Gene Demby

Jesse Jackson Says He Would Officiate A Same-Sex Wedding If Asked

2012-09-11T12:33:24-04:00

Jesse Jackson told a conservative that he would perform a same-sex marriage ceremony if someone asked him.

“Beginning with the Voting Rights Act of 1965, to the inclusion of blacks, Hispanics, 18-year-olds, and women, opportunities are now unlimited,” Jackson said to Human Events during last week's Democratic National Convention. Jackson added that he had “no problem with that relationship — (couples of the same gender marrying).”

Jackson has been outspoken in his support of gay rights in recent months. Earlier this year he called for federal protections for gay marriage, likening it to the federal government's protection of civil rights. "If the states had to vote on slavery, we would have lost the vote," he said. "If we had to vote on the right [for blacks] to vote, we would have lost that vote."

Other civil rights leaders have been vocal in their support for gay marriage. The NAACP endorsed same-sex marriage following President Obama's personal endorsement of it in May. Polls of African Americans has also found that support had dramatically jumped — a swing of 18 points in just two weeks — following Obama's statement of support.

Some church leaders have been outspoken in their opposition. Bill Owens, who heads the Coalition of African-American Pastors, and a liason with the conservative National Organization for Marriage, called Obama a "Judas" for his stance. "I didn’t march one inch, one foot, one yard, for a man to marry a man, and a woman to marry a woman,” said Owens, who claimed to be active in the civil rights movement, at a press conference in August.

(But it doesn't appear that he marched an inch or a foot or a yard for much of anything: other civil rights leaders said they had little knowledge of Owens involvement in the movement or his supposed activism.)

Kesha Rogers, Texas Democrat And Anti-Obama Nominee, Disavowed By Party Members

2012-09-11T10:57:29-04:00

Charlotte, N.C. -- Last week, Texas Democrats sent more than 300 delegates to represent the Lone Star State at the Democratic National Convention. But Kesha Rogers, the Democratic nominee for U.S. Congress for Texas's 22nd District, was notably absent.

"She's not here in a lot of different ways," Gilberto Hinojosa, chairman of the Texas Democratic Party, said sarcastically.

One of Hinojosa’s aides chuckled when asked if the state's party was backing Rogers' bid. "She wants to impeach the Democratic president," he said. "I think it's safe to say we're not endorsing her."

At a quick glance, some of Rogers' ideas might fit in with either party. She was opposed to the government bailouts of the financial sector. She wants to reinstate the Glass-Steagall Act, the Depression-era law that curtailed financial speculation; many blame the financial crisis on its repeal.

But Rogers is a follower of Lyndon Larouche, who heads the fringe political movement that bears his name. Over his long career, LaRouche, who is 90, has been called the leader of a political cult, labeled an anti-Semite by the Anti-Defamation League, run for the Democratic nomination for president repeatedly and unsuccessfully, and convicted of mail fraud. (He shared a prison cell with Jim Bakker, the disgraced televangelist.) LaRouche followers believe that his ideas are the only thing that can save the world from a coming nuclear war.

(A key plank in Rogers' platform is "interplanetary defense," defending the earth from asteroids and America from nuclear missiles from hostile countries -- and Mars colonization, which is why she opposes cuts to NASA's budget.)

Rogers, 35, was asked to characterize her relationship with Larouche. "I would say [he is] an associate and advisor in terms of our collaboration on a political mission," she told The Huffington Post.

This is the second time Democrats in Texas have had to figure out how to deal with Rogers. In 2010, she stunned the party when she won the primary for her district, which encompasses a swath just south of Houston. Her win, which Hinojosa thought may have been fueled by African-American voters who weren't familiar with her political stances, put the party in a serious bind, since she had called repeatedly for the impeachment of President Obama.

"What made me decide to run was the dire state of the economy and the non-leadership of President Obama," she said.

"At that point in time, my campaign put a mustache" -- as in Hitler -- "on Obama as part of the national campaign drive." Like LaRouche, Rogers said that that the Affordable Care Act, the president's signature health care law, was rooted in the same eugenicist impulses that fueled the Holocaust. "I was comparing Obama's health care law to Hitler's 1930s policies that said that health care laws were based on those unfit for life," she said.

Rogers said she has 12 full-time employees on staff, and that she had been a Democrat "pretty much all" her life. But if elected to Congress, she said she wouldn't caucus with either party. "I don't identify with party structure," she said. "Right now, I feel that both parties are going in the wrong direction."

