Maybe you saw it: A black congressman from Alabama's 7th Congressional District named Artur Davis recently lost his bid to become Alabama’s first black governor.
It wasn’t so bad that Davis lost; the problem was that his opponent in the state’s Democratic Primary, Ron Sparks, the incumbent Alabama Agricultural Commissioner, “kicked Davis’ back out,” crushing him among both black and white voters.
Davis, as you may recall, was yet another in a long line of “new," black elected officials who have been persuaded by mainstream media that the fundamental laws of politics no longer apply to black candidates.
Usually, a political candidate needs to establish a strong, mutually supportive relationship with his/her "base." If, for example, you are an Hispanic political candidate, your prospects for success are significantly enhanced if you start your campaign by being able to count on the members of your Hispanic "base," people who feel a fundamental kinship with you, through a shared language, culture, appearance, residence or, even, religion.
Former Philadelphia Mayor Frank L. Rizzo, understood that. He always took great care of his South Philly, River Ward and Northeast Philadelphia base and, therefore, entered every election campaign with a built-in electoral "edge." Whether we, in the black community, or anybody else, liked it or not, he never turned on the members of his base and they never failed to vote for him, even switching parties, by the thousands, to ensure that they could still be there when he needed them.
It’s not really “rocket science.”
Successful politicians – even if they don’t happen to have law degrees from prestigious universities – have pretty much figured that out. Consequently, they usually take great pains to reach out to the members of their most important voting base to find out what they need, and to promise them that, if elected, they’ll do their best to deliver precisely that.
So, how do you explain Artur Davis?
When you’re an ambitious black candidate or elected official, do the flattering words coming from the New York Times, Washington Post, Time and Newsweek actually drown out your common sense? Does all the talk about your unique qualifications to appeal to white voters actually make you ineffective at doing fundamental political appeals to your own base? When they praise you for not being "burdened" with having lived through the Civil Rights Era, does that make it easier to forget the struggles and the sacrifices that paved the way for your entrance onto previously segregated university campuses, in the first place, and that give you the “right," even now, to run for very recently segregated political offices?
It certainly seems to be the case.
Why else would Davis, who launched his political career by being elected to Congress in 2002, behave as he did during his disastrously unsuccessful gubernatorial campaign? Did he get caught up in the hype and forget that his 7th Congressional District’s boundaries had been specifically drawn in 1992 to provide an opportunity for greater African-American political representation, following the passage of the Voting Rights Act?
Having been born and raised in Montgomery Alabama, Davis certainly was fully aware that nine of the 12 counties in that 7th District make up Alabama’s infamous “Black Belt,” a desperately poor, still predominantly black section of the state that was the site of Alabama’s largest and most profitable cotton plantations. Many of the residents today are the descendants of the slaves who “worked” those plantations.
As the 7th District’s congressman, Davis knew full well that the residents of the “Black Belt” endure exceptionally low levels of access to health care and a per capita income of $15,633, and that they are among those in the nation who are most seriously in need of sensitive support and assistance from their government.
But with his Harvard law degree clutched tightly in hand and his "post-racial standard-bearer" designation from the New York Times ringing incessantly in his ears, Artur Davis decided, somehow, that he would try to be elected governor of Alabama without making a direct appeal, at all, to the State’s black voters. In fact, over the past year, as he prepared for his gubernatorial campaign, Davis’ congressional voting record began to lean more conservative, more mainstream and less black, from an issues perspective.
Even though the people of the 7th comprised the only Congressional District in the entire state of Alabama to vote for Barack Obama in 2008, Davis, in a coldly calculated manner, thought it would, somehow, be politically expedient and decidedly "post-racial" to be the only member of the Congressional Black Caucus to vote against Barack Obama’s Health Care Reform Bill.
In one of the most damaging responses to Davis’ vote, the old lion, Jesse Jackson, said late last year, “You can’t vote against health care and call yourself a black man.” That certainly seemed to resonate with African-American voters during the Alabama gubernatorial election.
But that wasn’t all. In a misguided attempt to further appease white Alabama voters, Davis also went to great lengths to separate himself from established black political organizations across the state, such as The Alabama Democratic Conference and the Alabama New South Coalition.
Davis, publicly and grandiosely, opted not even to participate in the regularly scheduled political candidate interviews that the groups invited him to attend. He was sending a message. But, they sent one right back, when they endorsed his white opponent, Ron Sparks.
Davis’ handlers always made it very clear that, in his race to become governor of Alabama, the candidate was emulating Barack Obama’s presidential campaign strategy. You remember that one, don’t you? That campaign focused exclusively on appeals to white voters. The goal was to win a significant white voting bloc (in Obama’s case, it was the Iowa Caucus) and then sit back and wait for black voters to get caught up in the candidate's "cross-over appeal" and flock to the campaign – even without a direct appeal to them.
It certainly appears that, back then, black voters were a bit more trusting, a great deal “more hopeful” and significantly more willing to accept such cynical treatment.
Thank God, on election day, black voters in Alabama gave Mr. Davis exactly what he deserved-- an embarrassingly lop-sided defeat.
Despite leading by eight points over Sparks in a widely publicized poll a week prior to the election, Davis wound up losing to Sparks, 62 percent to 38 percent.
According to the Tuscaloosa News, Sparks wound up winning in 61 of Alabama’s 67 counties. It wasn’t just that white voters, whom Davis loved so much, rejected him (and they did, overwhelmingly), the real reason for his defeat was that black voters, who had supported him with 98 percent of their vote as recently as 2008, appropriately decided to make him pay for turning his back on them.
Consider this: Davis won just two out of twelve counties in his own Congressional District and was defeated by his white opponent in the nine “Black Belt” counties. In performing as he did, Davis became the first African-American candidate in a state-wide Alabama election to lose the black vote.
In predominantly black Wilcox and Perry Counties, for example, Sparks received more than 70 percent of the vote. Davis even lost the vote in Jefferson County, his home county, and at his own polling place. Even his neighbors voted against him.
As one Alabama political observer pointed out, “You can’t thumb your nose at your base; and that is what Artur did … it’s just staggering.”
Fittingly, Davis, who passed up an opportunity to run again for his Congressional seat so that he could seek the Governor’s Office, announced, following his loss, that he had “no interest in running for political office again.”
Good.
I just hope that Davis’ close friend and fellow-Harvard Law School alumnus, Barack Obama, was paying attention.
There’s a message in there somewhere.
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