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Tonya
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Username: Tonya
Post Number: 185
Registered: 07-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 04, 2006 - 02:55 pm: | 
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Should black folks vote Republican? Why? Why not? |
Tonya
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Tonya
Post Number: 186
Registered: 07-2006
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Friday, August 04, 2006 - 02:57 pm: |
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Blackwell and the black vote
2006-08-03
By Dan Williamson
The Other Paper, Columbus
When he discusses Ohio's race for governor, East Cleveland Mayor Eric Brewer's thoughts turn to "Gone with the Wind."
In one scene, Scarlett O'Hara encounters a slave named Jim outside a church, where she has been attending to Confederate soldiers.
"She runs up to Jim and says, 'Jim, Jim, where you going?' And Jim says, 'We're going to stop those Yankees, Miss Scarlett.' Here's an African American who was so ignorant that he didn't understand that these Yankee soldiers are coming to liberate him."
To Brewer, black Democrats trying to defeat Republican Ken Blackwell for governor are a lot like Jim the slave.
"I really see the African-American community -- not knowing his record, not knowing his intent of wanting to lift poor blacks, poor whites, poor Hispanics out of poverty -- and I see them fighting against someone who is really there to help them," Brewer said.
Brewer is a black Democrat and -- as you might guess from his "Gone with the Wind" analogy -- a passionate Blackwell supporter.
If there are a few hundred thousand more Eric Brewers among Ohio voters, Blackwell might just be the next governor.
According to the 2001 census, African Americans make up 12 percent of Ohio's population. In most elections, Republicans concede the black vote to the Democrats. It was considered a coup for President Bush when he won 16 percent of Ohio African Americans in 2004 -- compared to just 9 percent four years earlier.
As an African American running against a Caucasian, Blackwell will certainly get more than Bush's 16 percent. The question of how much more will be hotly debated for the next three and a half months.
"I have a bet going on with a white Democrat, and his bet is that they can turn more black people against Blackwell than those of us who support him can turn for him," Brewer said. "I told him that I'm going to take that bet because I don't believe black folks are that stupid."
State Rep. Joyce Beatty also doesn't think black folks are stupid. But she believes they'll come to a different conclusion about Blackwell.
"Obviously he is black, and they will know that," said Beatty, the Ohio House minority leader.
"I think that we are underestimating African Americans. I think African Americans will look at the bigger picture. I don't think that African Americans, any more than white Americans, vote blindly."
The contrast
One of the things the Ohio Democratic Party likes about Ted Strickland is that he isn't from a big city. Strickland hails from the rural, eastern part of the state, a region that is trending overwhelmingly Republican. After winning big in the cities in '04 but losing even bigger in small towns and rural areas, Democrats concluded a guy like Strickland could help them compete.
The flip side of that, though, is Strickland has little contact with African-American voters. His 6th Congressional District is only 2.4 percent black.
"The problem with Ted Strickland is very simple, really," said Gil Price, a reporter for Columbus's Call & Post, a weekly newspaper serving the black community. "It is that Ted Strickland is a guy who is from a district that is almost entirely white."
And for a number of reasons, Price said, "Strickland hasn't been able to energize African-American communities."
Blackwell, on the other hand, is a former Cincinnati mayor and council member who has three statewide elections under his belt.
"Strickland is unknown," said Cornell McCleary, a former Ohio Republican committee member who once served as the party's liaison to African-American voters. "And whether they like Blackwell or not, they know him."
Democratic Cuyahoga County Commissioner Peter Lawson Jones acknowledged he has "a couple of friends" who are Democrats supporting Blackwell and thinks the Republican will win votes "because of the symbolic nature of his race."
Jones also said Blackwell's history of hiring black employees helps to blunt the fact that he's a very conservative Republican.
"His record on affirmative action, at least in the offices he's worked in, is solid enough that it's not going to hurt him," Jones said.
Columbus Mayor Mike Coleman said Blackwell's reputation is "mixed."
"There is concern about what he has said in the past and what he's done in the past, and on the other side of the coin is, well, some recognition that for the first time in the history of our state, there is a potential for an African-American governor," Coleman said. "And that's got people's attention."
Surrogates for Ted
Democrats believe Strickland has a very strong case to make against Blackwell with black voters -- but they're not sure the congressman is the one who should make that case.