In such a politically polarized country, the Texas-22 race could have national implications. Hinojosa said the Democrats had a real chance of picking up that seat in the district if KP George, Rogers’ main Democratic opponent, won the primary. County party officials even took the unusual step of endorsing George for the primary, to keep Rogers from winning again. (“If I can figure out what that silver bullet is to make sure that she is not on my slate after May, then I’ll definitely do that,” the local party chairman told The New York Times.)

But Rogers eked out the narrowest of victories, besting George by just 103 votes.

"That's sad, because the Democrats could have used that because it would have helped the Democrats take control of Congress," Hinojosa said. "If we had that seat we were going to have it back."

In 2010, Rogers was summarily crushed in the general election by Pete Olson, who is her Republican opponent this time around, too. Because the Democrats have essentially given up on that seat, Hinojosa said, they didn't have any polling on how the current Rogers-Olson rematch was going.

"Given her extreme positions, she shouldn't have any of the resources that the Democratic party has available," Hinojosa said. "The moment that this woman won the primary we just kind of walked away from that race."

He wouldn't rule out the possibility that Republicans somehow played a role in Rogers' primary win.

"I'm not sure, but I would not be surprised," he said. "I would not be surprised if they had a hand in getting her elected since they strategically knew that they had their best chance to win that [seat]."

There’s some recent precedent for this suspicion: In 2010, Alvin Greene, an unemployed South Carolina man who did no campaigning and spent little money somehow managed to win the Democratic nomination for Senate there. Many people assumed that there were some electoral shenanigans involved -- Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.) called Greene a "Republican plant" and asked for an investigation -- but no wrongdoing was ever proven.

Rogers said she wasn't worried about not being invited to the party's national convention. "I have no reason to be in Charlotte when the American people are suffering and they need leadership," she said.

"Right now my concern is for the prospects of the nation surviving," she said. "If Obama commits thermonuclear war, I won't have to worry about November and neither will you."

Amelia Boynton Robinson, 101-Year-Old Voting Rights Activist, Attends The Democratic Convention

2012-09-06T23:20:00-04:00

CHARLOTTE, N.C. -- On Thursday afternoon, an old lady in a wheelchair and her caregiver waited near the exit of the convention center here, delayed from their next stop by one of the week's intermittent downpours.

The woman in the wheelchair was Amelia Boynton Robinson. Five decades ago, she offered up her home in Selma, Ala., to civil rights activists for use as a base of operations in their voting rights efforts. The Selma-to-Montgomery marches were planned there, and they would have seismic implications for the American political landscape.

"We were working to get the right to vote," Robinson, who is 101 years old, said slowly. In 1965, as she and other protesters tried to cross the Edmund Pettus Bridge during a voting rights demonstration, they were brutally clubbed with nightsticks and tear-gassed by state troopers.

"I was the one that was left for dead, if you saw the picture of the person who was lying down," she said. That photo of Robinson, laying unconscious and bloodied in a man's arms, appeared in publications across the country, and that march became widely known as "Bloody Sunday."

The outrage over the violence put political pressure on the federal government to intervene and protect the voting rights of African-Americans. Just a few months after Bloody Sunday, Lyndon Johnson signed the Voting Rights Act into law.

On Thursday, the Democratic National Committee organized a voting rights panel earlier in the day, just a floor up from where Robinson was waiting out the weather. During the panel, Arlene Holt Baker, the executive vice president of the AFL-CIO, told a story about life before the Voting Rights Act. "I remember asking my mother … 'mother, I need a pair of shoes,'" Baker said. "Poor domestic worker. Made less than four dollars a day. She said 'baby, I can't buy this -- I 've got to pay my poll tax.' 1965 changed that for my mother. And I think for me and for so many of us, we're not going back. we can't go back."

For voting rights advocates, there's a straight line between poll taxes and voter ID laws. Before the Voting Rights Act, states and towns would require onerous poll taxes (or literacy tests with shifting rules for passing) to cast a ballot. Those practices were legal, but their real purpose was to make it so hard to vote that black people would be discouraged from trying.

Since 2011, 11 states have passed laws requiring voters to present government-issued ID before they can cast their ballots. Supporters of the laws say they are necessary to prevent people from pretending to be people they aren't when they vote. The states that have signed those laws all had Republican governors and Republican-controlled legislatures.

