(Written February 25, 2011) If you’re one of those people who has been patiently waiting to see whether the "post-racial society" – in the third year of the Obama administration – has finally begun to kick in for black Americans, this was a good week for you. Is the whole "rising tide lifting all boats" thing finally working for us? Are we moving up or falling further behind? Let's start in Chicago, to see what we might have learned from the Windy City's mayor’s race, last Tuesday. By now, it’s not news anymore that Rahm Emanuel, who just a few months ago was supposed to be in the political “fight of his life” with Chicago’s black leadership, actually won that election – by a landslide. If you recall, black leaders in Chicago, including Rev. Jesse Jackson, in early January, had encouraged two of Emanuel’s leading black opponents to get out of the race, clearing the way for a single, black “consensus” candidate. That candidate, of course, was none other than Carol Moseley Braun, attorney, entrepreneur, first African-American female U.S. Senator, former U.S. Ambassador to New Zealand and former candidate for U.S. President of the United States, in the 2004 Democratic Primary Election. On paper, it looked like “a plan.” If all had gone according to that plan, Emanuel, even with a bold, politically risky endorsement from the country’s “first black president,” Bill Clinton, in hand, would have gotten his back kicked out by a unified black vote and there would have been an African-American mayor in Chicago, again, for the first time since Harold Washington’s untimely death in 1987. That was the plan, anyway, right up until January 30, the day that Moseley Braun, during a Sunday political debate at Trinity United Church, out of the clear blue sky, called a political opponent a “crack head.” Apparently, the opponent, another black woman, named Patricia Van-Pelt Watkins (who commanded a whopping one percent of the vote in the polls, at the time) angered Moseley Braun when she remarked that the former U.S. Senator had been largely invisible in local Chicago politics, in recent years. When it was her turn to speak, Braun, the former U.S. presidential candidate, said: “Patricia, the reason you don’t know where I was for the last 20 years is because you were strung out on crack.” While Watkins had openly admitted to drug use as a teen, there is absolutely no evidence that she ever experimented with or abused crack, at any point in her life. As they say in the sport of tennis, that statement, coming from a person who wanted to be elected mayor of the second largest city in the U.S., was “game, set and match" for the Carol Moseley Braun election campaign. At the time she made the comment, Moseley Braun had been running in second place, behind Emanuel with 21 percent of the vote. Just one month after the “crack head comment,” however, her support among likely voters had dropped to 10 percent and, on election day, she finished even lower, at 9 percent of the vote, behind two Hispanic candidates, former Chicago school board president Gery Chico and City Clerk Miguel del Valle and, of course, Emanuel. Chicago, with more black residents than any other U.S. city (1,019,000) and 600,000 registered black voters, as compared to 500,000 registered white voters and 300,000 registered Hispanic voters, just saw, last week, an opportunity to elect its second African-American mayor “go up in smoke," so to speak. Emanuel won the election with 317,000 votes, the lowest number of winning mayoral votes in Chicago history. Moseley Braun received a little more than 50,000 votes, and came in fourth, behind Chico with 138,000 votes and Del Valle, who attracted 53,000 voters. Turnout, in an historic Mayor's race, was 40 percent. Some in Chicago seemed to leap to conclusions about Barack Obama’s impact on the outcome, despite his reluctance to take any side, at all, during the campaign. Straining to make that point, black Chicago Sun-Times columnist Mary Mitchell wrote: “Obama didn’t have to say anything. He just had to be. And from that point on race became a bad word in elections.” She went on to officially declare that “Carol Moseley Braun's stunning defeat signals the end of the black political empowerment movement in Chicago.” Really, Ms. Mitchell? How about the absolute lack of a responsible and credible black candidate? Was that a factor? And, how about the effect of the notorious crack comment? Didn’t any of that matter? Why, in 2011, when the virtually all-white Tea Party is setting the political agenda in a disproportionately large number of states, including in Wisconsin, where the new governor, Scott Walker, was elected with Tea Party support, are black pundits in such a rush to discredit the value of having a viable, black voting bloc? Have Hispanics stopped voting for their candidates or for their issues, as a collective? And, wasn’t it also just last week when we saw a stunning announcement from the Obama administration that proved that the gay voting bloc was still intact, and operating at full force? Aside from Chicago, there was also the poll released, this past week, by the Washington Post/Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard University that informed us that, despite having the most significant economic barriers to their success, 85 percent of African Americans remain “optimistic” about the U.S. economy – for themselves and for their children. “The Recession was worse for (blacks), than the previous business cycle … “ said Christian Welle, Professor at The University of Massachusetts and “since then," he said, "things have not gotten any better.” The Washington Post poll informed us, for example, that in the event of job loss, 16.4 percent of white households wouldn’t have enough net worth to live for three months at the poverty level.” For black households, the poll reported, a stunning 41.7 percent wouldn’t have enough. In the face of all of that, blacks informed the pollsters that what keeps them optimistic are two things – their “faith in God” and their belief that Barack Obama, as President of the United States, will eventually take steps that will improve economic conditions for them and for their children. What we have learned from that, I imagine, is that there isn’t very much anyone can do to turn black voters into political pragmatists, the kind of people who hold elected officials accountable, by 2012. The more they suffer during the term of a favored elected official, the more, it seems, they become “optimistic.” At the same time, I guarantee you the Obama 2012 campaign advisors have learned that it is virtually impossible for the “second black president" to lose African-American support. Therefore, it probably doesn’t make a whole lot of sense for them to squander valuable political campaign funds to reach out to black voters or to make campaign promises to them. They obviously have no intention of going anywhere else. Maybe what we need is more of the approach taken by the chaplain in the old WWII song, who said to U.S. troops in the middle of battle:" Praise the Lord and pass the ammunition." The other, more passive approach, relying only on faith, is "killing" us. Then, there's the growing chorus of “Negro leaders” and political commentators who (get paid to) tell us that voting in a bloc is bad politics for blacks, no matter what whites, other ethnic groups and special interest groups do. That's a recipe for even further black political disaster. Looks like the 2012 Presidential Election will be another one wherein we believe in the candidate way more than the candidate believes in us, and when not much will have changed for us once it’s over. That certainly looks like the lesson we should have learned from the Chicago election. Were we paying attention? ###########
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Showing posts with label Political Issues. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Political Issues. Show all posts
Monday, July 11, 2011
Rahm Is The Mayor. What Did We Learn?
Tuesday, January 11, 2011
Keep an Eye on the Glib and Dangerous Haley Barbour.
It’s starting to appear that, over the next year or so, we in the black community may have to start paying a great deal more attention to what’s taking place in Yazoo City, and especially to the words of one of its most famous native sons, a glib, repackaged white-supremacist sympathizer named Haley Barbour.
Don’t pretend you never heard of Yazoo City … it’s only about an hour and a half’s drive from Philadelphia. No, not Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Philadelphia, Mississippi.
For those who think Philadelphia, Pennsylvania could stand improvement, let me remind you that Philadelphia, Mississippi is a place where just 19.8 percent of the population has a high school diploma, where the per-capita income is $25,807, where there is just one commercial bank and where the population is 46.2 percent black and 48.1 percent white.
The town became forever infamous when three "Freedom Riders" – two, white and Jewish, and the other black, were murdered at the height of the Civil Rights era, right before their bodies were set on fire.
That happened just down the road from where Haley Barbour was born and raised. It was the case wherein FBI investigators, while looking for the hidden remains of the three murdered young men, uncovered the bodies of seven other black lynching victims, whose deaths hadn’t even been reported. That was the same case wherein officials in Mississippi refused to even prosecute the killers.
Just two years before that, a black Air Force veteran named James Meredith put his own life at risk and had to be escorted to class by federal marshals after winning a lawsuit to desegregate the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), a school whose history includes having its entire student body and many faculty members walk off the campus and enlist in the Confederate Army, during the Civil War.
“Ole Miss” is located in Oxford Mississippi, only about 116 miles from Haley Barbour's Yazoo City. At the time of the desegregation effort, Barbour, future Mississippi Governor, future chair of the Republican National Committee and, now, an extremely likely and loquacious candidate for President of the United States, in 2012, was 15 years old. At the time of the murder of the Civil Rights workers, Mr. Barbour was 17 years of age– certainly old enough to have a full comprehension of what was going on around him, certainly old enough to understand that much of the most violent and unrelenting resistance to Civil Rights and equal opportunity for blacks in the South had come from the Ku Klux Klan and from Mississippi’s own White Citizens' Council.
Barbour, until last month, seemed to have successfully re-made himself as a racially sensitive,"new Southerner." In an interview, in December, however, in The Weekly Standard, Mr. Barbour, whose company Barbour Griffin, and Rogers, was described by Fortune Magazine, in 2001, as the most powerful lobbying firm in America, mentioned that he “just (didn’t) remember (the Civil Rights struggle in Yahoo City) as being that bad." He then went on to say that, as he recalled it, rather than being protectors for “European-American heritage,” as was the Council’s expressed mission, the White Citizens' Council was simply “an organization of town leaders.”
What Barbour glossed over, or conveniently forgot, during his interview, is that, during those years, the White Citizens' Council functioned very much like the Ku Klux Klan, in his town and across his state, except that its members, many of whom were also Klan members, refrained from wearing hoods and robes in public. Even without hoods, they somehow, managed to aggressively resist integration, to create white-only private schools to blunt the impact of Brown vs. Board of Education, and to run, successfully, for numerous public offices.
Barbour also was a staunch supporter of Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s declaration of Confederate History Month, last April, when McDonnell got all sentimental about the wonderfulness of the Confederacy without feeling the need to offer a single mention of the institution of slavery, whatsoever.
Bringing up slavery in a discussion about the Confederacy, presidential-hopeful Barbour said, at the time, was very much like trying to "make a big deal out of something that doesn’t amount to diddly."
"Diddly," Governor Barbour?
A conservatively estimated 11 million Africans shipped from their own continent to the West, resulting in loss of language, culture and their own economic resources, and contributing directly to the deaths of an also-conservatively-estimated 2.5 million of them, in the process--is that what you call “diddly?"
Barbour's comments have made it very clear that gross, racial insensitivity is not dead, yet, in America, even at the highest levels of government. His words and actions also constitute evidence that we need to step up our activities directed at supporting politicians who are actually committed to assisting us in achieving our reasonable political and economic objectives. His very existence on the political landscape is a sign that we really do need to elect and support politicians who reject, as we do, the long-held assumption that it is normal, in America, for blacks to have substantially higher unemployment levels, for us to suffer significant negative disparities with regard to health care, for us to be satisfied to have low, single-digit participation in the national economy, and for us to have substantially lower median household incomes and net worth levels.
These conditions used to make us angry – today, somehow, they no longer do. These conditions used to cause us to make demands of the private sector and of elected officials. In 2011, we seem strangely contented and satisfied to be “marginal” Americans” and, even, ashamed to bring such topics up, in public. As a consequence , other folks are "eating our lunches," taking jobs we formerly held, and winning the contracts in which we deserve to participate.
Despite the fact that Americans of European descent have routinely received more than 95 percent of contract dollars from local, state and federal governments, we don’t get upset when “Judas Goat” black elected officials chide us for not "making it on our own" as they inaccurately say white businesses do.
Hey, if we somehow,"flipped the script" and black-owned businesses began to win 95 percent of the contracts that comprise the country’s $3.8 trillion annual budget, and if our most successful business leaders and our largest corporations routinely got away with paying little or no taxes, with the full support of the government, as we've recently seen in the mainstream business community, then we, too, would be just fine, socially and economically.
It is an absolute fact that when local, state and federal governments, or the private sector buy paper clips, computers, vehicles, new construction or even agricultural products, they rarely, if ever, buy them from black suppliers, putting our community well behind the economic "eight ball." It's easy to understand why black businesses participate in less than one half of one percent of gross receipts in this country.
Here we are, faced with another two-year cycle of intensive campaigning for presidential office and, so far, neither party and none of the candidates, seem to be thinking, at all, about the things that could, and should, be done to finally make blacks in this country “full-fledged Americans,” with all the power, privilege, economic resources and authority related thereto. They do, however, want us to vote for them, anyway.
We’ve got our "friends" in the Democratic Party, on the one side, wanting us, for their own political advantage, to say nothing, at all, about what we need to bring about the inclusion we so sorely need.
And, on the other side, we’ve got an early Republican challenger, in an increasingly "Red" America, who has said, among other dubious things, that the White Citizens' Council's actions and the Civil Rights struggles “weren’t that bad,” and that slavery, as he recalls, wasn’t “diddly.”
