe the Republican party has anything better to offer than the Democrats on race, though, as Orrin says, it has a greater opportunity just now. Which it is not making use of.
Harry;
Just who has been baying for Lott to fall on his sword? Liberals? It's been the conservatives who have been beating on this drum.
That's fine, but the underlying assumption is that Lott is one bad apple, that otherwise the Republican party in general and the southern Republicans in particular are somewhere near decency on race issues.
I grew up in the South. Most of my kin are Republicans. I ain't buying it.
Harry:
One flaw in your argument is that Hispanics despise blacks.
That's obviously too blanket a statement, isn't it? Both personal experience and polling data suggest that Hispanics do not look favorably upon black political concerns. How's that?
Posted by: oj at December 18, 2002 9:23 PMI'm not following. Bush II appears to be
genuinely colorblind, either naturally or as a
matter of policy. It doesn't matter which.
Great.
Is he leading his party away from racial politics?
I think he's trying.
Is the party following? The part that inhabits
the corner of the blogosphere I know is.
The rest? Not hardly.
But I don't see how it makes a difference that
(if true) Hispanics hate blacks.
In the whole world, if not particularly in the
U.S., lots of Hispanics are black, or mostly so.
Presumably there are distinctions made among
them as to which are authentically Hispanic
etc.
Not for me to say.