But people looking for in-person voter fraud haven't really found any. And the groups of people who are least likely to have government IDs would thus be barred from voting -- blacks, Latinos, young people and the poor -- are groups that tend to cast their ballots for Democrats. Keeping enough people from those groups from voting, advocates argue, could swing a key state and possibly the presidential election.

"My grandma who is 96 lived long enough to see the end of one poll tax and the [beginning] of another," Ben Jealous, the head of the NAACP said at the panel. "She said quite plainly, 'the only thing you can do when there's a new poll tax is pay it. And that's the only way you can get rid of the fools who put it in place in the first place."

Robinson had lived through those dangerous marches and the civil rights movement to see the election of the nation's first black president -- an election victory fueled by record turnout among black voters. She said she had never met Obama, but said he mentioned her in a speech during a Birmingham stop during his first presidential campaign.

For Robinson, everything had come full circle. "I wasn't surprised," she said. "Because it was coming. The way we were treated, it was coming."

She was tired from talking and asked to be left alone to rest. Her caregiver pushed her wheelchair over to a wall. They waited some more. The storm still hadn't passed.

Michelle Obama's DNC Message To Democrats Of Color: Roll Up Your Sleeves

2012-09-05T16:41:55-04:00

Charlotte, N.C. -- Fresh off her barn-burner convention speech Tuesday night, First Lady Michelle Obama made an appeal Wednesday to the varied constituent groups that make up the Democratic base, urging them to join get out the vote efforts.

"We're going to have to roll up our sleeves!" Obama said, to amens from African-American delegates at the Charlotte Convention Center. "Roll 'em up! Get it done! Sixty-two days is nothing!"

The first lady touched on themes of economic empowerment and opportunity, and like President Obama and Vice President Biden, cast the 2012 election as a contrast between wildly different visions for the country's future.

"The thing I want to emphasize, and make no mistake about it, is that this election is about even more than the issues at stake right now," she said. "Because this election, more than any other in history, is about how we want our democracy to function for decades to come."

"We need to step back and ask ourselves: Do we want to get a few individuals a far bigger say in our democracy than anyone else?" she continued. "Do we want our elections about who buys the most ads on TV?"

After shaking hands and snapping photos with people who attended the black caucus gathering, Obama went to the next ballroom to deliver a similar stump speech, echoing the same themes of economic opportunity and democratic participation to a Hispanic caucus session.

"My husband has been working hard to build a ladder to the middle class," she said, "so that we can all go as far as our talents and our hard work can take us."

When she pivoted to get-out-the-vote efforts, members of the audience interjected their own ideas.

"We're going to turn Ohio blue," said one man on the far right side of the room.

"Make it blue," Obama responded, raising a clenched fist just above the podium.

The enthusiasm among Wednesday morning's audiences countered a series of polls that have found Latino voters overwhelmingly inclined to back President Obama in November but with far less enthusiasm than they had in 2008. Enthusiasm is viewed by political analysts as a measure of the likelihood that a voter will actually show up and vote on Election Day.

Michelle Obama has enjoyed consistently high approval ratings throughout her husband's presidency. A Gallup poll from May put her approval at 66 percent, considerably higher than her husband's approval rating of 45 percent, according to Rasmussen Reports. Those strong numbers, political analysts say, could help her make the case to swing voters that President Obama cannot.

And turnout will be the key to an election victory, Michelle Obama told the Hispanic Caucus.

In 2008, the Obama campaign carried North Carolina by 14,000 votes. That figure amounts to just five votes in each of the state's precincts, she said.

North Carolina ranked among the long-red states that the Obama campaign claimed in 2008. This year, the state's Latinos for Obama operation has registered more Latino voters in North Carolina than any other state, campaign officials told The Huffington Post Tuesday, although they could not provide specific numbers.

An Urban League report from June found that if African-American turnout fell below its historic 2008 numbers, President Obama would face a struggle to win the Tarheel State in November.

North Carolina has seen the number of registered Latino voters double over the last four years, likely cementing North Carolina's status as a swing state, according to a study released in May by the Institute for Southern Studies.

In May, North Carolina's voter rolls included 91,554 Latino voters. That's more than twice the 44,719 Latino voters registered in the state in May 2008.

Carlos Casallas, the coordinator of special projects for the North Carolina state election board, told Spanish-language wire service Agencia Efe at the time, "This is a significant achievement that is due to several factors: Hispanics from other states are moving to the area and registering to vote, registration campaigns in the community, naturalizations of resident immigrants and 18-year-old youths are more excited about participating in the electoral process."

