YOU WILL BE MINE, ALL MINE

THE MOYNIHAN GAMBIT (Edward Driscoll, June 27, 2003)

I've long been a fan of Stanley Crouch, ever since I first saw him on Charlie Rose's show in the late 1980s or early 1990s. In his latest New York Daily News column, he praises Bush's outreach towards blacks, as he dedicated June Black Music Month at a White House event entitled Harlem's Song:

"If this event was indeed part of a grand strategy, Bush seems well on his way to redirecting the ethnic tone of the Republican Party in a way that may not automatically make black people feel friendly toward it but that could, over time, bring issues of importance to Afro-Americans to the front and put party affiliations in the back.

I thought about all of that walking around the White House as the rehearsals were going on. Integration was everywhere. It felt good to see the military personnel and all the guests representing the many faces of the nation just as much as they did under President Bill Clinton.

Further, with Bush's emphasis on educational policy, with his appointments of Rice and Powell, with his pledge to refurbish Frederick Douglass' home, with his $15 billion relief package for black Africa and with his recent admonishment that federal law enforcement agencies should not profile any ethnic community unless the issue of terrorism is at hand, this President is changing his party."

Brother Driscoll says this could be part of a "Moynihan Gambit". We hope he's right. Consider only this: if the GOP could consistently get just 20% of the black vote, they'd never lose a national election and few statewide. Posted by Orrin Judd at June 28, 2003 8:52 AM