For years Republican leaders have said they would work hard to increase African American support for their party, but so far, those efforts appear to be a failure.
When asked during an interview why the Republican party is poison for so many African Americans the only black candidate to run for the 2012 Republican ticket, Herman Cain, said it was because "...they have been brainwashed into not being open-minded, not even considering a conservative point of view."
A documentary titled Fear of A Black Republican was just released here in Washington DC and it posed a similar question: Does the Republican party really want more black people?
So why has the Republican party not been successful in reaching out to black voters? And why are they also losing the hispanic voters?
To discuss these issues, we are joined by James Braxton Peterson, the director of Africana studies at Lehigh University; Ana Navarro, the National Hispanic co-chair for both John McCain and John Huntsman; and Kevin Williams, the director of the film, Fear of a Black Republican.
| "I think there is a core cultural competency challenge here that the Republican party... has lost it's sense and its ability to connect with communities of colour. You've got to be competent about the cultural issues that are important to these communities and then we can talk about the different strategies for trying to secure their votes." James Braxton Peterson, analyst on black politics |
LOSING THE BLACK VOTE:
- The Republican party has currently little support among black voters
- Since the early 1960's black voters have overwhelmingly voted the Democratic party
- Richard Nixon was the last Republican candidate to get significant black support
- Nixon got 32 per cent of black vote in his loss to John F Kennedy in 1960
- President Lyndon Johnson got 94 per cent support from black voters after he signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964
- Republicans promoted the abolition of slavery, gaining black votes
- President Dwight Eisenhower got 39 per cent of black vote in 1956
- In the 2008 election John McCain received just 4 per cent of black votes
- In the 2008 US presidential election 95 per cent of African Americans voted for Obama
4 comments:
Hmm..., so the National Review is making a show of emptying the sewer under its house http://btx3.wordpress.com/2012/04/11/national-review-cleans-house-and-empties-the-sewer/ and it turns out that the foundationstone of my man Cobb's conservatism (what I refer to as the Cobbian oeuvre) was a supporter of Nazism and the antebellum southern feudal establishment http://cobb.typepad.com/cobb/2012/04/derbyshires-miscalculation.html?cid=6a00d834515ae969e20168e9f83b5b970c#comment-6a00d834515ae969e20168e9f83b5b970c
not a good look....,
Do you believe...
...if Republicans were to tour the black church circuit and milk Christian principles for all its worth, that they could get their numbers up (post-Obama that it)?
Also is there an inflated chest attitude rooted in honoring the "fallen South" that contribute to Republicans inability to expunge callous racialized comments?
"Black church circuit" and "Christian principles" go together in a sentence about as well as "penis" and "teeth". I speck that if started kicking out ducats to black preachers the way they did under the early G-Dub administration, then they'd start to make some headway with the element that's willing to subordinate itself to the self-serving leadership in those pseudo-religious entertainment venues.
"Callous racialized comments" are an artifact of nothing more complicated than lack of direct personal socializing and interpersonal experience. Why I tend to be extremely tolerant because most folks who slip up have really just never had a black friend with whom they mutually and reciprocally kept it real.
IMOHO - somewhere around 15% of self-identified conservatives are simply intractably racist and their politics is informed by that psychological set. (I also believe that somewhere around 5% of american black folks are simply intractably racist, as well)
"Callous racialized comments" -- the tip of the spear.
"...[T]hen they'd start to make some headway with the element that's willing to subordinate itself to the self-serving leadership in those pseudo-religious entertainment venues" -- Yep. Necessary, but not sufficient.
The electorate that will carry the banner isn't in that room being led by the nose by that preacher. It's a start, but it's not the heart and will only aid the opposition by shifting the allegiance of some sheeples.
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