Democrats say Blackwell's conservative economic ideology -- crystallized by his since-abandoned constitutional amendment to limit state spending -- is at odds with poorer blacks who depend on public services and receive little or no benefit from income-tax cuts.
Also, Blackwell has long been accused of making it more difficult for people to vote -- a right that is uniquely sacred to African Americans. And though not all the charges against the secretary of state are based on fact, Democrats have done an effective job of giving Blackwell a reputation he must shed.
"There's no merit to the argument," said Mayor Brewer, "but there's merit to the perception."
And what should Strickland do to maximize this and other negative perceptions about Blackwell? Nothing, say his supporters.
He should let black mayors and other African-American elected officials around the state do his dirty work for him in their respective cities.
"I think the fear is that there will be a backlash where you see a European-American candidate beating up on a brother, and that might make him benefit from the predisposition to support black victims," Commissioner Jones said. "You don't want to make Blackwell a sympathetic figure in the African-American community."
Beatty agreed Strickland should keep his own message positive while leaving it to others to disparage his opponent. And she's happy to volunteer.
"I have no problem speaking out," she said.
Neither does Coleman: "I'm supporting Ted 100 percent, and I'm going to do what they ask me to do."
Price, however, said it is OK for Strickland to criticize Blackwell as long as he doesn't appear to be playing the race card.
"It's not whether you beat up on him," Price said. "It's how you beat up on him."
Clergy for Ken
State Rep. Dixie Allen of Dayton, a former Democrat who defected to the Republican Party last week, said Blackwell can effectively counter Strickland's political surrogates with his own religious surrogates.
"He's getting a lot of support from black ministers," Allen said. She believes support from clergy trumps support from elected officials.
"The ministers, they see these people every week, and the politicians, they see them once a year when they're campaigning. There's a difference."
McCleary said Blackwell's high-profile efforts against abortion and gay rights resonate with religious black voters.
"One of Blackwell's secret weapons is that 25 to 40 percent of the so-called values voters are the African-American middle class," he said. Democrats like Beatty and Coleman, he said, "only speak for the ruling class of the black community. Their sentiments do not represent the masses."
Beatty said conservatives overestimate the extent to which African Americans obsess over issues such as homosexuality.
"I get hundreds of calls in my office in a week, and I don't have anybody calling me about gay marriage," she said. "Nor do I believe that ministers are getting calls from their congregations saying, 'Somebody gay moved next door to me.'"
And anyway, Beatty said, pastors aren't allowed to endorse candidates.
That notion drew a laugh from Steve Cheek, president of African-American Republicans of Ohio.
"They cannot endorse," he said, "but you've been around."
The bottom line
At the end of the day, the two big questions for Blackwell are: How much of the black vote can he get, and how much of it does he need?
Blackwell spokesman Carlo LoParo said Blackwell got about 20 percent in his first statewide race in 1994, about 30 percent in his next one in 1998, and about 40 percent in 2002. Blackwell won all three elections.
"I would think that he needs at least 20 percent to win," said Mayor Brewer, "and I think when black folks wake up and realize that their liberation is at hand, that he should get that 20 percent plus."
That estimate seems low on both ends.
In May, the University of Cincinnati's Ohio Poll had Blackwell picking up 32 percent of black voters compared to Strickland's 55. And most Republicans believe Blackwell needs to do at least that well in order to win.
Larry James, a politically ambidextrous attorney supporting Blackwell, boldly predicted the Ohio Poll will be reversed on Election Day, insisting his guy will get "55 percent -- on a bad day."
McCleary is not so optimistic.
"I think Larry's high," McCleary said. "I'm gonna tell you why Larry's high -- because Ken is not going to go for it. He's not going to directly go for the black vote, and if he did, I think he could get to 55. But he's never done it in his career."
Price said the important number won't be the number of black votes Blackwell gets, but rather the number that Strickland doesn't get. Every African-American voter who doesn't bother to vote, Price said, "is a vote for Blackwell."
Jones said he thinks Blackwell will end up getting a third of the black vote, but that won't be enough.
"For every vote he loses in the black community, he'll pick up a vote and a half to two votes from moderate Republicans and independents," Jones said. "This is an unusual election."
http://www.athensnews.com/issue/article.php3?story_id=25551 |
Chrishayden
"Cyniquian" Level Poster
Username: Chrishayden
Post Number: 2519
Registered: 03-2004
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Votes: 0 (Vote!) | | Posted on Saturday, August 05, 2006 - 10:45 am: |
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