PAUL WALDMAN CONFIRMS WHY THE GOP GETS NO LOVE FROM BLACK PEOPLE

Over at Alternet, writer Paul Waldman confirms in articulate detail why the GOP gets no love from Blacks, Jews, or Gay People. Here's an excerpt:

We can look on the bright side and say that what's bad for Ford may in general be good for Democrats. Ford, currently locked in a dead heat, is depending on the willingness of the good people of Tennessee to rise above their past and elect the first African-American senator from the South since Reconstruction. Elsewhere, black Republicans are finding that they have a lot of trouble convincing African Americans that the GOP has mended its ways, and the attention the Ford race has gotten isn't helping. Kenneth Blackwell in Ohio, Lynn Swann in Pennsylvania and Michael Steele in Maryland have all been unable to bring significant numbers of African Americans to their side, and look headed for defeat.

In my opinion, as an African-American woman, this article confirms what Steve Gilliard and I have been saying for the past two years: Black People don't drink the "Candidate is Black" Kool-Aid as often as the racist elements of both the Democratic and Republican party leaders tend to think. We are very able to discern a Black candidate's motives for seeking higher office, espeically when the candidate has conducted himself/herself as a modern-day Stepin' Fetchit or Mammy. My parents' generation didn't need a political pundit to tell them how they should think or feel about political candidates - they had the gift of discernment to determine if a candidate was on the real, or faking his butt off. Black Pastors I sat under in church began saying to political candidates "Yes, you can come here to speak, but it means staying for the entire worship service."

In other words, gracing the church, town hall, school or waterfront with your mere Black/Jew/Gay presence no longer cuts it. Those very voters that Harold Ford, Michael Steele, Lynn Swann and Ken Blackwell are working so hard to court - well, gentlemen, they have already made up their minds about you. Yes, I know your ethnicity and skin color should not matter, but even in the 21st Century, it does. No matter how much evidence is placed out in the public to educate people about African-Americans, there are some that have that element of hate so deeply rooted, it is damned near hopeless to think that those individuals can change their mindset, short of having a personal epiphany, or near death experience where one's life is saved by teh Black person, or teh Gay, or teh Jewish person.

Harold Ford just got the memo reminding him he's still African-American, and he's considered an uppity Negro, to boot. The fact that Swannie and Blackwell are trailing their Democratic opponents by double-digits in the polls are basically communicating that they got that same memo, but refuse to read it, and therefore, are left wondering why after all the butt-kissing of white GOP voters they have done, why those same GOP voters are going to cross party lines and vote for the white guy.

Mike Steele has two things going for him: he loves puppies and the endorsement of a graft artist and his thug, rapist ex-brother-in-law:





Is Massachusetts the only Commonwealth that is progressive enough to see past a person's race, sexual orientation or religious belief to give the job to the best person for it? They are saying so by their willingness to vote for an African-American, Deval Patrick, over the white Female candidate, Kerry Healey, whose campaign tried to run similar ads to the ones the ReThugs ran on Ford.

She was already trailing double digits behind Patrick - after those "Willie Horton" type ads ran, her trailing behind Patrick increased, to where he's all but handed the state House in Boston.

As Cornel West says "Race Matters". So does ethnicity, gender, sexual orientation and religious belief. How does a candidate over come such odds?

One person at a time. And the time is NOW.