Looks like, even in the midst of holding both major parties accountable, leading up to 2012, we're going to have to watch this guy, Haley Barbour, very closely. He seems dangerous.
He also may very well be...the next President of the United States.
#########
Don’t pretend you never heard of Yazoo City … it’s only about an hour and a half’s drive from Philadelphia. No, not Philadelphia, Pennsylvania – Philadelphia, Mississippi.
For those who think Philadelphia, Pennsylvania could stand improvement, let me remind you that Philadelphia, Mississippi is a place where just 19.8 percent of the population has a high school diploma, where the per-capita income is $25,807, where there is just one commercial bank and where the population is 46.2 percent black and 48.1 percent white.
The town became forever infamous when three "Freedom Riders" – two, white and Jewish, and the other black, were murdered at the height of the Civil Rights era, right before their bodies were set on fire.
That happened just down the road from where Haley Barbour was born and raised. It was the case wherein FBI investigators, while looking for the hidden remains of the three murdered young men, uncovered the bodies of seven other black lynching victims, whose deaths hadn’t even been reported. That was the same case wherein officials in Mississippi refused to even prosecute the killers.
Just two years before that, a black Air Force veteran named James Meredith put his own life at risk and had to be escorted to class by federal marshals after winning a lawsuit to desegregate the University of Mississippi (Ole Miss), a school whose history includes having its entire student body and many faculty members walk off the campus and enlist in the Confederate Army, during the Civil War.
“Ole Miss” is located in Oxford Mississippi, only about 116 miles from Haley Barbour's Yazoo City. At the time of the desegregation effort, Barbour, future Mississippi Governor, future chair of the Republican National Committee and, now, an extremely likely and loquacious candidate for President of the United States, in 2012, was 15 years old. At the time of the murder of the Civil Rights workers, Mr. Barbour was 17 years of age– certainly old enough to have a full comprehension of what was going on around him, certainly old enough to understand that much of the most violent and unrelenting resistance to Civil Rights and equal opportunity for blacks in the South had come from the Ku Klux Klan and from Mississippi’s own White Citizens' Council.
Barbour, until last month, seemed to have successfully re-made himself as a racially sensitive,"new Southerner." In an interview, in December, however, in The Weekly Standard, Mr. Barbour, whose company Barbour Griffin, and Rogers, was described by Fortune Magazine, in 2001, as the most powerful lobbying firm in America, mentioned that he “just (didn’t) remember (the Civil Rights struggle in Yahoo City) as being that bad." He then went on to say that, as he recalled it, rather than being protectors for “European-American heritage,” as was the Council’s expressed mission, the White Citizens' Council was simply “an organization of town leaders.”
What Barbour glossed over, or conveniently forgot, during his interview, is that, during those years, the White Citizens' Council functioned very much like the Ku Klux Klan, in his town and across his state, except that its members, many of whom were also Klan members, refrained from wearing hoods and robes in public. Even without hoods, they somehow, managed to aggressively resist integration, to create white-only private schools to blunt the impact of Brown vs. Board of Education, and to run, successfully, for numerous public offices.
Barbour also was a staunch supporter of Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s declaration of Confederate History Month, last April, when McDonnell got all sentimental about the wonderfulness of the Confederacy without feeling the need to offer a single mention of the institution of slavery, whatsoever.
Bringing up slavery in a discussion about the Confederacy, presidential-hopeful Barbour said, at the time, was very much like trying to "make a big deal out of something that doesn’t amount to diddly."
"Diddly," Governor Barbour?
A conservatively estimated 11 million Africans shipped from their own continent to the West, resulting in loss of language, culture and their own economic resources, and contributing directly to the deaths of an also-conservatively-estimated 2.5 million of them, in the process--is that what you call “diddly?"
Barbour's comments have made it very clear that gross, racial insensitivity is not dead, yet, in America, even at the highest levels of government. His words and actions also constitute evidence that we need to step up our activities directed at supporting politicians who are actually committed to assisting us in achieving our reasonable political and economic objectives. His very existence on the political landscape is a sign that we really do need to elect and support politicians who reject, as we do, the long-held assumption that it is normal, in America, for blacks to have substantially higher unemployment levels, for us to suffer significant negative disparities with regard to health care, for us to be satisfied to have low, single-digit participation in the national economy, and for us to have substantially lower median household incomes and net worth levels.
These conditions used to make us angry – today, somehow, they no longer do. These conditions used to cause us to make demands of the private sector and of elected officials. In 2011, we seem strangely contented and satisfied to be “marginal” Americans” and, even, ashamed to bring such topics up, in public. As a consequence , other folks are "eating our lunches," taking jobs we formerly held, and winning the contracts in which we deserve to participate.
Despite the fact that Americans of European descent have routinely received more than 95 percent of contract dollars from local, state and federal governments, we don’t get upset when “Judas Goat” black elected officials chide us for not "making it on our own" as they inaccurately say white businesses do.
Hey, if we somehow,"flipped the script" and black-owned businesses began to win 95 percent of the contracts that comprise the country’s $3.8 trillion annual budget, and if our most successful business leaders and our largest corporations routinely got away with paying little or no taxes, with the full support of the government, as we've recently seen in the mainstream business community, then we, too, would be just fine, socially and economically.
It is an absolute fact that when local, state and federal governments, or the private sector buy paper clips, computers, vehicles, new construction or even agricultural products, they rarely, if ever, buy them from black suppliers, putting our community well behind the economic "eight ball." It's easy to understand why black businesses participate in less than one half of one percent of gross receipts in this country.
Here we are, faced with another two-year cycle of intensive campaigning for presidential office and, so far, neither party and none of the candidates, seem to be thinking, at all, about the things that could, and should, be done to finally make blacks in this country “full-fledged Americans,” with all the power, privilege, economic resources and authority related thereto. They do, however, want us to vote for them, anyway.
We’ve got our "friends" in the Democratic Party, on the one side, wanting us, for their own political advantage, to say nothing, at all, about what we need to bring about the inclusion we so sorely need.
And, on the other side, we’ve got an early Republican challenger, in an increasingly "Red" America, who has said, among other dubious things, that the White Citizens' Council's actions and the Civil Rights struggles “weren’t that bad,” and that slavery, as he recalls, wasn’t “diddly.”
Looks like, even in the midst of holding both major parties accountable, leading up to 2012, we're going to have to watch this guy, Haley Barbour, very closely. He seems dangerous.
He also may very well be...the next President of the United States.
#########
Monday, June 21, 2010
Black Alabama Voters Wake Up and End a Post-Racial Political Career
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.
#######
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.
#######
Monday, November 9, 2009
The Myth of Black Political Power in Atlanta(10/30/09)
If you're a student of history, you can't go wrong by digging into the stuff that happened in 1973. If you like sports, that was the year that George Steinbrenner and his team of investors bought the New York Yankees from CBS -- for $10 million; and the year that George Foreman defeated Joe Frazier for the heavyweight boxing championship of the world.
If geo-political events are your thing, it was the year that the last U.S. soldier left Vietnam, and the year the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was founded. It was also the year of the Arab Oil Embargo, and that President Nixon told 400 Associated Press managing editors, "I am not a crook."
For those who closely follow black electoral politics, however, 1973 was also the year that Maynard Jackson became the first black mayor of Atlanta, by defeating that city's first Jewish mayor, Sam Massell. That made 1973 noteworthy in that it was the last year that Atlanta, the so-called "Black Mecca," the revered African-American educational, cultural and business center, "The City Too Busy to Hate," had a white mayor. That was 36 years ago.
Since then, whenever black politically engaged people have wanted to talk about a city that epitomized sustained black political power and that produced economic inclusion and visionary leadership, they simply brought up "Maynard Jackson" and that was, usually, the end of the conversation.
All heads would automatically bow, and we would all pay homage to the greatness of Atlanta.
For us, here in the City of Brotherly Love, it has never mattered, somehow, that Philadelphia is, literally, three times as large as Atlanta, nor that Atlanta's 296,710 black people and 8,453 black-owned businesses are actually dwarfed by Philadelphia's 625,706 African-American residents and 10,586 black-owned businesses. The perception of Atlanta as the "Land of Oz" for black achievement has been so ingrained in the national black psyche that we, like blacks in many other cities, have always looked to Atlanta, waiting for a sign that would point to the next big cultural or economic move for Black America.
I know, for a fact, that all three black Philadelphia mayors have been specifically challenged, at the start of their terms, to "be like Maynard Jackson," and to, please, "make Philadelphia more like Atlanta."
How many times have you heard these statements? "If this were Atlanta, we would have a more focused black political strategy;" "If this were Atlanta, we wouldn't, routinely, have three black candidates in the Democratic mayoral primary election, splitting the black vote;" "If this were Atlanta, black folks simply would not accept the kind of political back-sliding and the half-hearted efforts we seem to be experiencing on issues such as black-owned business procurement, involvement in the construction industry, black teachers in the public schools, neighborhood gentrification, true control of the local Democratic Party, which we dominate by our registrations, and a number of other issues.
"If this were Atlanta," we say, "black folks just wouldn't be putting up with it."
That's what we say.
However, as I look at what is currently taking place in that city, I'm becoming all the more convinced that there isn't much there, anymore, for us to emulate.
In fact, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out last week, if next week's Mayor's election produces a result that reflects the recent polls, that city might have a new, not-so-progressive reputation to live down. According to the Journal, if Mary Norwood, a very well-to-do, incumbent, white conservative Democratic councilwoman and former Republican, from the city's exclusive Buckhead section, wins Atlanta's General Election for mayor, on Tuesday, she will become the first white mayor in Atlanta since Sam Massell. Consequently, Atlanta would be distinguished as the first majority-black Southern city to return its mayor's office to a white candidate.
While there is, certainly, nothing inherently wrong with voting for a white candidate, in a city wherein blacks still constitute 51 percent of the electorate, as compared to 39 percent for whites, a victory by Ms. Norwood, in purely political terms, would be a clear sign that Atlanta's legendarily powerful black political machine may be operating, now, on fumes.
Here's another question: Is it still fair to believe that Atlanta's black politicians are still savvy, goal-oriented, no-nonsense, charismatic little clones of Maynard Jackson? I think not.
In Atlanta, a city wherein African Americans, just one year ago, voted overwhelmingly for the first black president, for example, one of the mayoral candidates has these words on their website: "You tell me you want change. You want a new direction. You want someone to stand up for you for a change."
That's a statement that has been unquestionably ripped directly from the Barack Obama political playbook. Curiously, however, those words don't appear on an African-American candidate's website but, rather, on the website of politically conservative Ms. Norwood.
Here's where the whole political climate in Atlanta gets more complex: While the African-American population of that city has actually declined from 66.5 percent in 1990 to 54 percent in 2004, Atlanta has, over the same period, experienced the fastest-growing Korean population in the nation, from 42,000 in the year 2000 to 80,000 in 2006, and the fastest-growing white population in the country, from 31 percent to 35 percent, over the same period. That was, by the way, double the white population growth in the city during the last ten years of the 20th Century.
The big political issues in Atlanta, people are saying, have to do with reducing the violent and property crime rates. There has also been great controversy around the recent move by Mayor Shirley Franklin (the black mayor who's playing the "incumbent-to-be-avoided" role in this election) to close fire stations and lay off police officers.
So far, not surprisingly, Mayor Franklin has not endorsed any of the candidates, and the candidates, themselves, are not exactly knocking down the doors of City Hall seeking her support, not even Kasim Reed, the candidate who managed Franklin's own mayoral campaigns.
When black, Georgia state representative Ralph Long endorsed Norwood, in September. It was just one more sign that black political unity in Atlanta is now more myth than reality.
As to Atlanta's black political machine not putting up with multiple black candidates? There are at least four black candidates running against Norwood, who currently leads in most polls. They include the city's incumbent City Council President, a Georgia State Senator, a Harvard Law School grad/Rhodes Scholar, and a 2004 graduate of Clark Atlanta University named Tiffany Brown, who is one of two write-in candidates.
Looks like Ms. Norwood's campaign has covered every political base -- twice. Keep your eye on this one.
I know this sounds like heresy, but it seems to me that we, in Philadelphia, the nation's sixth largest city should immediately stop looking to Atlanta, the country's thirty-third largest city, for political and economic wisdom. It appears that Atlanta lost a great deal more than its former mayor when Maynard Jackson died prematurely, in 2003.
Let's start charting our own course on Tuesday, Election Day, by getting out and voting to elect Seth Williams as the first black district attorney, anywhere, in the history of the state of Pennsylvania. That's easy to do when he's also the hands-down, most-qualified candidate. While you're out there, also re-elect City Controller Alan Butkovitz, who's been very supportive of black business issues.
