Republican party needs to attract more black voters

The question posed is interesting. My guess is that the reason Blacks do not normally vote GOP is that their policies tend to be more intolerant than the Dems. Blacks are going to be more sensitive to intolerant policies because thy have lived it .. unlike most white folk.

Solution ? Punt the religious right from the party and get back to Goldwater Conservatism.

 

But Barry Goldwater was the Republican that started the Southern Strategy.

 

He hated the religious right's influence on the Party.

 

Do you feel that you're in a better position to resolve the GOP's problem attracting black voters now than you were when we started the conversation? If not, it seems like you are the one who has conceded defeat, no?

 

You mean it is IMPOSSIBLE for Democrats to explain what them mean and specifically what policies and proposal Republicans should make to attract black voters who vote overwhelmingly for them without insulting their own constituents?

 

Well what are those issues?

 

So you think that is why Blacks vote overwhelmingly Democrat??

 

OK what are these values that black voters hold that only the Democrats seem to be able to support? And please be specific.

The Dixicrats died in 1948 when they fled back into the Democrat party and were all reelected as Democrats and held high position in the Democrat party. Get your history straight.

 

Quote Originally Posted by Bluesguy View Post
... So why do Blacks keep voting overwhelmingly for Democrats when Democrats have failed so miserably in these areas?

OK what is this merit in the Democrat party and how has it worked out for blacks the last 8 years? How is employment, how many are no longer dependent on government in order to survive?

And we have about the same number of people working now as in 2008 but 15 million more people who could be working. Once again the historically low labor participation rate fell which is why the unemployment number you cite is below 6%.

If blacks want jobs why do they continue to vote for the party which only offers more unemployment subsistence instead of jobs? What has the Obama administration done to create jobs for blacks and how successful have they been?

And why do you call it the "Bush recession", why does he get that label The slowdown/recession of 2000/2001 started when Clinton was President, is it the "Clinton recession"?

 

Well that is not a right and there are blacks who certainly become very wealthy in this country. But can you point me to where Republicans have opposed and fought against this as was claimed?

I find it interesting that these were supposed to be the lowest level entry jobs and all the applicants pretended to have nothing more than a high school edcuation and applicants had "resumes". That being said you should read the study it self as where it states that the "descrimination" was in the responses to the ads but when there was personal contact the results evened out and even those variances may be attributed to the fact that most of the jobs were in small retail shops or restaurants without human resources departments or strict guidelines in hiring.

But again point me to the Republican opposition and fighting against black employment. Did blacks fair better under the Bush/Republican years, the Bush/Democrat years where Democrats had majority control of government or the Obama/Democrat years? How about Clinton/Democrat years or Clinton/Republican, where Republicans had majority control of government, years

What problems do blacks care most about and how have Democrat policies helped to remedy those concerns? The policies liberals claim the Republicans should show more concern over?

 

Citizens rights. Don' we have a right to assemble? Don't we have a right to redress and petition the government in those assemblies? And there are certainly blacks who are owners in corporations, so I don't understand the racial aspect here.

OK so it he RCN posted on it's website today "WE OPPOSE RACIS" suddenly they would get an influx of black voters? And considering the history of both parties isn't it the Democrat party that had the problem and has more reason to continually denounce the racism the previously supported?

Yes and the Republicans finally succeed in doing so when enough Democrats realized it was no longer in their political interest to support segregation.

And historically we have seen that as much if not more so from the conservative side with the premier conservative journal having supported it for decades.

And is a disaster and made even more so by Michele Obama. But are you saying blacks prefer policies that keep them in need and relies on other peoples labor to support them as the Democrats offer or policies that get them OUT of having to rely on that need as the Republicans offer?

It was no contempt just a reality that exist in all such national campaigns, you fight for the middle 8% or so because each side has about an equal share of base voters. What you do show is how Democrats misrepresent things in order to keep their voters though.

Washington DC, where a VERY successful program was canned in spite of black parents crying to keep it.

