Bush Shouldn't Write Off the Black Vote
By JUAN WILLIAMS
WASHINGTON — With the presidential election only a few months away, it is time for President Bush to unleash his secret weapon — his relationship with black and Hispanic voters. [P6: He HAS no relationship with Black voters to speak of.]
The president is already winning a third of the popular vote among Hispanics, according to a Zogby International poll taken this spring. With advertisements and outreach focused on reforms to allow easier immigration for workers, the president has a good chance to add to his numbers among Hispanics.
But in a close race, the key to re-election rests on the president's ability to increase his percentage of the black vote. Here, he has the chance to make tremendous gains — if only because he now has practically no support among black voters. A May Washington Post/ABC News poll showed the likely Democratic nominee, Senator John Kerry, with a 79 percent to 6 percent lead over Mr. Bush among black voters. If the president gets only 6 percent of the black vote this year he will have achieved the near impossible task of getting a lower percentage of black votes than he did in 2000, when he won 8 percent.[P6: Oh, yes, please unleashed that relationship. I'm begging you.]
But the president has the opportunity to flip the script. With a direct appeal, President Bush could win at least 20 percent of the black vote — and the White House.
First, the field is open. Compared with previous Democratic campaigns, Mr. Kerry's has done a poor job of reaching out to black voters. As Donna Brazile, Al Gore's campaign manager in 2000, said recently, "Don't expect me to go out and say John Kerry is a great man and a visionary if you're not running ads on African-American or Hispanic cable networks. Fair is fair. So send my dad a postcard, send my sisters a bumper sticker." The Kerry campaign has also been notable for its lack of blacks and Hispanics among the candidate's top advisers. And Mr. Kerry has rarely been identified with issues that compel black voters — notably affirmative action. [P6: Bush, on the other hand is VERY strongly identified with issues that compel Black voters — notably affirmative action.
G.W. Bush: Affirmative Action Baby]
by Manning Marable
Several days before last month's national holiday celebrating Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.'s birthday, the Bush administration came out forcefully against affirmative action policies initiated at the University of Michigan, which soon, will be under Supreme Court review.…The controversies over both affirmative action and Pickering's renomination led many columnists to question the administration's commitment to civil rights. One of the most thoughtful commentaries to appear was by author Roland S. Martin, which appeared in USA Today on the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday. Posing the question, how would King have viewed Bush's rejection of affirmative action, Martin observed: "President Bush opposes the University of Michigan's admissions program because he views it as a quota system." "Yet he is proud to call himself a Yale graduate, even though he benefited from a quota system because of his family's history at the Ivy League school. That's right. Our own president is an affirmative action baby."
Third, Mr. Bush has a network to make a pitch to black voters — the black church. Despite some bumps along the way, black churches remain generally enthusiastic about the president's faith-based initiative. The president has used his appearances before faith-based groups as a way to communicate with black Americans. It was no surprise that Mr. Bush used a speech to ministers to condemn Senator Trent Lott for expressing kind words about Strom Thurmond's segregationist past.[P6: And I, at least, haven't forgotten that events have shown that to be an empty statement.]
And then there is the president's top selling point with black voters — his track record of appointing minorities to top positions. There are three black cabinet secretaries in the Bush administration: Alphonso Jackson, secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development; Rod Paige, secretary of education; and Colin Powell, the secretary of state.
What's more, the administration official most closely identified with the president is a black woman, Condoleezza Rice, the national security adviser. By giving Ms. Rice and Mr. Powell so much clout, President Bush is miles ahead of any other president, Democrat or Republican, in his treatment of [P6: specific] black people. [P6: These people are NOT a selling point. They are, in general, considered a sell-out point.]
Posted by P6 at June 16, 2004 08:19 AM
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Comments
What exactly IS George Bush's relationship to Black voters? Do photo-ops count? If 94% of a given population was opposed to me, I'm not sure that I would trot out my relationship to them as A SECRET WEAPON!
Posted by Mike at June 16, 2004 06:36 PMMy point exactly, Mike.
I think Williams' point is that Kerry doesn't have the Black vote locked down, which is true. But Republicans have the Black vote locked out. Bush will not get many Black folks voting for him; what may happen is the Black vote may not turn out if they see no one to vote for.
Juan Williams makes good points. What we argue on our black moderate-conservative news site:
"Overall we agree with Mr. Williams, although we believe 15% is a max tally for Dubya. There will be a high black turnout (we feel it), so President Bush can either get 15% or his re-election goes down the drain. Polls show that about 17% of the black electorate approves of President Bush's performance, so there is clearly an 11-point gap between belief and vote intention that Dubya must rectify. However, we disagree with Mr. Williams' contention that Dubya needs Southern black votes. We'd argue that he has that region wrapped up. We do agree that he needs to bump up his black support in the 20 battleground states, mostly in the Midwest. We'd add some issues to Mr. Williams' list: black homeownership rate, anti-slavery in Africa, partial Social Security privatization, enterprise, his AIDS in Africa initiative. Many black folks are also very incensed about the gay-marriage-equals-black-history argument push.
The Republican Party must get serious about spreading its message in media that most blacks actually follow. For too long, it has allowed liberal Democrats to hold free reign in this niche media, and then they wonder why black voters don't like the GOP. It claims to be targeting 25% of the black vote this year, but we've seen little. However, the recent 4-city black empowerment tour was a decent start. The GOP could take a page out of the successful campaign in Maryland, where the white governor (with a black running mate) got 30% of the black vote in Baltimore by advertising on urban radio. How about targeting the groups likeliest to be open to a GOP appeal: blacks under age 45 (whose support of the Democratic Party has dropped by 11 percentage points since 2000, with a 6-point gain for the GOP), blacks who own stock (21% of whom vote GOP), and blacks who own a business? It must respond quickly to Dem attacks, or risk torpedo support like in 2000 with the infamous NAACP "chains" ad (where Dubya's black support went from 17% down to 8% shortly before the election). Two, black Republicans must grow a damn backbone, quit whining, and get aggressive in spreading the message among their peers. How about an ad by Secretary Colin Powell, the one black Republican whom the vast majority of blacks (77% in most recent Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies poll) actually likes? The messenger is as critical as the message. Three, more black voters must educate ourselves about various candidates and not just automatically vote Dem or GOP."
Black America doesn't strategically use its vote, which is why the Democrats can take folks for granted and Republicans can ignore folks. The best thing blacks could do is be independent and shift to the center. This can happen if we diversify our votes and make them much less predictable.
You people don't get it.
Posted by P6 at June 18, 2004 11:29 AM