After that, we're going to need a clear, well-thought-out strategy to support the best candidate for mayor in 2012. Some people are already talking about that. We should be, also.
Hey, it's time for Atlanta to start looking up to us.
xxxxxxxx
If geo-political events are your thing, it was the year that the last U.S. soldier left Vietnam, and the year the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) was founded. It was also the year of the Arab Oil Embargo, and that President Nixon told 400 Associated Press managing editors, "I am not a crook."
For those who closely follow black electoral politics, however, 1973 was also the year that Maynard Jackson became the first black mayor of Atlanta, by defeating that city's first Jewish mayor, Sam Massell. That made 1973 noteworthy in that it was the last year that Atlanta, the so-called "Black Mecca," the revered African-American educational, cultural and business center, "The City Too Busy to Hate," had a white mayor. That was 36 years ago.
Since then, whenever black politically engaged people have wanted to talk about a city that epitomized sustained black political power and that produced economic inclusion and visionary leadership, they simply brought up "Maynard Jackson" and that was, usually, the end of the conversation.
All heads would automatically bow, and we would all pay homage to the greatness of Atlanta.
For us, here in the City of Brotherly Love, it has never mattered, somehow, that Philadelphia is, literally, three times as large as Atlanta, nor that Atlanta's 296,710 black people and 8,453 black-owned businesses are actually dwarfed by Philadelphia's 625,706 African-American residents and 10,586 black-owned businesses. The perception of Atlanta as the "Land of Oz" for black achievement has been so ingrained in the national black psyche that we, like blacks in many other cities, have always looked to Atlanta, waiting for a sign that would point to the next big cultural or economic move for Black America.
I know, for a fact, that all three black Philadelphia mayors have been specifically challenged, at the start of their terms, to "be like Maynard Jackson," and to, please, "make Philadelphia more like Atlanta."
How many times have you heard these statements? "If this were Atlanta, we would have a more focused black political strategy;" "If this were Atlanta, we wouldn't, routinely, have three black candidates in the Democratic mayoral primary election, splitting the black vote;" "If this were Atlanta, black folks simply would not accept the kind of political back-sliding and the half-hearted efforts we seem to be experiencing on issues such as black-owned business procurement, involvement in the construction industry, black teachers in the public schools, neighborhood gentrification, true control of the local Democratic Party, which we dominate by our registrations, and a number of other issues.
"If this were Atlanta," we say, "black folks just wouldn't be putting up with it."
That's what we say.
However, as I look at what is currently taking place in that city, I'm becoming all the more convinced that there isn't much there, anymore, for us to emulate.
In fact, as the Wall Street Journal pointed out last week, if next week's Mayor's election produces a result that reflects the recent polls, that city might have a new, not-so-progressive reputation to live down. According to the Journal, if Mary Norwood, a very well-to-do, incumbent, white conservative Democratic councilwoman and former Republican, from the city's exclusive Buckhead section, wins Atlanta's General Election for mayor, on Tuesday, she will become the first white mayor in Atlanta since Sam Massell. Consequently, Atlanta would be distinguished as the first majority-black Southern city to return its mayor's office to a white candidate.
While there is, certainly, nothing inherently wrong with voting for a white candidate, in a city wherein blacks still constitute 51 percent of the electorate, as compared to 39 percent for whites, a victory by Ms. Norwood, in purely political terms, would be a clear sign that Atlanta's legendarily powerful black political machine may be operating, now, on fumes.
Here's another question: Is it still fair to believe that Atlanta's black politicians are still savvy, goal-oriented, no-nonsense, charismatic little clones of Maynard Jackson? I think not.
In Atlanta, a city wherein African Americans, just one year ago, voted overwhelmingly for the first black president, for example, one of the mayoral candidates has these words on their website: "You tell me you want change. You want a new direction. You want someone to stand up for you for a change."
That's a statement that has been unquestionably ripped directly from the Barack Obama political playbook. Curiously, however, those words don't appear on an African-American candidate's website but, rather, on the website of politically conservative Ms. Norwood.
Here's where the whole political climate in Atlanta gets more complex: While the African-American population of that city has actually declined from 66.5 percent in 1990 to 54 percent in 2004, Atlanta has, over the same period, experienced the fastest-growing Korean population in the nation, from 42,000 in the year 2000 to 80,000 in 2006, and the fastest-growing white population in the country, from 31 percent to 35 percent, over the same period. That was, by the way, double the white population growth in the city during the last ten years of the 20th Century.
The big political issues in Atlanta, people are saying, have to do with reducing the violent and property crime rates. There has also been great controversy around the recent move by Mayor Shirley Franklin (the black mayor who's playing the "incumbent-to-be-avoided" role in this election) to close fire stations and lay off police officers.
So far, not surprisingly, Mayor Franklin has not endorsed any of the candidates, and the candidates, themselves, are not exactly knocking down the doors of City Hall seeking her support, not even Kasim Reed, the candidate who managed Franklin's own mayoral campaigns.
When black, Georgia state representative Ralph Long endorsed Norwood, in September. It was just one more sign that black political unity in Atlanta is now more myth than reality.
As to Atlanta's black political machine not putting up with multiple black candidates? There are at least four black candidates running against Norwood, who currently leads in most polls. They include the city's incumbent City Council President, a Georgia State Senator, a Harvard Law School grad/Rhodes Scholar, and a 2004 graduate of Clark Atlanta University named Tiffany Brown, who is one of two write-in candidates.
Looks like Ms. Norwood's campaign has covered every political base -- twice. Keep your eye on this one.
I know this sounds like heresy, but it seems to me that we, in Philadelphia, the nation's sixth largest city should immediately stop looking to Atlanta, the country's thirty-third largest city, for political and economic wisdom. It appears that Atlanta lost a great deal more than its former mayor when Maynard Jackson died prematurely, in 2003.
Let's start charting our own course on Tuesday, Election Day, by getting out and voting to elect Seth Williams as the first black district attorney, anywhere, in the history of the state of Pennsylvania. That's easy to do when he's also the hands-down, most-qualified candidate. While you're out there, also re-elect City Controller Alan Butkovitz, who's been very supportive of black business issues.
After that, we're going to need a clear, well-thought-out strategy to support the best candidate for mayor in 2012. Some people are already talking about that. We should be, also.
Hey, it's time for Atlanta to start looking up to us.
xxxxxxxx
Monday, September 21, 2009
Excuse Me, But the Revolution Really is Being Televised.
Politically, it’s beginning to look like we’ve started to swim in some very dangerous waters.
Even worse, most of us seem to be content to sit idly by and to watch what passes for the “political news” these days, as if it’s some kind of new spectator sport, or the latest, new "reality tv" show.
As has become our style with such shows, we now watch the political news just to catch politicians saying stupid things (and to watch the videotape of those incidents played back to us, over and over and over, again), to see fights and arguments, and to absorb just enough that we’ll be able to discuss it with our friends, later on. Because sensational political news coverage attracts good ratings and is cheaper to produce than a sitcom, some media outlets don't just stand by and report the ongoing political chaos, they actually promote it. In some cases, they, literally, become a part of it.
The problem is that what we’re seeing now is not just a TV show, at all. It absolutely is real life, and my great fear is that the country, as a whole, is just one, televised, volatile incident removed from being embroiled in mass, social unrest--what the early black nationalists used to so fondly refer to as “revolution.”
Lately, the “healthcare town hall meetings" have evolved to become referendums on the federal government, as a whole, and on the president of the United States, specifically. Oh, everyone is very careful not to actually say the words “black” or “African American,” or even, “colored,” but the racial composition of the town hall attendees, and the messages on the signs they carry, have made the sub rosa agenda abundantly clear.
The people who have attended these meetings – those that you see on TV and those that have not been shown – are starting to do some very scary and historically significant things and, there we are, still watching it all from the comfort of our homes, in a vaguely disinterested way.
We’re watching now, but you and I both know that, once the football season really kicks in, we’re definitely going to tune out. To us, as I said, the current debates seem to be just one more TV show option. If it is real life, why aren't we participating?
Years ago, a Lincoln University student named Gil Scott-Heron wrote a poem that was made all the more famous by the Last Poets. It was called “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” That poem, arguably, constituted “baby steps” for the art form that is now called "hip hop" and/or “spoken word,” and many mainstream Americans chose to ignore it. Nevertheless, it perfectly described what we’re experiencing right now – with one big exception.
Today, there really are people in this country who are espousing a “revolutionary” mindset, i.e., being diametrically opposed to all current elected officials; attending public, political discussions bearing arms; espousing, literally, the death of the president of the United States and expressing their intention to "take back their country." These are all things that they’ve said and for which they stand.
The difference – to the great surprise of Mr. Scott-Heron and The Poets, I imagine – is that all of this really IS being “televised.”
Who would have thought?
To refresh some memories, here are a few excerpts from the poem: “You will not be able to stay home, you will not be able to plug in, turn on and drop out.”
That’s not true. We’re doing that every day, as Fox and other news outlets show us the progress of the “unrest.”
“You will not be able to skip out during beer commercials …”
Not true … did that last night.
“There will be no highlights on the 11:00 o’clock news. The revolution will not be right back after a message. The revolution will not 'go better with Coke'.”
What the “Poets” could have never anticipated is that the 2009 version of “the revolution” is not only highlighted “on the 11 o’clock news,” it’s also available on broadcast outlets and on the Internet, all day and all night. It’s inescapable, conjuring up George Orwell’s very worst “1984" nightmares, in that regard.
In addition, another key difference is that, back then, Gil Scott-Heron naively believed that black Americans would be the ones who would be first in this country to get frustrated, strike out and seek to restructure the government.
It turns out that the actual "revolutionaries," today, are mainstream Americans. Black folks, apparently, haven’t gotten the email yet, and still don't show up at the meetings.
Tell me, what else do you call people, other than “revolutionaries,” who appear to have totally lost all respect for their elected officials, who stand chest-to-chest with them, wave their fists and point their fingers in their faces and shout them down on virtually every issue?
How else do you describe a political environment wherein 61 percent of Americans say they believe their country is headed in the wrong direction, wherein 57 percent say they favor throwing out their legislators and “starting over again?” Isn't it "revolutionary" thinking when 42 percent of American voters say “a group of randomly selected people from the phone book could do a better job than the current Congress?” Is it healthy for a country when 50 percent of its voters say they believe that “rigged election results” are the reason that their congressional representatives are repeatedly re-elected, as was recently disclosed in the Rasmussen Report?
Be honest, what does it mean when the Secret Service is now reporting that President Obama is receiving 30 death threats a day (that’s 10,950 such threats a year)? How do you claim a stable government when your nation’s new president has to make his November 2008 acceptance speech, in Chicago, and his inauguration speech, in Washington, DC, from behind a thick screen of bullet-proof glass, as was widely reported? How can the country condone a minister in Tempe, Arizona saying, as part of his sermon, that he “prays at night” that President Obama will die of brain cancer?
How does a stable government allow, on the day following those same remarks, a group of 12 armed men, including a man named Chris Broughton, who was actually in attendance at the “sermon,” to show up at the site where the President was speaking “strapped” very visibly, with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle?
As a sign of the times, a black journalist named Frank James, who is now a “blogger” for NPR, in an apparent state of total resignation and acceptance, recently posted a column about Mr. Broughton and his fellow weapons-carriers, a part of which read, as follows: “So there’s an upside to the “open carry" types, even though they cause a lot of other people great unease. Since they can’t be prevented from appearing outside the event, the rest of us will just have to learn to live with them.”
I don’t know, Frank. Maybe you have to say things like that when you get paid by NPR, but, me, I choose not to just “learn to live with them.”
I think the Arizona crew, the people who issue death threats to the President and his family, the people who want to replace their elected officials with “randomly selected people from the phone book,” are all trying to tell us something.
What they’re saying, I think, is that it’s not business as usual in America, anymore, and that it shouldn’t be treated as such.
If we asked Gil Scott-Heron, even today, he’d probably say again: “The revolution will be no re-run … the revolution will be live.”
Even though this is probably not “the revolution” that he had in mind, it certainly does appear to be the one that we have. It's happening as we speak and we should all be paying close attention.
########
Even worse, most of us seem to be content to sit idly by and to watch what passes for the “political news” these days, as if it’s some kind of new spectator sport, or the latest, new "reality tv" show.