Michael Steele: Voter ID Rhetoric Is 'Irresponsible,' Party Needs New Approach To Black Voters

2012-08-31T17:01:43-04:00

TAMPA, Fla. -- As the Republican National Convention drew to a close, Michael Steele, the party's former chair, said that his party needed to do a better job of outreach to communities of color, and that the rhetoric around voter ID laws was a detriment to those efforts.

The party offered plum prime-time speaking spots to people of color, including two well-received speeches from former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and New Mexico Gov. Susana Martinez. But Steele said that he was disappointed at the contrast between the podium and the delegates in attendance.

"There were a lot of people of color on the stage, but my problem is that there weren't any on the floor," Steele told The Huffington Post on Thursday. "That's where the rubber hits the road."

Only 47 of the 2,286 delegates at this year's convention, or 2 percent, were African American, according to a report from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies. That number is up from the party's 38 black delegates in 2008 (1.6 percent), but way down from the 85 and 167 who attended the convention in 2000 and 2004, respectively.

"The proof is in the numbers," Steele said.

Steele said that when he took over the Republican National Committee's helm in 2009, he tasked the organization with seeking out and grooming people of color to become delegates, local party officials and candidates for office. He said that since he left the chairmanship in 2011, he has flirted with the idea of starting a super PAC to train and support minority and women candidates, but has wanted to be sure that a party structure would support that goal. "You want to make sure you have more than Mia Love in a cycle," he said, referring to the Haitian-American congressional hopeful from Utah who spoke at the convention Tuesday night. "We were lucky to have a Tim Scott and Allen West."

"I hate this thing when you have one [person of color], and everybody just fixates on one -- and the goal is to create many," said Steele.

Diversifying the GOP isn't just good PR: it may be necessary for the party's national viability. The Republican base has gotten whiter and whiter, but whites are shrinking as a percentage of the overall electorate, which could spell trouble for Mitt Romney in November. The Republican nominee is doing so poorly with non-whites -- a recent poll even put his share of the black vote at 0 percent -- that, as reported in the National Journal, he will probably need to win three of every five white voters in order to win the White House. ("This is the last time anyone will try to do this," a Republican strategist told the Journal, of trying to win the presidency with a primarily white coalition.)

Steele also called the GOP's approach to voter ID laws "one of bad optics and bad messaging," which contributes to a sense among minorities that Republicans are antagonizing them, and consequently harms the GOP's outreach efforts.

"The way we have talked about it and the way we have, in some cases, bragged about it has been tone-deaf and irresponsible," Steele said, referring to comments like those of Mike Turzai, a Republican lawmaker in Pennsylvania who said that the state's voter ID law would help Mitt Romney carry the state in November. "Elections mean things, especially to the people who take the time to exercise their rights under the Constitution. When that's undermined by frivolous laws or harmful laws, I think that's harmful to the system."

Backers of the laws -- and the 11 states that have passed voter ID legislation since 2011 have all had Republican governors and legislatures -- say they are necessary to prevent in-person voting fraud, despite almost no evidence that it happens. But blacks, Latinos, young people and the poor are among the least likely groups to have government-issued identification but, significantly, are groups that are reliably Democratic voters. Voting rights groups have argued that the new laws amount to voter suppression.

Steele said that the security of the ballot is important, but listed several ways in which that end could be achieved without making voting more difficult. States should pay for the voter IDs, people should be able to get valid voter IDs at libraries, and places that traditionally distribute IDs, like the local DMV, should extend their hours "to allow that young mother, or someone who is working, to pick up their kids ... and then go on to vote," he said.

"We should make sure that if we're going to execute voter ID laws in this country, that we keep in mind the poor and we keep in mind those who [have obstacles to getting an ID]," he said, adding that having parents who vote can help children appreciate the electoral process.

"Those are the three answers that can help us, once we stop the insensitive and offensive language on this subject, so that we can get to actually doing the things that will encourage people to vote and participate," Steele said.

Steele also said the party should not try to reach out to black voters on social issues, even when they agree, as many blacks who share those views still vote overwhelmingly for Democrats. "If you're gonna play the culture-slash-values card, you're going to get nowhere," he warned. "That goes into a misunderstanding of the black community. A black child going hungry is not sitting there pining for a discourse on gay marriage, or hoping his belly will be filled because his mama and the Republican party are simpatico on abortion."