And they shouldn't be merely given minimal subsistence to do so, it's a net not a hammack. When have we experience the lowest levels of unemployment, when Democrats had majority control or Republicans? It's not a matter of one party WANTS people to starve and freeze and the other doesn't it's the policies geared towards those people, so when it comes to the actual policies geared towards that what do blacks want that the Democrats offer that the Republicans do not? Why do they prefer Democrat policies over Republican?

And the Republican policies that support this are...............

You mean Muslim men entering the country? Shouldn't there be some profiling? This is really a policy of great concern to the American black population?

What foreign policy is of great concern to blacks and what Republican policies do they not support and can you give me some links to prove this? Did blacks oppose the aid Bush sent to Africa and other impoverished black countries?

And do you think the current Democrat foreign policy has made the world a safer place and blacks support this?

Very few support an actual flat tax, most just a flatter tax less complicated reform that would be revenue neutral. But since the "flattening" under both the Gingrich/Kasich congress and the Bush/Republican congress took millions of blacks off the tax rolls altogether and increase the amount of tax revenue the highest earners paid and increased the share of taxes the highest earners paid while the Clinton tax increase did the opposite, why do blacks not support Republican on tax matters and instead support Democrats?

I don't know that either of those to be the case but this thread is specific to black voters.

Again thanks for your thoughtful response.

 

who WAS the standard bearer for the Dixiecrats in '48?

what party's senate leader said - THIS CENTURY - that we would be a better country TODAY if we had elected that Dixiecrat back in '48?

 

He was also one of the first businessmen in Phoenix to desegregate his business and the fist Governor to desegregate the state National Guard, even before Truman did so for the federal military. And the fact is Goldwater did not win the Southern states, Johnson did. And Goldwater lost the South, he only won 5 states while Johnson won 11.

 

Well there were several and they all went back to and were embraced by the Democrats when they lost, were all reelected as Democrats and served in high position in the Democrat party and Congresses.

And which President praised the Democrat KKK leader of the Senate?

But what you are saying is that blacks vote Democrat because of one man? And why hold the Republicans accountable for the DEMOCRAT Thurmond and not credit them for the REPUBLICAN Thurmond while at the same time supporting a former Grand Wizard and organizer of the KKK?

Strom Thurmond and Civil Rights
Backcountry Conservative ^ | 6/29/03 | Jeff Quinton
Posted on 6/29/2003 3:12:44 AM by AJ Insider

Former Democratic National Committee Chairman Don Fowler

"I believe in spiritual and political redemption. I don't think anyone can excuse some of his earlier positions. But I thought his redemption was genuine. In the later years of his career, he voted for the reauthorization of the Civil Rights act. It serves no purpose to try to second-guess that. I believe his political redemption on the racial matter was genuine."
Since the national media and many liberals and self-loathing right-wingers in the blogosphere seem to be focused solely on what was bad about Strom Thurmond and civil rights, I decided to catalog quotes, accomplishments and other information in an attempt to make sure the full record is heard.

The State

Marva Smalls, a longtime black Democratic activist from Florence who became executive vice president and chief of staff of Nickelodeon in New York, said Thurmond "grew on me" in his final years. "He was such a politician, such a public servant, that as times changed, he became more aware of what his world was, and that was service to all the people. . . . He didn’t want his epitaph to be about segregation, but one that embraces the concerns of all South Carolina."
SC Senator Kay Patterson

"Paul had an experience on the road to Damascus, and Strom Thurmond also had an experience on the road to Damascus. And after that experience, I always supported Strom Thurmond for political office because he would do constituent service for all South Carolinians, including me."
Armstrong Williams

"When you close the door to others, you close the doors to yourself. When people met his heart, they realized he was not the same person. They saw a good man, a nice man. . . . I knew him. I extended my hand. He extended his."
Congressman Jim Clyburn

"Senator Thurmond was symbolic of the Old South, but his willingness to change over time set an example for many South Carolinians."
Strom Thurmond

"I fully recognize and appreciate the many substantial contributions of black Americans and other minorities to the creation and preservation and development of our great nation."
— Oct. 3, 1983. quoted in Congressional record, discussing why he voted for a federal holiday to honor the late Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.