As has become our style with such shows, we now watch the political news just to catch politicians saying stupid things (and to watch the videotape of those incidents played back to us, over and over and over, again), to see fights and arguments, and to absorb just enough that we’ll be able to discuss it with our friends, later on. Because sensational political news coverage attracts good ratings and is cheaper to produce than a sitcom, some media outlets don't just stand by and report the ongoing political chaos, they actually promote it. In some cases, they, literally, become a part of it.
The problem is that what we’re seeing now is not just a TV show, at all. It absolutely is real life, and my great fear is that the country, as a whole, is just one, televised, volatile incident removed from being embroiled in mass, social unrest--what the early black nationalists used to so fondly refer to as “revolution.”
Lately, the “healthcare town hall meetings" have evolved to become referendums on the federal government, as a whole, and on the president of the United States, specifically. Oh, everyone is very careful not to actually say the words “black” or “African American,” or even, “colored,” but the racial composition of the town hall attendees, and the messages on the signs they carry, have made the sub rosa agenda abundantly clear.
The people who have attended these meetings – those that you see on TV and those that have not been shown – are starting to do some very scary and historically significant things and, there we are, still watching it all from the comfort of our homes, in a vaguely disinterested way.
We’re watching now, but you and I both know that, once the football season really kicks in, we’re definitely going to tune out. To us, as I said, the current debates seem to be just one more TV show option. If it is real life, why aren't we participating?
Years ago, a Lincoln University student named Gil Scott-Heron wrote a poem that was made all the more famous by the Last Poets. It was called “The Revolution Will Not Be Televised.” That poem, arguably, constituted “baby steps” for the art form that is now called "hip hop" and/or “spoken word,” and many mainstream Americans chose to ignore it. Nevertheless, it perfectly described what we’re experiencing right now – with one big exception.
Today, there really are people in this country who are espousing a “revolutionary” mindset, i.e., being diametrically opposed to all current elected officials; attending public, political discussions bearing arms; espousing, literally, the death of the president of the United States and expressing their intention to "take back their country." These are all things that they’ve said and for which they stand.
The difference – to the great surprise of Mr. Scott-Heron and The Poets, I imagine – is that all of this really IS being “televised.”
Who would have thought?
To refresh some memories, here are a few excerpts from the poem: “You will not be able to stay home, you will not be able to plug in, turn on and drop out.”
That’s not true. We’re doing that every day, as Fox and other news outlets show us the progress of the “unrest.”
“You will not be able to skip out during beer commercials …”
Not true … did that last night.
“There will be no highlights on the 11:00 o’clock news. The revolution will not be right back after a message. The revolution will not 'go better with Coke'.”
What the “Poets” could have never anticipated is that the 2009 version of “the revolution” is not only highlighted “on the 11 o’clock news,” it’s also available on broadcast outlets and on the Internet, all day and all night. It’s inescapable, conjuring up George Orwell’s very worst “1984" nightmares, in that regard.
In addition, another key difference is that, back then, Gil Scott-Heron naively believed that black Americans would be the ones who would be first in this country to get frustrated, strike out and seek to restructure the government.
It turns out that the actual "revolutionaries," today, are mainstream Americans. Black folks, apparently, haven’t gotten the email yet, and still don't show up at the meetings.
Tell me, what else do you call people, other than “revolutionaries,” who appear to have totally lost all respect for their elected officials, who stand chest-to-chest with them, wave their fists and point their fingers in their faces and shout them down on virtually every issue?
How else do you describe a political environment wherein 61 percent of Americans say they believe their country is headed in the wrong direction, wherein 57 percent say they favor throwing out their legislators and “starting over again?” Isn't it "revolutionary" thinking when 42 percent of American voters say “a group of randomly selected people from the phone book could do a better job than the current Congress?” Is it healthy for a country when 50 percent of its voters say they believe that “rigged election results” are the reason that their congressional representatives are repeatedly re-elected, as was recently disclosed in the Rasmussen Report?
Be honest, what does it mean when the Secret Service is now reporting that President Obama is receiving 30 death threats a day (that’s 10,950 such threats a year)? How do you claim a stable government when your nation’s new president has to make his November 2008 acceptance speech, in Chicago, and his inauguration speech, in Washington, DC, from behind a thick screen of bullet-proof glass, as was widely reported? How can the country condone a minister in Tempe, Arizona saying, as part of his sermon, that he “prays at night” that President Obama will die of brain cancer?
How does a stable government allow, on the day following those same remarks, a group of 12 armed men, including a man named Chris Broughton, who was actually in attendance at the “sermon,” to show up at the site where the President was speaking “strapped” very visibly, with an AR-15 semi-automatic rifle?
As a sign of the times, a black journalist named Frank James, who is now a “blogger” for NPR, in an apparent state of total resignation and acceptance, recently posted a column about Mr. Broughton and his fellow weapons-carriers, a part of which read, as follows: “So there’s an upside to the “open carry" types, even though they cause a lot of other people great unease. Since they can’t be prevented from appearing outside the event, the rest of us will just have to learn to live with them.”
I don’t know, Frank. Maybe you have to say things like that when you get paid by NPR, but, me, I choose not to just “learn to live with them.”
I think the Arizona crew, the people who issue death threats to the President and his family, the people who want to replace their elected officials with “randomly selected people from the phone book,” are all trying to tell us something.
What they’re saying, I think, is that it’s not business as usual in America, anymore, and that it shouldn’t be treated as such.
If we asked Gil Scott-Heron, even today, he’d probably say again: “The revolution will be no re-run … the revolution will be live.”
Even though this is probably not “the revolution” that he had in mind, it certainly does appear to be the one that we have. It's happening as we speak and we should all be paying close attention.
########
Friday, March 27, 2009
Michael Steele, Why did You Want to Be RNC Chair? (3/6/2009)
You ever heard of the old "country" expression: “Putting pig on pork?” That’s how it felt this week to criticize Michael Steele. Once Rush Limbaugh and the national media were finished having their way with the country’s first black Republican National Chairman, there wasn’t much new stuff left to say that would be any more negative, demeaning or embarrassing about the man. It all seemed so… redundant.
I’ve never been a big Michael Steele fan, despite the fact that he's "almost local," having actually entered a seminary to join the priesthood in nearby Villanova, before changing his mind and opting for a legal career. No, I lost all respect for him back in 2006, when his political campaign virtually hijacked a busload of people from Philadelphia’s “recovery community," transported them to the state of Maryland, where he was running for the U.S. Senate and “tricked” them into working for his election and distributing his campaign literature, by leading them to believe that he was a Democratic candidate.
In high school, I had a teacher who would say to students who made the mistake of standing up in front of the class and giving the wrong answer: “Go back to your seat and sit down before somebody sees you.” As I watched the whole sordid exchange unfold between Michael Steele and Rush Limbaugh, last week, I began to wish that Steele had been in those classrooms and that he had absorbed just a bit of Mr. Watters’ wisdom.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I just get the impression that Michael Steele doesn’t really know his own audience. As strange as it may seem, it appears that he doesn’t really understand the present demographic and philosophical profile of the members of the Republican political party.
In 1964, as most folks know, Republican Presidential Candidate Barry Goldwater adopted an uncompromising, “states rights” platform (i.e., anti- Civil Rights) in a failed effort to unseat Democratic President Lyndon Baines Johnson. While Goldwater didn’t win the election, his campaign platform struck a popular chord among many conservative whites in both parties and it launched a migration and a transformation that makes today’s Republican Party very, very different from the party that Abraham Lincoln and recently emancipated blacks used to love so much.
Post-Goldwater, the Republican Party became, at least at the national level, more conservative, more upscale, more white, more suburban and rural, more “Christian right,” more uncompromisingly supportive of the Second Amendment, (the right to bear arms) and absolutely less black, less poor, less urban and less working class.
In that context, at last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Rush Limbaugh gave his first “State of the National Republican Party” address and Steele, the party chairman, became a bit player and the butt of racially tinged jokes.
In fact, after Steele made his remarks to CPAC’s Presidential Banquet, the moderator, a Minnesota congresswoman named Michele Bachmann, said condescendingly of the Party’s chairman, who holds a Juris Doctorate from Georgetown University, “Michael Steele, you be da man. You be da man.”
“You be da man?!”
Did they surgically remove Michael Steele’s spine when they elected him RNC chair? How could he have possibly just grinned and accepted that comment?
Even further, had Brother Steele been paying appropriate attention to what the word “conservative” actually means, in the first place, he would have, perhaps, recognized that his chances of bringing any semblance of an ‘Obama-like” change to the Republican Party are probably slim and none.
According to an October 2008 survey by Pew, Republicans are not only more monolithic, they also have more money than Democrats, fewer financial worries, they like their own communities better, they have substantially more family wealth, and the median value of their homes is greater.
That's why, at the national level, the word "conservative" has become virtually synonymous with the word "Republican." The Republicans have become the party of the “Haves,” and they like it that way. They are the people who have the most financial resources and they apparently plan to do everything in their power to conserve those resources.
Here’s a basic fact: If you want to be a true conservative, you have to, first, have something of value to conserve.
Build better public schools, improve public health, construct more effective mass transit systems? All of that implies two things to conservatives: "Big Government" and the distinct probability that those with the most money (themselves) will be asked to share their wealth for the good of those less fortunate. They simply ain’t feeling it.
In fact, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "conservatism" as: “The disposition in politics to preserve what is established.” and “the tendency to prefer an existing or traditional situation to change.”
Over time, the national Republican Party has evolved to look more like a social movement, a private club or a lifestyle choice than a simple, political philosophy. It appears that, while Republicans prefer, of course, to win elections, they’d rather lose them than to change their current principles or share their current net worths.
This is the audience that has heard Michael Steele just two weeks after he was elected the Party’s national chairman, say that he wants to “surprise everyone” by creating a new, “off-the-hook,” public relations strategy that will have the party reach out to “hip-hop settings” and that, in its outreach, the Party shouldn’t overlook “one-armed midgets."
This is the audience that heard him say that he was sending the oratorically challenged Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal some “slum love,” after Jindal embarrassed himself on national TV and cable outlets trying to offer a counterpoint to Barack Obama’s own, extremely well-delivered "State of the Economy" message.
This is the audience that overwhelmingly and warmly embraced Limbaugh, the erratic, former substance abuser, who also happens to be a highly influential and widely popular Republican thought leader.
This is the audience that watched Steele’s appearance on CNN’s D. L. Hughley show, where he decided to dismiss that same Limbaugh as a mere, “entertainer,” who makes ugly remarks.
And then came the final travesty: After his "entertainer" comment about Limbaugh, Steele embarrassingly was forced to say to reporters almost immediately afterward that he deeply apologized for saying any of that about Rush and that he (Steele) was “maybe a little bit inarticulate” on the subject.
I think that was the point when the whole charade finally came to an end for Michael Steele, whether he knows it or not.
Once the smoke had cleared, it seemed that conservative Republicans were in absolute lockstep behind Limbaugh and diametrically opposed to their own Party chairman. In fact, Mike Allen and Andy Barr, on the Politco website, recently carried a comment that said Republican Party leaders, just one month after Steele’s election, already are worried that the GOP "has made a costly mistake in electing Steele as party chair."
Two ships passing in the night, one named Obama, still needing work in providing services and support to the black members of its crew, but seemingly negotiating very well the stormy political seas. The other, the USS Steele, apparently without a crew of any kind, running rapidly toward the nearest political iceberg.
I never thought I’d ever agree with anything of a political nature that Rush Limbaugh would ever say, but last week there was one thing he said that I happened to agree with: “Michael Steele, why are you running the Republican party?”
#############
I’ve never been a big Michael Steele fan, despite the fact that he's "almost local," having actually entered a seminary to join the priesthood in nearby Villanova, before changing his mind and opting for a legal career. No, I lost all respect for him back in 2006, when his political campaign virtually hijacked a busload of people from Philadelphia’s “recovery community," transported them to the state of Maryland, where he was running for the U.S. Senate and “tricked” them into working for his election and distributing his campaign literature, by leading them to believe that he was a Democratic candidate.
In high school, I had a teacher who would say to students who made the mistake of standing up in front of the class and giving the wrong answer: “Go back to your seat and sit down before somebody sees you.” As I watched the whole sordid exchange unfold between Michael Steele and Rush Limbaugh, last week, I began to wish that Steele had been in those classrooms and that he had absorbed just a bit of Mr. Watters’ wisdom.
I don’t know about you, but sometimes I just get the impression that Michael Steele doesn’t really know his own audience. As strange as it may seem, it appears that he doesn’t really understand the present demographic and philosophical profile of the members of the Republican political party.