He also dismissed approaching black pastors "for the purposes of filling some political agenda" without committing to a more involved engagement with black communities. "And both parties do it," he said.

Instead, Steele suggested that the party should focus on economic issues and entrepreneurship. "It's saying, 'We built it, we branded it, we financed it, through a lot of blood, sweat and a whole lot of tears, and now it's time for an R.O.I.' -- and that's a return on investment," he said.

"I believe in pulling yourself up by your bootstraps," he said, adding, "and recognizing, like Thurgood Marshall said, that sometimes that you need people to help you do that."

Gene Demby covers politics for Huffington Post BlackVoices. Follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

La cameraman noire à qui un républicain a jeté des cacahuètes réagit

2012-08-30T23:30:41-04:00

La caméraman de CNN qui fut bombardée de cacahuètes par des participants de la convention nationale républicaine a déclaré qu'elle trouvait l'incident démoralisant et qu'il devrait servir à réveiller les afro-américains.

"J'ai détesté ce qui est arrivé, mais cela ne m'a pas surprise," a expliqué Patricia Caroll à Journal-isms. "C'est la Floride, et je viens du Sud profond. Quand vous arrivez dans des endroits comme ça, vous pouvez compter sur les doigts de la main les afro-américains. Ils nous voient faire des choses dont ils pensent que nous ne devrions pas les faire."

Mardi, deux participants ont été exclus de l'assemblée, après avoir jeté des cacahuètes à Caroll, tout en lui disant "C'est comme ça qu'on nourrit les animaux."

Les organisateurs de la convention ont condamné l'incident: "Deux participants ont eu ce soir un comportement déplorable. Leur conduite est inexcusable et inacceptable. Ce genre de comportement ne peut être toléré."

L'incident a été rendu public par David Shuster de Current TV dans un tweet mardi soir.

GOP attendee ejected for throwing nuts at African American CNN camera woman + saying "This is how we feed animals." @takeactionnews #TAN
— David Shuster (@DavidShuster) August 29, 2012

"Je ne peux pas changer le coeur de ces gens" a poursuivi Caroll. "Non, cela ne fait pas du bien. Mais je sais qui je suis : une femme noire et fière de l'être. Beaucoup d'afro-américains sont en colère. Cela devrait être un appel à leur réveil.(...) Les gens ont vécu un temps dans une certaine euphorie. Ils pensent que nous avons été plus loin que nous ne le sommes en réalité."

Elle-même a remarqué qu'il y avait peu de femmes noires à la convention. L'aspect "caucasien" du public de la convention nationale républicaine a été relevé par de nombreux commentateurs et a engendré le tweet humoristique hashtag#negrospotting.

Michael Steele, le précédent chef du Comité national républicain a confié mardi au Huffington Post qu'en 2008, il n'y avait que 36 délégués afro-américains sur 2000 participants et que le parti devait faire un effort pour accueillir les gens de couleur.

"Les chiffres le prouvent" a déclaré Steele.

Correction : une version précédente de cet article avait identifié David Shuster comme présentateur sur CNN alors qu’il est présentateur pour Current TV.
Gene Demby couvre la politique pour le Huffington Post BlackVoices. Vous pouvez le suivre sur Facebook et Twitter.

CNN Camerawoman: Peanut-Throwing Incident At Republican Convention A 'Wake-Up Call'

2012-08-30T13:42:02-04:00

The CNN camerawoman who was pelted with peanuts by attendees at the Republican National Convention said that the incident was disheartening, and that it should serve as a wake-up call to black people.

"I hate that it happened, but I'm not surprised at all," Patricia Carroll said to Journal-isms. "This is Florida, and I'm from the Deep South. You come to places like this, you can count the black people on your hand. They see us doing things they don't think I should do."

On Tuesday, two attendees were removed from the arena after they threw peanuts at Carroll, while saying to her, "This is how we feed the animals."

The convention's organizers condemned the incident, saying, "Two attendees tonight exhibited deplorable behavior. Their conduct was inexcusable and unacceptable. This kind of behavior will not be tolerated."

The incident was first made public by Current TV's David Shuster in a tweet Tuesday night.