Lee Bandy of The State

Though his opposition to integration was a hallmark of Thurmond's early career, his segregationist past seems all but forgotten. Thurmond took steps to reach out to black voters. In 1971, he became the first U.S. senator from the South to hire a black aide. While he did not get a large percentage of the black vote, he worked to improve race relations and bring aid to black communities. In his last election in 1996, Thurmond received more black votes than any other Southern Republican, winning 22 percent.
David Shi, President of Furman University

"He is one of the most prominent examples of the ability of some Southern political leaders to adapt to changing circumstances and changing societal needs. The remarkable reversal from his segregationist years and to his inclusive outlook of his later years testifies to the dramatic changes to his state and his region."
SC Senator Kay Patterson

"Once a person changes over and starts showing you that he will deliver services to the people and that he doesn't practice segregation, I don't want to go back to something that happened 60 years ago."
Senator Lindsey Graham

"When Strom came out for something, it made it easier for you to come out for something because it gave you cover. When Strom Thurmond appointed the first African-American judge in the history of South Carolina to the federal bench, it made it easier for people in the State House to give appointments to African-Americans‘.‘.‘. When he embraced traditional black colleges and started giving them the same recognition and funding as every other university in South Carolina, it made it easier for the Legislature to improve the quality of life for everybody."
Senator Joe Biden

"I believe that Strom Thurmond was a captive of an age and geography. I do not believe that Strom Thurmond at his core was a racist. I believe he changed because the times changed‘.‘.‘. I choose to remember Strom Thurmond in his last 15 years, because I believe that men and women can grow."
Former Democratic Governor John West

"He was an icon. He will be remembered as a great man. He was truly a remarkable man. He changed with the times. He will go down in history as one of South Carolina's greatest leaders of all time."
Former SC Democratic Party Chairman Dick Harpootlian

"This is a guy whose political positions have been contrary to me my entire life, but I can tell you, as a human being and a man and a father who I got to know in that year, he was a genuine, caring, grieving man -- just a class act."
Jack Bass

Although today's South Carolinians know him as a hard-core political conservative, he campaigned successfully for governor in 1946 as a war hero and New Deal liberal. His 1947 inaugural address --drafted by erudite Charleston lawyer Robert Figg, later dean of the law school at the University of South Carolina --called for ending the poll tax, adopting a state minimum wage law and strengthening child labor laws. It called for free textbooks, expansion of vocational education and support for federal aid to education.
In calling for "more attention given to Negro education," Thurmond asserted, "The low standing of South Carolina, educationally, is due primarily to the high rate of illiteracy and lack of education among our Negroes. If we provide better educational facilities for them, not only will much be accomplished in human values, but we shall raise our per-capita income as well as the educational standing of our state."

He called for industrial development, better conditions for workers and environmental protection against polluters. He advocated free treatment for sufferers of venereal disease and mandatory premarital blood tests. His speech set a progressive direction that South Carolina government would follow for much of the next four decades.

Jack Bass

But when the tide of changing constitutional law forced the South to abandon the state-enforced system of rigid racial segregation, white Southerners changed their behavior. Changes in attitude followed. Strom Thurmond moved with the tide.
He abandoned his ship of "states rights" opposition to civil rights progress and swam into the mainstream. He voted in 1982 to extend for 25 years the Voting Rights Act he had bitterly opposed. He became a champion of historically black colleges. He supported legislation to make the birthday of Martin Luther King Jr. a national holiday. He reached out, politically and personally, to blacks in South Carolina, recognizing that they too had become constituents who should get service from his office. And he recognized most of all that blacks now voted.

The State

But when South Carolina blacks started registering and voting in large numbers after the Voting Rights Act of 1965, Thurmond shifted gears, hiring black staffers, appointing blacks to high positions (including a federal judgeship), providing the same assiduous constituency service to black communities as he did for whites.
The senator endeared himself to African-Americans when he voted for renewal of the Voting Rights Act in 1982 and the Martin Luther King Jr. holiday in 1983. Also, each year he sponsored legislation designating a week to honor the nation’s black colleges.