In 1964, as most folks know, Republican Presidential Candidate Barry Goldwater adopted an uncompromising, “states rights” platform (i.e., anti- Civil Rights) in a failed effort to unseat Democratic President Lyndon Baines Johnson. While Goldwater didn’t win the election, his campaign platform struck a popular chord among many conservative whites in both parties and it launched a migration and a transformation that makes today’s Republican Party very, very different from the party that Abraham Lincoln and recently emancipated blacks used to love so much.
Post-Goldwater, the Republican Party became, at least at the national level, more conservative, more upscale, more white, more suburban and rural, more “Christian right,” more uncompromisingly supportive of the Second Amendment, (the right to bear arms) and absolutely less black, less poor, less urban and less working class.
In that context, at last weekend’s Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC), Rush Limbaugh gave his first “State of the National Republican Party” address and Steele, the party chairman, became a bit player and the butt of racially tinged jokes.
In fact, after Steele made his remarks to CPAC’s Presidential Banquet, the moderator, a Minnesota congresswoman named Michele Bachmann, said condescendingly of the Party’s chairman, who holds a Juris Doctorate from Georgetown University, “Michael Steele, you be da man. You be da man.”
“You be da man?!”
Did they surgically remove Michael Steele’s spine when they elected him RNC chair? How could he have possibly just grinned and accepted that comment?
Even further, had Brother Steele been paying appropriate attention to what the word “conservative” actually means, in the first place, he would have, perhaps, recognized that his chances of bringing any semblance of an ‘Obama-like” change to the Republican Party are probably slim and none.
According to an October 2008 survey by Pew, Republicans are not only more monolithic, they also have more money than Democrats, fewer financial worries, they like their own communities better, they have substantially more family wealth, and the median value of their homes is greater.
That's why, at the national level, the word "conservative" has become virtually synonymous with the word "Republican." The Republicans have become the party of the “Haves,” and they like it that way. They are the people who have the most financial resources and they apparently plan to do everything in their power to conserve those resources.
Here’s a basic fact: If you want to be a true conservative, you have to, first, have something of value to conserve.
Build better public schools, improve public health, construct more effective mass transit systems? All of that implies two things to conservatives: "Big Government" and the distinct probability that those with the most money (themselves) will be asked to share their wealth for the good of those less fortunate. They simply ain’t feeling it.
In fact, the Merriam-Webster Dictionary defines "conservatism" as: “The disposition in politics to preserve what is established.” and “the tendency to prefer an existing or traditional situation to change.”
Over time, the national Republican Party has evolved to look more like a social movement, a private club or a lifestyle choice than a simple, political philosophy. It appears that, while Republicans prefer, of course, to win elections, they’d rather lose them than to change their current principles or share their current net worths.
This is the audience that has heard Michael Steele just two weeks after he was elected the Party’s national chairman, say that he wants to “surprise everyone” by creating a new, “off-the-hook,” public relations strategy that will have the party reach out to “hip-hop settings” and that, in its outreach, the Party shouldn’t overlook “one-armed midgets."
This is the audience that heard him say that he was sending the oratorically challenged Louisiana Governor Bobby Jindal some “slum love,” after Jindal embarrassed himself on national TV and cable outlets trying to offer a counterpoint to Barack Obama’s own, extremely well-delivered "State of the Economy" message.
This is the audience that overwhelmingly and warmly embraced Limbaugh, the erratic, former substance abuser, who also happens to be a highly influential and widely popular Republican thought leader.
This is the audience that watched Steele’s appearance on CNN’s D. L. Hughley show, where he decided to dismiss that same Limbaugh as a mere, “entertainer,” who makes ugly remarks.
And then came the final travesty: After his "entertainer" comment about Limbaugh, Steele embarrassingly was forced to say to reporters almost immediately afterward that he deeply apologized for saying any of that about Rush and that he (Steele) was “maybe a little bit inarticulate” on the subject.
I think that was the point when the whole charade finally came to an end for Michael Steele, whether he knows it or not.
Once the smoke had cleared, it seemed that conservative Republicans were in absolute lockstep behind Limbaugh and diametrically opposed to their own Party chairman. In fact, Mike Allen and Andy Barr, on the Politco website, recently carried a comment that said Republican Party leaders, just one month after Steele’s election, already are worried that the GOP "has made a costly mistake in electing Steele as party chair."
Two ships passing in the night, one named Obama, still needing work in providing services and support to the black members of its crew, but seemingly negotiating very well the stormy political seas. The other, the USS Steele, apparently without a crew of any kind, running rapidly toward the nearest political iceberg.
I never thought I’d ever agree with anything of a political nature that Rush Limbaugh would ever say, but last week there was one thing he said that I happened to agree with: “Michael Steele, why are you running the Republican party?”
#############
Friday, December 26, 2008
Blagojevich:Waiting for the Other Shoe to Drop
Shoes, all of a sudden, have been a huge topic of conversation. Especially, size 10 shoes, worn briefly by Middle Eastern journalists at presidential press conferences. Shoes like that have gotten an extraordinary amount of news coverage lately.
In fact, peering out of a swollen right eye, bruised in the scuffling that took place immediately after the now – infamous shoe-throwing incident in Baghdad, White House press secretary Dana Perino even joked that, in the future, reporters invited to presidential press conferences would be made to check their shoes at the door.
As if that weren’t corny enough, Perino went on to refer to her “black eye” (as an African American, I’m still not entirely comfortable with that term. Or am I just being paranoid?) as a “shoe-venir.” I guess Perino was just trying to be as “funny” and “clever” as the New York Daily News, which, in a cover story headline two weeks ago, referred to the incident in Baghdad as a “shoe-icide attack.”
As much fun as this has all been, those aren’t the shoes I want to talk about. I’m more interested in the “other shoe,” the one that’s about to drop in the federal investigation of Illinois Governor Milorad “Rod” Blagojevich. And, like the footwear worn to the news conference in Iraq, and subsequently thrown by journalist Muntadhar Al-Zaidi, the impact from this shoe will be felt across the country and around the world.
Did you ever take a good, hard look at Rod Blagojevich? The overwhelming impression you get is that of a guy whose entire body language simply says: “Bring it!” I mean, he doesn’t really seem to care what anyone thinks about him, about his family, and even about his competence to represent the people of Illinois as their governor.
It would appear that his job is in jeopardy, that his reputation has been irreparably damaged, and that he may be facing up to 30 years in prison, based on the recent federal charges brought against him. His face has been on the cover of virtually every major newspaper across the country and the accusations against him and the calls for his resignation lead almost every broadcast news report.
Despite all that, Blagojevich simply gets up in the morning, puts on a black track suit, smiles at the media horde camped outside of his house, jumps into his chauffeur-driven SUV and goes to work – as governor of Illinois.
He’s been accused of trying to “sell” the former U.S. Senate seat of the president-elect, of boldly soliciting excessive campaign contributions for himself, and corporate board seats for his foul-mouthed wife, and of trying to get every single member of the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune fired, as a pre-condition for providing state financing the paper needed for its very survival.
Again, with all of those allegations and a no-nonsense U.S. attorney with an extraordinarily efficient and high-profile conviction rate hanging over his head, Blagojevich carries himself as if he almost dares his political adversaries, who also, curiously, happen to be his closest former political allies, to “make a move.” He looks like a guy who has absolutely no qualms about "dropping a dime" on a former political colleague.
You also get the feeling that the Chicago political establishment would like nothing more than to see their former friend removed – without any further public statements from him – from the premises. I believe that they understand that the stuff Blagojevich knows about each of them could very well be highly embarrassing for some, and perhaps, indictable and career-ending, for others.
You think I’m kidding? Take the case of the man referred to in the federal complaint against Blagojevich as Senate Candidate #5. That would be U.S. Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., who, up until last week, seemed to be a young man with a bright political future. He enjoyed a highly recognizable family name and an inside track with the new administration, given the role he played as Obama’s national campaign co-chair. Now, Jackson’s future is a lot less bright.
It wasn’t so bad that Jesse Jr. was involved in the federal complaint as a person angling to move into Obama’s vacant Illinois senate seat. That could be excused. After all, who ever heard of a politician who didn’t want to move up to a bigger stage, a greater responsibility and a larger paycheck? That wasn’t a problem.
The problem was that somehow, in trying to wipe away the stink of the Blagojevich scandal, Jesse Jackson Jr., out of the clear blue sky, authorized one of his “official spokesmen” to announce to the world that he – Jesse Jackson Jr.- had been providing information to federal authorities about Blagojevich and other Illinois political players for about 10 years.
Right after that, you’ll recall, the young Mr. Jackson, went to great lengths to explain that he had certainly been an “informer” for the federal government, but never had he ever been an “informant;” as if, in his mind, there was a shred of difference between the two.
What was that about?
In any event, virtually over night, Jesse Jackson Jr., a former rising political star, seems to have lost even the remotest possibility of actually becoming the next U.S. senator from Illinois. He also, probably, at about the same time, had his name removed from party and reception invitation lists all over the state of Illinois and Washington DC. In fact, elected officials, lobbyists, civic leaders, community activists, and regular voters are now probably wondering how you can possibly have a casual, unrecorded conversation about anything, anymore, with Jesse Jackson Jr. in the room.
That was just the first shoe. Others back-tracking and running for cover in Illinois seem to include Obama confidante and new administration member Valerie Jarrett, who’s referred to in the federal complaint as Senate Candidate # 1, newly appointed White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and Obama campaign consultant and new White House senior advisor David Axelrod. Also, busily covering its tracks is the Chicago Tribune Company, which owns the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, The Baltimore Sun, several broadcasts outlets, and the Chicago Cubs baseball team, among other things, and which subsequently was forced to file for bankruptcy. The taint of Blagojevich may also extend to the president-elect, himself, whose spokespeople have publicly re-defined his relationship with the Illinois governor several times over the past few weeks, now claiming that the two barely know each other and almost “never” speak.
Because of Blagojevich, the president-elect was forced to launch an internal review of all contacts between his senior operatives and the Illinois Governor’s Office. Not surprisingly, that "review," issued a few days ago, found that no "inappropriate" contact had been made between Blagoevich's people and the president-elect's people. We all now await the details of the U.S. Attorney's investigation to be disclosed, and his perspective on what actually was, or was not, "appropriate." Chances are there may be just a few areas wherein the U.S. Attorney's report will differ from the "internal report" done by the Obama team.
Throughout the process, the generally media-accessible Obama spokespeople have been uncharacteristically tight-lipped, or just plain "unavailable." To further complicate effective communications in this matter, chief of staff Emanuel is on vacation in Africa and the president-elect, himself, is secluded, other than "photo-op" availability, in Hawaii. Making matters even worse, the entire scenario has been "shoe-horned" into the Christmas season, a time when most people are absorbed with holiday preparations and are not, generally, paying attention to news reports. With all of that as backdrop, the media, not surprisingly, are growing more surly every day, creating, arguably, the biggest press relations challenge Obama has ever had to face.
In any event, as you're winding down the last few days of the holiday season, kicking back with the relatives, checking out the bowl games and waiting to usher in the New Year, keep your ears wide open.
The next sound you hear may very well be that of a huge political shoe being dropped.
##############
In fact, peering out of a swollen right eye, bruised in the scuffling that took place immediately after the now – infamous shoe-throwing incident in Baghdad, White House press secretary Dana Perino even joked that, in the future, reporters invited to presidential press conferences would be made to check their shoes at the door.
As if that weren’t corny enough, Perino went on to refer to her “black eye” (as an African American, I’m still not entirely comfortable with that term. Or am I just being paranoid?) as a “shoe-venir.” I guess Perino was just trying to be as “funny” and “clever” as the New York Daily News, which, in a cover story headline two weeks ago, referred to the incident in Baghdad as a “shoe-icide attack.”
As much fun as this has all been, those aren’t the shoes I want to talk about. I’m more interested in the “other shoe,” the one that’s about to drop in the federal investigation of Illinois Governor Milorad “Rod” Blagojevich. And, like the footwear worn to the news conference in Iraq, and subsequently thrown by journalist Muntadhar Al-Zaidi, the impact from this shoe will be felt across the country and around the world.
Did you ever take a good, hard look at Rod Blagojevich? The overwhelming impression you get is that of a guy whose entire body language simply says: “Bring it!” I mean, he doesn’t really seem to care what anyone thinks about him, about his family, and even about his competence to represent the people of Illinois as their governor.
It would appear that his job is in jeopardy, that his reputation has been irreparably damaged, and that he may be facing up to 30 years in prison, based on the recent federal charges brought against him. His face has been on the cover of virtually every major newspaper across the country and the accusations against him and the calls for his resignation lead almost every broadcast news report.