GOP attendee ejected for throwing nuts at African American CNN camera woman + saying "This is how we feed animals." @takeactionnews #TAN
— David Shuster (@DavidShuster) August 29, 2012

Carroll went on:

"I can't change these people's hearts and minds," Carroll added. "No, it doesn't feel good. But I know who I am. I'm a proud black woman. A lot of black people are upset. This should be a wake-up call to black people. ... People were living in euphoria for a while. People think we're gone further than we have."

She noted that there weren't many black women at the convention. The whiteness of the Republican convention has been noted by many commentators, and has spawned the facetious Twitter hashtag #negrospotting.

Michael Steele, the former chair of the Republican National Committee, told The Huffington Post on Thursday that in 2008, there were only 36 black delegates of the 2,000 in attendance, and that the GOP needed to do a better job of welcoming people of color.

"The proof is in the numbers," Steele said.

Correction: A previous version of this story identified David Shuster as an anchor for CNN. Shuster is an anchor for Current TV.

Gene Demby covers politics for Huffington Post BlackVoices. You can follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

At The Republican National Convention, Many Black Faces On The Stage, But Few On The Floor

2012-08-30T10:40:15-04:00

TAMPA, Fla. -- One hundred forty-three -- That's the tally of black people that comedian and author Baratunde Thurston said he'd counted at the Republican National Convention as of Wednesday afternoon, since landing here earlier this week. Many of them weren't delegates or attendees, but Thurston counted them anyway.

He was pretty sure two besuited men were Republican officials or party members, but it turned out they were state law enforcement. Still, Thurston said visitors kept asking them to carry their bags.

"So they learned to stop standing by the entrance," he said. "We had a good laugh about that."

Thurston created a Twitter hashtag called #negrospotting, and he tweeted every time he saw a black person. (This reporter was No. 132.)

Then the facetious hashtag landed on the radar of Michelle Malkin, a conservative radio host and blogger.

SHAME SHAME SHAME on all you racist progs playing the #negrospotting game. Dear God, you people are sick. #gop2012 #rnc2012
— Michelle Malkin (@michellemalkin) August 28, 2012

"And that opened the floodgates," he said. Thurston was promptly inundated with complaints from right-leaning Twitter users who echoed Malkin's sentiments.

"It started as something sort of flippant, it was a funny phrase," Thurston said. "But then it was like, 'Let's see what the number can get to.' This party clearly has some trouble attracting minority voters and especially black voters. Not just Romney support, but the GOP membership."

Although several black politicians have had prominent speaking gigs at the convention already -- former Rep. Artur Davis and Mayor Mia Love of Saratoga Springs, Utah, on Tuesday, and former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Wednesday -- it's a sharp contrast to the makeup of the actual convention floor. David Bositis, a researcher at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, found that only 2 percent of the convention delegates were black, according to the Washington Post.

Ashley Bell, a tall, amiable young attorney from Georgia, was one of them. (A former Democrat -- he even spoke at the 2004 Democratic Convention -- Bell switched parties after President Barack Obama's health care law passed with a mandate requiring that people buy health insurance.) Bell said that part of the reason there were so few visible blacks on the convention floor was because of how delegates are allocated.

"This is something I would like to see adjusted, but when the party rules ... switched to reward states that were more Republican with more delegates, that made it probably harder for more minorities," Bell said. "So a state that may not have a lot of population, but is really red, is going to have more delegates. So I think it's more of a rule issue than anything else."

Bell also pointed to the considerable cost of attending a convention. "The people on the floor are longtime party loyalists and people who worked hard for the Republican Party, and I don't think they reflect what the party totally looks like," he said. "And then on top of it, it's expensive to be a delegate for either party." That cost, Bell said, weeds out many party members.

A recent poll found that Mitt Romney has captured 0 percent of the black vote. But that number isn't completely surprising. When former President George W. Bush received more than 11 percent of the black vote in 2004, it was a high-water mark for the modern Republican Party. Democrats regularly pull in 90 percent or more of black voters in presidential races, in part because of a perception of Republican antipathy toward blacks. (Incidents like the ugly exchange on Tuesday night in which two convention-goers were removed from the arena after throwing peanuts at a black CNN camerawoman and yelling "this is how we feed animals" certainly haven't helped. The party denounced the actions, calling them "deplorable.")

And Republicans are more likely to harbor negative feelings about blacks. A survey released Wednesday asked respondents what they thought was the main reason blacks voted for Democrats. People who identified as Republican were more than twice as likely as those who identified as independents to say that blacks supported Democrats because they were government dependents, "want something for nothing" or were on welfare. (The most common response among Republicans, Democrats and independents was "don't know.")