Over the years he got few black votes, averaging 8 percent each election campaign. But few were strongly against him. They did not form a strong political base for his opponents. One year, all of the state’s black mayors endorsed him for re-election. They remembered him for the water and sewer grants he helped obtain for small towns.

Lee Bandy

He credited himself as the governor who abolished South Carolina's poll tax. In 1991, he voted in favor of extending the Voting Rights Act. He supported the 1986 bill that made Martin Luther King Jr.'s birthday a federal holiday.
In his best molasses mumble, Thurmond explained his change this way: "The whole situation has changed. And you've got to respond to changes. If you can't, you'll get lost in the fight."

Strom Thurmond

"The Boston violence further dispels the notion, held in some parts of this country, that the citizens of Massachusetts have a ‘higher morality’ than the citizens of the Southern states."
— In 1975, reacting to violence in Boston over school desegregation

Charleston Post & Courier

Marshall Kelly had just been hired to handle building codes in Lincolnville in the early 1980s, a time when people in the tiny old freedmen's town were struggling for drinking water. There was no sewer, and most home wells were so shallow that folks often ended up pumping septic water.
Kelly carried home water in 50-gallon tanks from the fire station because, despite digging well hole after well hole, he hadn't been able to pump good water.

Funds had been earmarked for water and sewer service in the town, but Mayor Charles Ross had gotten frustrated dealing with the bureaucracy involved in making the project happen. Ross, a Democrat, told Kelly, "I'll call my friend Strom Thurmond. It doesn't matter that he's a Republican or whatever. If I call him, he'll get it done for me."

Though Kelly thought it was strange, he watched as Ross got on the phone and dialed Thurmond directly.

"I thought of Strom as a segregationist," Kelly said, adding that Ross set him straight, telling him of people Thurmond worked behind the scenes to help.

Ultimately, Lincolnville got its funds. Kelly no longer had to carry water.

Charleston Post & Courier, 9/27/95

WASHINGTON--U.S. Sen. Strom Thurmond, known once as a leading segregationist, was honored Tuesday by presidents of the nation's 103 predominantly black colleges and universities.
College officials, including five from South Carolina, presented Thurmond, R-S.C., with a lithograph titled, "Old South, New South," at a Capitol Hill ceremony.

"The symbolism is very obvious to us," said Dr. Leonard Dawson, president of Voorhees College in Denmark, S.C.

"Sen. Thurmond has been very helpful to the historically black colleges and universities over the past several years," he said.

Thurmond, 92, has sponsored legislation creating "Historically Black Colleges and Universities Week" for the past 11 years.

Charleston Post & Courier

When Henrietta Middleton Pinckney of Beaufort heard of Thurmond's death, her thoughts turned to the role the senator played in having a Navy warship named in honor of her husband, William Pinckney, a black Navy cook whose heroism during World War II saved the life of a white shipmate aboard the aircraft carrier USS Enterprise.
After the guided missile destroyer USS Pinckney was christened at a Pascagoula, Miss., shipyard in June 2002, Thurmond called Pinckney to congratulate her.

"I spoke with him for about 10 minutes, and he said he was glad that my husband was from South Carolina," Pinckney said. "When he died, I felt sad. At least I had a chance to speak with him."

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/937501/posts

 

Byrd was never a "Grand Wizard". That is a flat out lie.... but, from you, I am not surprised.

The Republican Senate Majority Leader, in 2002, stated unequivocally, that the United States would be a better country TODAY, if we had elected Strom Thurmond as president in 1948. Did he really think that black Americans wouldn't take notice of that? Do YOU?

 

Oh EXCUSE me an Exalted Cyclops.

Based on what he ACTUALLY said instead of what was reported? Of course the MSM reported as Lott supporting segregation which of course was totally fallacious.

Yes and Clinton praised Byrd, what's the difference?

And do you REALLY think

And tell me do you REALLY think that is an issue NOW? That it is because of Strom Thurmond blacks vote Democrat? Did you read all the quotes from black leaders I posted?

 

The GOP's blatant problem is exemplified by Angry White guys' insistence upon asking White guys why the Republican Party cannot win the support of Black Americans as if Black Americans are unable to articulate the reasons for their political preference.