Despite all that, Blagojevich simply gets up in the morning, puts on a black track suit, smiles at the media horde camped outside of his house, jumps into his chauffeur-driven SUV and goes to work – as governor of Illinois.
He’s been accused of trying to “sell” the former U.S. Senate seat of the president-elect, of boldly soliciting excessive campaign contributions for himself, and corporate board seats for his foul-mouthed wife, and of trying to get every single member of the editorial board of the Chicago Tribune fired, as a pre-condition for providing state financing the paper needed for its very survival.
Again, with all of those allegations and a no-nonsense U.S. attorney with an extraordinarily efficient and high-profile conviction rate hanging over his head, Blagojevich carries himself as if he almost dares his political adversaries, who also, curiously, happen to be his closest former political allies, to “make a move.” He looks like a guy who has absolutely no qualms about "dropping a dime" on a former political colleague.
You also get the feeling that the Chicago political establishment would like nothing more than to see their former friend removed – without any further public statements from him – from the premises. I believe that they understand that the stuff Blagojevich knows about each of them could very well be highly embarrassing for some, and perhaps, indictable and career-ending, for others.
You think I’m kidding? Take the case of the man referred to in the federal complaint against Blagojevich as Senate Candidate #5. That would be U.S. Congressman Jesse Jackson Jr., who, up until last week, seemed to be a young man with a bright political future. He enjoyed a highly recognizable family name and an inside track with the new administration, given the role he played as Obama’s national campaign co-chair. Now, Jackson’s future is a lot less bright.
It wasn’t so bad that Jesse Jr. was involved in the federal complaint as a person angling to move into Obama’s vacant Illinois senate seat. That could be excused. After all, who ever heard of a politician who didn’t want to move up to a bigger stage, a greater responsibility and a larger paycheck? That wasn’t a problem.
The problem was that somehow, in trying to wipe away the stink of the Blagojevich scandal, Jesse Jackson Jr., out of the clear blue sky, authorized one of his “official spokesmen” to announce to the world that he – Jesse Jackson Jr.- had been providing information to federal authorities about Blagojevich and other Illinois political players for about 10 years.
Right after that, you’ll recall, the young Mr. Jackson, went to great lengths to explain that he had certainly been an “informer” for the federal government, but never had he ever been an “informant;” as if, in his mind, there was a shred of difference between the two.
What was that about?
In any event, virtually over night, Jesse Jackson Jr., a former rising political star, seems to have lost even the remotest possibility of actually becoming the next U.S. senator from Illinois. He also, probably, at about the same time, had his name removed from party and reception invitation lists all over the state of Illinois and Washington DC. In fact, elected officials, lobbyists, civic leaders, community activists, and regular voters are now probably wondering how you can possibly have a casual, unrecorded conversation about anything, anymore, with Jesse Jackson Jr. in the room.
That was just the first shoe. Others back-tracking and running for cover in Illinois seem to include Obama confidante and new administration member Valerie Jarrett, who’s referred to in the federal complaint as Senate Candidate # 1, newly appointed White House chief of staff Rahm Emanuel and Obama campaign consultant and new White House senior advisor David Axelrod. Also, busily covering its tracks is the Chicago Tribune Company, which owns the Chicago Tribune, the Los Angeles Times, The Baltimore Sun, several broadcasts outlets, and the Chicago Cubs baseball team, among other things, and which subsequently was forced to file for bankruptcy. The taint of Blagojevich may also extend to the president-elect, himself, whose spokespeople have publicly re-defined his relationship with the Illinois governor several times over the past few weeks, now claiming that the two barely know each other and almost “never” speak.
Because of Blagojevich, the president-elect was forced to launch an internal review of all contacts between his senior operatives and the Illinois Governor’s Office. Not surprisingly, that "review," issued a few days ago, found that no "inappropriate" contact had been made between Blagoevich's people and the president-elect's people. We all now await the details of the U.S. Attorney's investigation to be disclosed, and his perspective on what actually was, or was not, "appropriate." Chances are there may be just a few areas wherein the U.S. Attorney's report will differ from the "internal report" done by the Obama team.
Throughout the process, the generally media-accessible Obama spokespeople have been uncharacteristically tight-lipped, or just plain "unavailable." To further complicate effective communications in this matter, chief of staff Emanuel is on vacation in Africa and the president-elect, himself, is secluded, other than "photo-op" availability, in Hawaii. Making matters even worse, the entire scenario has been "shoe-horned" into the Christmas season, a time when most people are absorbed with holiday preparations and are not, generally, paying attention to news reports. With all of that as backdrop, the media, not surprisingly, are growing more surly every day, creating, arguably, the biggest press relations challenge Obama has ever had to face.
In any event, as you're winding down the last few days of the holiday season, kicking back with the relatives, checking out the bowl games and waiting to usher in the New Year, keep your ears wide open.
The next sound you hear may very well be that of a huge political shoe being dropped.
##############
Tuesday, December 23, 2008
Hola! Politics Beyond the Inaugural.
While blacks, who gave Barack Obama 95 percent of their vote on Election Day, prepare to splurge at the January 20 Inaugural, Hispanics, who gave Obama 67 percent of their vote, are focusing instead on obtaining major presidential appointments and other "spoils of war."
Hey, I know what: When we grow up, let’s be Hispanic voters.
A recent story in Scripps News couldn’t have described it better: For black Americans, Barack Obama’s Inauguration is probably the “most important event of their lives.”
That’s scary.
The estimates of people, especially black people, heading for Washington DC for the Inauguration festivities, starts with two million and moves up from there. Even by early estimates, that’s twice as large as the Million Man March. If you don’t have a room reserved by now, you’ll probably be staying at a hotel in Wilmington, Delaware.
You literally can’t go anywhere in the black community, these days, without people asking WHEN you’re planning to arrive in D.C. for the Inaugural, where you’re staying, and how long you’re planning to stay.
Mind you, they don’t ask at all IF you’re planning to attend the Inaugural. That’s a foregone conclusion. That’s what we do. Our candidate wins; we go to the Inaugural.
Hey, I’m happy if they’re happy. But, to tell you the truth, I’m not planning to go at all. Not because I don’t think it’s going to be “historic,” “inspirational,” and “something I can tell my grandchildren one day,” but rather because I still believe that, in politics, candidate elections are just a means to an end and not the end itself. The true objective is having the candidate produce the outcomes voters need.
Only when that finally happens, will I feel like celebrating. For me, the most important day of my life, contrary to Scripps News, will be when we can honestly say that America has eliminated its disgraceful, lingering pattern of black/white disparities in health care, employment, business ownership, home ownership, and quality of public education.
When that happens, I’ll be on the first train to DC. In the meantime, I’ll be counting the hours until January 21, the day the real work is scheduled to begin for the new president.
In many ways, as I’m counting down the hours, I’ll also be asking myself why we as black voters can’t learn to do our politics more like the Hispanics do.
Yeah, I know most black folks have been here longer. We just seem to be slow learners in this whole political arena. For us, politics is still very much about unquestioned party loyalty, about pride in individual candidates rather than in political outcomes, about wearing buttons and tee shirts, and, yes, about going to inaugural balls.
Typically, we declare our political support very early, and we’re careful not to ask embarrassing questions of our favorite candidate. We get caught up in the emotion and euphoria of the campaign, we help our candidates win, but once the election is over, unfortunately, we haven’t quite figured out what to do next. For us, even as late in the day as it is, having our candidate – black or white - win an election seems to be more important than actually having our issues addressed by the candidacy.
As the old folks used to say: “That’s why we’re still in the position we’re in today.”
The Hispanic community, on the other hand, with most of its members having arrived in this country in just the past 50 years or so, has decided early on to play the political game a bit less emotionally, a lot more pragmatically, and with a clear eye on the desired outcome.
As hard as it may be for some of us to believe, they actually make political candidates, and whole parties, compete for their support. Imagine that!
Throughout the presidential campaign, as you’ll recall, no one could say with any certainty where the majority of Hispanic voters would wind up. Early on, they were leaning to Hillary Clinton, and when she lost in the primary there was reasonable speculation that McCain, from heavily Hispanic Arizona, and white like Hillary, might inherit sizable portions of that vote.
Over time, after many months of highly publicized meetings with Hispanic leaders, and even a few campaign spots in which he actually broke down and spoke Spanish, Barack Obama was finally able to attract 67 percent of the Hispanic vote. That means, of course, that one in every three Hispanic voters went McCain. No matter, the Hispanic community, despite joining the Obama Team relatively late in the campaign has been dead on the president-elect’s case to have him deliver exactly what they want from the new administration. According to Diverse Issues in Higher Education magazine’s Karen Branch-Brioso, “Hispanic advocacy groups are pressing hard to get President-Elect Obama to name unprecedented numbers of Hispanics to his administration.”
In fact, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), has recently pointed to the difference Latino voters made in the election and is using that information to gain influence and appointments. Indeed, the organization recently sent the president-elect a list of Hispanic persons it endorsed for inclusion in the administration.
Unlike black folks, the Hispanic community is clearly on a post-election political mission. Even when Hispanic former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson was announced as Obama’s pick for Commerce Secretary, there was carefully orchestrated rumbling from parts of national Hispanic leadership to remind the president-elect that Richardson should have gotten a juicier position and that their community is still not satisfied.
That’s a good thing and a smart thing, and how winning politics has always been done in the “good old U.S.A.” One local beneficiary of all of that, I’m hearing, may very well be my good friend Nelson Diaz, who’s being considered for a senior-level HUD position in the new administration. If Obama’s people are smart, that should happen.
At the same time that all of this has been going on, black folks, who clearly were the earliest, most consistent, most decisive voting bloc for President-elect Obama, (95% of our vote), have been busy picking out the clothes they want to wear to the ball and buying gold Obama commemorative plates to put up on the basement wall or in the dining room breakfront.
Unlike our Hispanic brothers and sisters, we don’t seem to expect much and we’re still pleased to have "made history.” Once again, therefore, we probably won’t get much, or certainly won’t get what we need, from the incoming administration.
In a rapidly deteriorating economy, when municipal, state and federal budgets will be slashed, along with most private sector budgets, we need, more than ever, to organize and flex our political muscle. Now, more than ever, we need to make sure that the voice from the White House will be reminding those with budgetary authority that black communities, black voters, and black businesses should not be disproportionately impacted by the continuing recession.
That should not be an ambiguous message. That should be clearly stated and specific to us. We should make at least as strong a case for that as Hispanics are making for everything else.
It’s about time.
When I grow up…
#############
Hey, I know what: When we grow up, let’s be Hispanic voters.
A recent story in Scripps News couldn’t have described it better: For black Americans, Barack Obama’s Inauguration is probably the “most important event of their lives.”
That’s scary.
The estimates of people, especially black people, heading for Washington DC for the Inauguration festivities, starts with two million and moves up from there. Even by early estimates, that’s twice as large as the Million Man March. If you don’t have a room reserved by now, you’ll probably be staying at a hotel in Wilmington, Delaware.
You literally can’t go anywhere in the black community, these days, without people asking WHEN you’re planning to arrive in D.C. for the Inaugural, where you’re staying, and how long you’re planning to stay.
Mind you, they don’t ask at all IF you’re planning to attend the Inaugural. That’s a foregone conclusion. That’s what we do. Our candidate wins; we go to the Inaugural.
Hey, I’m happy if they’re happy. But, to tell you the truth, I’m not planning to go at all. Not because I don’t think it’s going to be “historic,” “inspirational,” and “something I can tell my grandchildren one day,” but rather because I still believe that, in politics, candidate elections are just a means to an end and not the end itself. The true objective is having the candidate produce the outcomes voters need.
Only when that finally happens, will I feel like celebrating. For me, the most important day of my life, contrary to Scripps News, will be when we can honestly say that America has eliminated its disgraceful, lingering pattern of black/white disparities in health care, employment, business ownership, home ownership, and quality of public education.
When that happens, I’ll be on the first train to DC. In the meantime, I’ll be counting the hours until January 21, the day the real work is scheduled to begin for the new president.
In many ways, as I’m counting down the hours, I’ll also be asking myself why we as black voters can’t learn to do our politics more like the Hispanics do.
Yeah, I know most black folks have been here longer. We just seem to be slow learners in this whole political arena. For us, politics is still very much about unquestioned party loyalty, about pride in individual candidates rather than in political outcomes, about wearing buttons and tee shirts, and, yes, about going to inaugural balls.
Typically, we declare our political support very early, and we’re careful not to ask embarrassing questions of our favorite candidate. We get caught up in the emotion and euphoria of the campaign, we help our candidates win, but once the election is over, unfortunately, we haven’t quite figured out what to do next. For us, even as late in the day as it is, having our candidate – black or white - win an election seems to be more important than actually having our issues addressed by the candidacy.
As the old folks used to say: “That’s why we’re still in the position we’re in today.”
The Hispanic community, on the other hand, with most of its members having arrived in this country in just the past 50 years or so, has decided early on to play the political game a bit less emotionally, a lot more pragmatically, and with a clear eye on the desired outcome.
As hard as it may be for some of us to believe, they actually make political candidates, and whole parties, compete for their support. Imagine that!
Throughout the presidential campaign, as you’ll recall, no one could say with any certainty where the majority of Hispanic voters would wind up. Early on, they were leaning to Hillary Clinton, and when she lost in the primary there was reasonable speculation that McCain, from heavily Hispanic Arizona, and white like Hillary, might inherit sizable portions of that vote.
Over time, after many months of highly publicized meetings with Hispanic leaders, and even a few campaign spots in which he actually broke down and spoke Spanish, Barack Obama was finally able to attract 67 percent of the Hispanic vote. That means, of course, that one in every three Hispanic voters went McCain. No matter, the Hispanic community, despite joining the Obama Team relatively late in the campaign has been dead on the president-elect’s case to have him deliver exactly what they want from the new administration. According to Diverse Issues in Higher Education magazine’s Karen Branch-Brioso, “Hispanic advocacy groups are pressing hard to get President-Elect Obama to name unprecedented numbers of Hispanics to his administration.”
In fact, the League of United Latin American Citizens (LULAC), has recently pointed to the difference Latino voters made in the election and is using that information to gain influence and appointments. Indeed, the organization recently sent the president-elect a list of Hispanic persons it endorsed for inclusion in the administration.
Unlike black folks, the Hispanic community is clearly on a post-election political mission. Even when Hispanic former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson was announced as Obama’s pick for Commerce Secretary, there was carefully orchestrated rumbling from parts of national Hispanic leadership to remind the president-elect that Richardson should have gotten a juicier position and that their community is still not satisfied.
That’s a good thing and a smart thing, and how winning politics has always been done in the “good old U.S.A.” One local beneficiary of all of that, I’m hearing, may very well be my good friend Nelson Diaz, who’s being considered for a senior-level HUD position in the new administration. If Obama’s people are smart, that should happen.
At the same time that all of this has been going on, black folks, who clearly were the earliest, most consistent, most decisive voting bloc for President-elect Obama, (95% of our vote), have been busy picking out the clothes they want to wear to the ball and buying gold Obama commemorative plates to put up on the basement wall or in the dining room breakfront.
Unlike our Hispanic brothers and sisters, we don’t seem to expect much and we’re still pleased to have "made history.” Once again, therefore, we probably won’t get much, or certainly won’t get what we need, from the incoming administration.
In a rapidly deteriorating economy, when municipal, state and federal budgets will be slashed, along with most private sector budgets, we need, more than ever, to organize and flex our political muscle. Now, more than ever, we need to make sure that the voice from the White House will be reminding those with budgetary authority that black communities, black voters, and black businesses should not be disproportionately impacted by the continuing recession.
That should not be an ambiguous message. That should be clearly stated and specific to us. We should make at least as strong a case for that as Hispanics are making for everything else.
It’s about time.
When I grow up…
#############
Monday, November 3, 2008
"Joe the Plumber," Meet the "D.C. Cab Driver"
As we draw closer to November 4, and suffer, daily, through all of the media focus on "Joe the Plumber," I can't help but recall one of the clearest pieces of political insight I ever received in my life. I was just 22 years old, and it came from an older, black cab driver in Washington, D.C.
I was new to the banking industry, a management trainee at the old First Pennsylvania Bank, here in town, and I was invited by some older African Americans in banking to begin making phone calls to black banking officers across the country in an effort to help convene the first national meeting of African-American bankers at large, mainstream banks.The event, which would be held in Chicago, at the Palmer House Hotel, would be an opportunity for us to come together, they explained, to compare notes and to discuss issues that would assist us in moving forward, as African Americans, in a very competitive and racially discriminatory industry.
That, of course, was all I needed to hear.
Once they had me sold on the concept, they persuaded me to use the telephones at the bank where I worked to make scores of long-distance calls during the business day, to explain the concept to others across the country and to invite participation.
After making numerous calls for about a week, with good success, people at my bank, and at other banks across the country, who were not black, began to notice what I was doing. After discussions with leaders of the powerful American Bankers Association (ABA), in Washington, D.C., senior management at First Pennsylvania decided against firing me on the spot but, rather, agreed with the ABA that I should continue to make the calls, but that they should be made from ABA headquarters, from their phones, in Washington. As a result, I wound up in D.C. every Tuesday and Wednesday, over a six-week period, where they assigned me to an office and a telephone to complete my assignment.
One Tuesday morning, as usual, upon my arrival by train to Washington, I caught a cab from Union Station to the ABA offices. After reading my newspaper in the cab for a few minutes, I looked up and said to "the brother" who was driving the cab, as only a 22-year-old might say, that I was certain that things in Washington, D.C. were very difficult for black folks, given that Richard M. Nixon, who had no special record of support for black causes, was the President of the United States.I'll never forget what happened next.
The cab driver looked over his shoulder at me, as if he were talking to a 12-year-old, rather than a 22-year-old, and said, slowly and impatiently: "Young man, Nixon is the President and I'm driving this cab, Johnson was the President and I was driving this cab, Kennedy was the President and I was driving this cab. The Presidential elections don't get down to my level."
At the time, his assessment hit me like a ton of bricks. I had never been faced with such plain-spoken political despair and it made me realize just how much work still had to be done to generate true political engagement in the black community. It was clear that, based on his experience, he had no reason to believe that his circumstances would be improved -- one way or the other -- by any presidential candidate, Democrat or Republican.
As insightful as that was, I hope to God that what the cab driver said back then is no longer true. I hope that when the dust has finally settled on the 2008 Presidential Election, late on November 4 or early on November 5, that we actually will have a president whose policies will directly impact, in a favorable and visible way, the conditions in Black America, as well as in the entire country.
At first glance, you would think it would be easy to understand how that might happen. In addition, Senator Obama clearly seems to have figured out how to generate enthusiasm in black voters. They really do want him to win. But, in far too many cases, if you talk to those same voters long enough about their realistic hopes for an Obama presidency, they confide that they're really not expecting him to make significant changes in their everyday lives, that the mainstream community simply "won't let him" to do so, but that it will be good, anyway, to have an African American in that office. Sounds like the "D.C. cab driver" is alive and well.
For black voters, more and more, their choice for the presidency really isn't "just about race," as right-wing pundits have been so quick to infer. The plain truth is that Obama's opponent, Senator McCain, seems not to have a command of the most important issues affecting our country. He continues to read his speeches from a very bad script and doesn't appear to have the comprehension, or good common sense, to realize just how far off the mark his views actually are. Over the past several weeks, his performances have grown increasingly scary.
How else can you explain why a candidate would look out on audiences of potential voters in the midst of a deep recession, people who are worried about losing their homes, their jobs and their pensions, people who are living in a country with one of the world's largest gaps between the rich and poor, and say, repeatedly, that his OPPONENT is interested in redistributing the wealth, and that, he, McCain, is not? Senator McCain seems to be totally oblivious to the fact that, to a rapidly growing number of Americans, redistributing the wealth, in some fashion, no longer seems like a bad idea.
Here's another thing...the incumbent president, George W. Bush, has had historically low approval ratings over the entire course of the presidential campaign, and is widely blamed for the country's terrible economic conditions and disastrous military record. And yet, Senator McCain, just last week, reaffirmed, in an appearance on Meet the Press, his great "respect" for President Bush. You tell me, is that any way to win an election?
Senator McCain, historians will probably point out, is currently running one of the most ineffective and misguided presidential campaigns in modern history. Curiously, despite that, about 45 percent of American voters are still "leaning" his way. Nevertheless, if Senator Obama can survive the faulty and manipulated electronic voting machines, the Bradley Effect, the "undecided" voters and additional last-minute smears by his opponents, he will most certainly win the election and be the next president of the United States.It is my fondest hope that such an outcome will be a positive one for our country. In the back of my mind, however, I can't stop thinking about the timeless wisdom of that "D.C. cab driver."
When I see that the likely next president of the United States has accepted what will easily be, more than $700 million in campaign contributions, much of it from very powerful donors who are interested in maintaining their control of the country; when I see Candidate Obama continue to shy away from direct discussions of black-specific issues, at every step of his campaign, I can't help wondering if any of this, at the end of the day, will "get down to our level" in the black community.
If it doesn't, then, all of this will have been a terrible waste of a good 20 months worth of campaigning, button-wearing and "hoping" for change.
Hey...don't forget to vote.
xxxxxxxx
I was new to the banking industry, a management trainee at the old First Pennsylvania Bank, here in town, and I was invited by some older African Americans in banking to begin making phone calls to black banking officers across the country in an effort to help convene the first national meeting of African-American bankers at large, mainstream banks.The event, which would be held in Chicago, at the Palmer House Hotel, would be an opportunity for us to come together, they explained, to compare notes and to discuss issues that would assist us in moving forward, as African Americans, in a very competitive and racially discriminatory industry.
That, of course, was all I needed to hear.
Once they had me sold on the concept, they persuaded me to use the telephones at the bank where I worked to make scores of long-distance calls during the business day, to explain the concept to others across the country and to invite participation.
After making numerous calls for about a week, with good success, people at my bank, and at other banks across the country, who were not black, began to notice what I was doing. After discussions with leaders of the powerful American Bankers Association (ABA), in Washington, D.C., senior management at First Pennsylvania decided against firing me on the spot but, rather, agreed with the ABA that I should continue to make the calls, but that they should be made from ABA headquarters, from their phones, in Washington. As a result, I wound up in D.C. every Tuesday and Wednesday, over a six-week period, where they assigned me to an office and a telephone to complete my assignment.
One Tuesday morning, as usual, upon my arrival by train to Washington, I caught a cab from Union Station to the ABA offices. After reading my newspaper in the cab for a few minutes, I looked up and said to "the brother" who was driving the cab, as only a 22-year-old might say, that I was certain that things in Washington, D.C. were very difficult for black folks, given that Richard M. Nixon, who had no special record of support for black causes, was the President of the United States.I'll never forget what happened next.
The cab driver looked over his shoulder at me, as if he were talking to a 12-year-old, rather than a 22-year-old, and said, slowly and impatiently: "Young man, Nixon is the President and I'm driving this cab, Johnson was the President and I was driving this cab, Kennedy was the President and I was driving this cab. The Presidential elections don't get down to my level."
At the time, his assessment hit me like a ton of bricks. I had never been faced with such plain-spoken political despair and it made me realize just how much work still had to be done to generate true political engagement in the black community. It was clear that, based on his experience, he had no reason to believe that his circumstances would be improved -- one way or the other -- by any presidential candidate, Democrat or Republican.
As insightful as that was, I hope to God that what the cab driver said back then is no longer true. I hope that when the dust has finally settled on the 2008 Presidential Election, late on November 4 or early on November 5, that we actually will have a president whose policies will directly impact, in a favorable and visible way, the conditions in Black America, as well as in the entire country.
At first glance, you would think it would be easy to understand how that might happen. In addition, Senator Obama clearly seems to have figured out how to generate enthusiasm in black voters. They really do want him to win. But, in far too many cases, if you talk to those same voters long enough about their realistic hopes for an Obama presidency, they confide that they're really not expecting him to make significant changes in their everyday lives, that the mainstream community simply "won't let him" to do so, but that it will be good, anyway, to have an African American in that office. Sounds like the "D.C. cab driver" is alive and well.
For black voters, more and more, their choice for the presidency really isn't "just about race," as right-wing pundits have been so quick to infer. The plain truth is that Obama's opponent, Senator McCain, seems not to have a command of the most important issues affecting our country. He continues to read his speeches from a very bad script and doesn't appear to have the comprehension, or good common sense, to realize just how far off the mark his views actually are. Over the past several weeks, his performances have grown increasingly scary.
How else can you explain why a candidate would look out on audiences of potential voters in the midst of a deep recession, people who are worried about losing their homes, their jobs and their pensions, people who are living in a country with one of the world's largest gaps between the rich and poor, and say, repeatedly, that his OPPONENT is interested in redistributing the wealth, and that, he, McCain, is not? Senator McCain seems to be totally oblivious to the fact that, to a rapidly growing number of Americans, redistributing the wealth, in some fashion, no longer seems like a bad idea.