Thus, you can conclude, Southern Whites remain, overwhelmingly, Democratic today?

No, most went the route of Strom Thurmond, of course.

 

It's the Democrats who keep saying this and the question is WHY their political preference and what are they getting out of it that Republicans are not offering through their policies.

No, how did you make that stretch?

No most stayed in the Democrat party and slowly died out while those like me who were Republicans grew and took over. Some who did give up their segregationist views came over, but the switch was because of a new mentality that grew with my generation. The ones that never supported segregation and were Republican.

 

That position is exactly the same. What I got out of the conversation with you is how Democrats are able to simultaneously say they are anti-racist and also be extremely tolerant of racists, as long as they were under the same big tent. I've always assumed it was simple hypocrisy, but after chatting with you I can see the cognitive dissonance at play.

So I do admit, I actually learned something from you, and I can't say that happens very often here.

 

Hey I've got one for you too!

What party's senate leader said -THIS CENTURY - that a former Klansman, would have been a great leader during the Civil War?

 

If you believe that is what Democrats keep saying, you might want to ask those Democrats what they are talking about.

If you think that Black Americans should love the current incarnation of the GOP, you'll need to explain to Black Americans why they are all wrong from the perspective of a Southern Angry White Guy. They'll either buy your version, or stick with their own.

If you like to pretend that the South's pre-civil rights, conservative, White Democrats did not followed the examples of Strom Thurmond, Jesse Helms and the entire ilk that had become alienated from the national Democratic Party because of the racial integration of the American military in 1948, the end of state-mandated segregation in separate-but-equal schooling with the Brown v. Board of Education Supreme Court decision in 1954, the Civil Rights Act in 1964, and the Voting Rights Act in 1965, but just suddenly went "Poof!" and left no trace of that Southern conservative tradition that had endured for several decades, that's what you'll believe - even as you can fantasize that the formerly progressive Republicans of New England must have inexplicably, utterly, vanished at the same time.

Most recognize the parties' major reciprocal realignments that occurred during that period, however, and I have mentioned several of the major contributory factors.

 

wrong again.... once someone gets into the lying groove, it's tough to escape, I'd imagine.

His actual words.

the difference is quite striking, actually. Clinton praised Byrd for what he had become. Lott stated that we, as a nation, would be better off today, if we had elected Strom Thurmond, the racist, segregationist, as president in 1948.

I am sure that ol' Strom was good friends with lots of negroes. He even impregnated (borderline statutory rape) the black teenage daughter of his family's servant when he was a young man. He DID, however, run for president on a platform of segregation where he proposed a constitutional amendment outlawing interracial marriage and codifying separate but equal. AND... ol' Trent Lott, as recently as 2002, said we'd be better off today if America had elected HIM instead of Truman. Those are the facts. Black people understand all of that. The head of the GOP in the US Senate stood up in front of a crowd of people and expressed his opinion that we would be better off if a segregationist racist had been our president. You can't make this stuff up.

 

Again... the difference is obviously lost on you. Praising Byrd for what he had become had nothing to do with what he had once done. Stating that we, as a nation, would be a better country TODAY if we had elected a segregationist racist rapist in 1948 is completely different. The former extols where a man has moved to, the latter extols where he has been.

 

blink blink

I think the similarities are lost on you. Thinking that a Klansman would have made a great leader during the civil war, although in keeping with Democratic traditions, is far worse than the other statement. Byrd never went anywhere, he was the same West Virginia racist that he was when he returned from World War 2. He never evolved, just his votes evolved.

Actually you are a great example of what I pointed out to tuhaybey. He, like you, thinks it's only racist when Republicans do it. If Democrats do it, then by definition, it's not racist, even when it's identical!

You guys kill me!

 

and yet, your guy - not just one of your guys, but the senior elected republican in the US Congress, stated, unequivocally, in 2002, that America would be a better place today if we had elected a segregationist, racist as president instead of Truman in 1948. Tone deaf, maybe???? And you swallow that feces and act as if its chocolate. And you wonder why black folks laugh at the GOP?