Here's another thing...the incumbent president, George W. Bush, has had historically low approval ratings over the entire course of the presidential campaign, and is widely blamed for the country's terrible economic conditions and disastrous military record. And yet, Senator McCain, just last week, reaffirmed, in an appearance on Meet the Press, his great "respect" for President Bush. You tell me, is that any way to win an election?
Senator McCain, historians will probably point out, is currently running one of the most ineffective and misguided presidential campaigns in modern history. Curiously, despite that, about 45 percent of American voters are still "leaning" his way. Nevertheless, if Senator Obama can survive the faulty and manipulated electronic voting machines, the Bradley Effect, the "undecided" voters and additional last-minute smears by his opponents, he will most certainly win the election and be the next president of the United States.It is my fondest hope that such an outcome will be a positive one for our country. In the back of my mind, however, I can't stop thinking about the timeless wisdom of that "D.C. cab driver."
When I see that the likely next president of the United States has accepted what will easily be, more than $700 million in campaign contributions, much of it from very powerful donors who are interested in maintaining their control of the country; when I see Candidate Obama continue to shy away from direct discussions of black-specific issues, at every step of his campaign, I can't help wondering if any of this, at the end of the day, will "get down to our level" in the black community.
If it doesn't, then, all of this will have been a terrible waste of a good 20 months worth of campaigning, button-wearing and "hoping" for change.
Hey...don't forget to vote.
xxxxxxxx
Thursday, October 30, 2008
Election May be Decided By Those Who COUNT the Votes
In the annals of American politics there have been very few statements so brutally corrupt in their intent or that reflected the basic imperfection of the American electoral process than that attributed to William “Boss” Tweed, who dominated the old Democratic Party political machine, Tammany Hall, in the mid-1800’s. According to a Harper’s Weekly political cartoon in 1871, Tweed said about an upcoming political election: “As long as I count the ballots, what are you going to do about it?”
Tweed knew from experience that, often, when politicians of his era really wanted to win an election, they didn’t hesitate at all to manipulate the actual vote count or to create new voting results. It was said that he learned that “skill," by observing the 1844 presidential election between James K. Polk and Henry Clay.
Tweed had learned that there were 45,000 eligible voters in the city of New York at the time, and that about eight percent of them usually did not turn out to vote. That calculation corresponded, coincidentally, with the 41,000 votes actually counted in the 1840 presidential election in the city. Tweed was highly amused and politically enlightened, therefore, when he learned that 55,086 ballots had been cast in New York City for the two candidates in the 1844 election, about 10,000 more than the total number of the city’s registered voters.
I bring all of this “old stuff” up because I’m growing more concerned every day about whether we will ever really get to know who actually receives the most popular votes in the 2008 presidential election next month.
Even after enduring 18 months of 24/7 campaign ads – in print, broadcast, Internet, and on our home phones; even after watching the candidates raise more than $1 billion in campaign funding for the first time in any U.S. presidential election (By the way, don’t blame the Green Party’s African-American candidate, Cynthia McKinney, for that. Her campaign has only raised $180,000, to date.); despite the record-breaking number of people already participating in "early voting;" despite the expectation that the general election turnout may be at near-record levels, there is a growing suspicion that we still may not get what we will actually vote for on November 4.
I don't say that because of the recent ACORN/voter registration issues. Even more alarming and to the point are the results of a “landmark” 2007 “Evaluation and Validation on Election-Related Equipment, Standards, and Testing” of Ohio’s electronic voting machines. In the analysis, known as EVEREST, researchers identified “critical security failures” in every voting machine system tested by several teams of private-sector and academic computer scientists and security consultants.
Not one, not a few … every single system.
Ohio officials went on to discover that some of the voting machines manufactured by a subsidiary of Diebold, Inc. actually “dropped votes” as they were being transmitted to a main server. The problem, they found, occurs in, both, Diebold’s touch screen and their paper ballot optical-scanning system, which will be used in more than 30 states during the presidential election this year.
In response to those findings, this year, Ohio voters who don’t trust the touch screen voting machines will be allowed to vote on a paper ballot, if they choose.
It wouldn’t be so bad if the problems with “e-voting” were simply a function of “computer errors.” In Georgia, in 2002, however, it is alleged that an executive from Diebold distributed a “patch” to workers that was applied to 5,000 voting machines throughout the state. The “patch," he told them, was designed to correct operational "glitches" in the voting machine software. There is a strong suspicion, now, based on the fact that two Democratic candidates, who were enjoying significant leads in pre-election polls, wound up losing by substantial margins, that the actual purpose of the "patch" was to manipulate the vote.
None of this would smell so bad, of course, if the CEO of Diebold, in 2003, while the company’s electronic voting machines were in use around the country, hadn’t been engaged in significant levels of fundraising for the George W. Bush re-election campaign. The biggest problem in all of this, of course, is that there’s no way – no way-- to prove or disprove whether tampering was actually done in Georgia, or whether it will take place in similarly situated voting systems across the country next month. Just last week, in fact, a report by Princeton University disclosed that electronic voting machines in use in New Jersey can be hacked and votes can be manipulated in a matter of just a few minutes.
In August, 2006, a lawsuit was filed in an attempt to stop the use of paperless electronic voting machines in Pennsylvania. Such systems were then in use in 58 of the Commonwealth’s 67 counties. Partially as a consequence of those actions, as of July of this year, 17 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties had adopted some form of “voter-marked and voter-verified” paper ballot for use on November 4. In Philadelphia, e-voting machines and software from Danaher Controls have been in place since about 2002, with relatively few major problems reported. However, there was that rumor that electronic voting machines in the city were showing vote totals in the 2004 elections even before the actual vote was counted. Maybe that won’t happen this time.
The stage, regrettably, is now set for a controversial outcome in the November election, even without electronic voting machines. The latest CNN “poll of polls," for example, informs us that Obama is carrying a 9-point lead, 51 % – 41 %, over John McCain, as of October 23, with 7 % of the electorate “undecided." With the strong suspicion that most of the “undecided” voters are not African-American, given that 94 % of black voters say they are already committed to Obama, that leaves a substantial voter segment “up for grabs," on November 4. There is also the lingering concern about whether the so-called “Bradley Effect” (which is now “wearing us out” with its repeated news coverage) will actually rear its ugly head and produce white voter support for Obama at levels below those reported to pollsters.
Throw all of that into the mix, together with the increasing volume of media reports of racially antagonistic incidents aimed at the Obama candidacy, and it’s not difficult to imagine that this election might be even closer than the 2000 presidential contest, in which Gore won the popular vote but, somehow, lost the presidency. The temptation to manipulate this year's vote count, it would seem, in so close an election, may be difficult to resist by either party.
All of this makes the unpredictability and vulnerability of "e-voting" machines a “front burner” issue – especially for folks who are talking about “making history” on election day.
It seems as though this might be one of those elections wherein wearing campaign buttons and t-shirts, displaying window and lawn signs for your candidate and, even, getting out and casting your vote on election day, may not be enough.
As "Boss" Tweed knew well, almost 140 years ago, the election may actually be decided by the people (or the software systems) that actually count the votes.
No matter how you plan to vote, my advice is to stay vigilant on this issue, before and after election day, or be prepared to lose.
As Tweed, himself, might say; “What are you going to do about it?”
############
Tweed knew from experience that, often, when politicians of his era really wanted to win an election, they didn’t hesitate at all to manipulate the actual vote count or to create new voting results. It was said that he learned that “skill," by observing the 1844 presidential election between James K. Polk and Henry Clay.
Tweed had learned that there were 45,000 eligible voters in the city of New York at the time, and that about eight percent of them usually did not turn out to vote. That calculation corresponded, coincidentally, with the 41,000 votes actually counted in the 1840 presidential election in the city. Tweed was highly amused and politically enlightened, therefore, when he learned that 55,086 ballots had been cast in New York City for the two candidates in the 1844 election, about 10,000 more than the total number of the city’s registered voters.
I bring all of this “old stuff” up because I’m growing more concerned every day about whether we will ever really get to know who actually receives the most popular votes in the 2008 presidential election next month.
Even after enduring 18 months of 24/7 campaign ads – in print, broadcast, Internet, and on our home phones; even after watching the candidates raise more than $1 billion in campaign funding for the first time in any U.S. presidential election (By the way, don’t blame the Green Party’s African-American candidate, Cynthia McKinney, for that. Her campaign has only raised $180,000, to date.); despite the record-breaking number of people already participating in "early voting;" despite the expectation that the general election turnout may be at near-record levels, there is a growing suspicion that we still may not get what we will actually vote for on November 4.
I don't say that because of the recent ACORN/voter registration issues. Even more alarming and to the point are the results of a “landmark” 2007 “Evaluation and Validation on Election-Related Equipment, Standards, and Testing” of Ohio’s electronic voting machines. In the analysis, known as EVEREST, researchers identified “critical security failures” in every voting machine system tested by several teams of private-sector and academic computer scientists and security consultants.
Not one, not a few … every single system.
Ohio officials went on to discover that some of the voting machines manufactured by a subsidiary of Diebold, Inc. actually “dropped votes” as they were being transmitted to a main server. The problem, they found, occurs in, both, Diebold’s touch screen and their paper ballot optical-scanning system, which will be used in more than 30 states during the presidential election this year.
In response to those findings, this year, Ohio voters who don’t trust the touch screen voting machines will be allowed to vote on a paper ballot, if they choose.
It wouldn’t be so bad if the problems with “e-voting” were simply a function of “computer errors.” In Georgia, in 2002, however, it is alleged that an executive from Diebold distributed a “patch” to workers that was applied to 5,000 voting machines throughout the state. The “patch," he told them, was designed to correct operational "glitches" in the voting machine software. There is a strong suspicion, now, based on the fact that two Democratic candidates, who were enjoying significant leads in pre-election polls, wound up losing by substantial margins, that the actual purpose of the "patch" was to manipulate the vote.
None of this would smell so bad, of course, if the CEO of Diebold, in 2003, while the company’s electronic voting machines were in use around the country, hadn’t been engaged in significant levels of fundraising for the George W. Bush re-election campaign. The biggest problem in all of this, of course, is that there’s no way – no way-- to prove or disprove whether tampering was actually done in Georgia, or whether it will take place in similarly situated voting systems across the country next month. Just last week, in fact, a report by Princeton University disclosed that electronic voting machines in use in New Jersey can be hacked and votes can be manipulated in a matter of just a few minutes.
In August, 2006, a lawsuit was filed in an attempt to stop the use of paperless electronic voting machines in Pennsylvania. Such systems were then in use in 58 of the Commonwealth’s 67 counties. Partially as a consequence of those actions, as of July of this year, 17 of Pennsylvania’s 67 counties had adopted some form of “voter-marked and voter-verified” paper ballot for use on November 4. In Philadelphia, e-voting machines and software from Danaher Controls have been in place since about 2002, with relatively few major problems reported. However, there was that rumor that electronic voting machines in the city were showing vote totals in the 2004 elections even before the actual vote was counted. Maybe that won’t happen this time.
The stage, regrettably, is now set for a controversial outcome in the November election, even without electronic voting machines. The latest CNN “poll of polls," for example, informs us that Obama is carrying a 9-point lead, 51 % – 41 %, over John McCain, as of October 23, with 7 % of the electorate “undecided." With the strong suspicion that most of the “undecided” voters are not African-American, given that 94 % of black voters say they are already committed to Obama, that leaves a substantial voter segment “up for grabs," on November 4. There is also the lingering concern about whether the so-called “Bradley Effect” (which is now “wearing us out” with its repeated news coverage) will actually rear its ugly head and produce white voter support for Obama at levels below those reported to pollsters.
Throw all of that into the mix, together with the increasing volume of media reports of racially antagonistic incidents aimed at the Obama candidacy, and it’s not difficult to imagine that this election might be even closer than the 2000 presidential contest, in which Gore won the popular vote but, somehow, lost the presidency. The temptation to manipulate this year's vote count, it would seem, in so close an election, may be difficult to resist by either party.
All of this makes the unpredictability and vulnerability of "e-voting" machines a “front burner” issue – especially for folks who are talking about “making history” on election day.
It seems as though this might be one of those elections wherein wearing campaign buttons and t-shirts, displaying window and lawn signs for your candidate and, even, getting out and casting your vote on election day, may not be enough.
As "Boss" Tweed knew well, almost 140 years ago, the election may actually be decided by the people (or the software systems) that actually count the votes.
No matter how you plan to vote, my advice is to stay vigilant on this issue, before and after election day, or be prepared to lose.
As Tweed, himself, might say; “What are you going to do about it?”
############
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