But as white voters continue to become an ever-smaller piece of the electoral pie, the Republican party faces some serious demographic challenges. Because Romney's support is so white, he has little margin of error in his quest to capture the presidency, and must overperform among white voters because so relatively few non-whites are likely to vote for him.

Thurston suggested that this was why Republicans had backed voter ID laws, which could prove to be big barriers to the ballot for blacks and Latinos, who are less likely to have government IDs. "So you suppress X and enhance Y without trying to look like an a**hole," he said.

Davis, the former Obama surrogate who is now a Republican, has said that Republicans can't simply make pitches to socially conservative blacks and think that will be enough to win them over: Many blacks hold socially conservative views and still cast ballots for Democrats.

"I think Republicans can compete in a changing demographic environment," he told The Huffington Post. "It will take two things: a seriousness about using conservative values to close some of the gaps that exist in society and an understanding that conservatism cannot just be a defense of economic liberty. It must engage ways to promote upward mobility and opportunity for the middle class and the poor."

But that might be slow going. Thurston's #negrospotting total as of Wednesday night: 149.

Yes, this is a black woman at #GOP2012. Yes, she's wearing a Todd Akin sticker. Yes, she knows it. #negrospotting twitter.com/baratunde/stat…
— Baratunde (@baratunde) August 29, 2012

Gene Demby covers politics for Huffington Post BlackVoices. You can follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

Black Democrats Tout Obama Initiatives, Blast Mitt Romney And Artur Davis As Republican Convention Gets Underway

2012-08-28T18:47:14-04:00

As Republicans took to the floor Tuesday to nominate Mitt Romney at the Republican National Convention, Democrats warned that Romney's policies would hurt blacks while touting Obama administration initiatives aimed at blacks.

"All we hear from the other side is how we need to continue to provide tax cuts for the wealthy and make believe that at some point in the not-too-distant future the profits that they reap will dwindle down to the rest of us," said Rep. James Clyburn (D-S.C.). "That has not happened and that will not happen."

Clyburn criticized Romney for placing an undisclosed amount of money in offshore accounts to avoid having to pay taxes on them. "I would love to have seen Mr. Romney put his money in banks in Tampa or in Charlotte, North Carolina, so those banks can lend money to businesses," Clyburn said.

Patrick Gaspard, the executive director of the Democratic National Committee, said that two-thirds of the program cuts specified in Romney running mate Rep. Paul Ryan's budget were aimed at programs that help low-income earners.

Both Clyburn and Gaspard zinged Artur Davis, the former congressman and Obama surrogate who defected to the Republican Party. Davis broke with the party to vote against Obama's health care law; he was the only member of the Congressional Black Caucus to do so. Davis also is set to speak at the Republican National Convention tonight.

"The 5 percent of the time he did not vote with the president and with Democrats were just ill-advised," Clyburn said, referencing Davis' "no" votes on the Affordable Care Act and the federal government's bailout of the automobile industry.

Davis, who nominated Obama at the 2008 Democratic convention, was simply courting attention, said Gaspard. "This speech tonight by Artur Davis is about Artur Davis," Gaspard said.

Clyburn also said that some recent attacks on Obama were codewords meant to appeal to racial anxieties. "You call it a dogwhistle, I call it a dogbite," he said, referencing Romney's assertion that Obama changed rules allowing welfare recipients not to vote. (The claim is not accurate.)

"This goes back to Reagan's 'welfare queen' [statements] … those kinds of things I'd hoped were behind us," he said.

Gene Demby covers politics for Huffington Post BlackVoices. You can follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

Mia Love, Poised For GOP Convention Speech, Campaigns In Utah To Be First Black Republican Woman In Congress

2012-08-28T12:25:20-04:00

John McCain has stumped for her. Paul Ryan has held fundraisers on her behalf. She's been coached on public speaking by a member of Mitt Romney's team.

When Mia Love addresses the Republican National Convention on Tuesday afternoon, it will be the coming-out party for the mayor of Saratoga Springs, Utah, one of the fastest-growing cities in the country. Love, a Mormon, is running for the congressional seat in Utah's 4th District, and is aiming to defeat Jim Matheson, the popular Democratic incumbent. If she wins, she'll be the first black woman the GOP has ever sent to Congress.

Polls have shown her trailing Matheson by a sizable margin for some time, but her speech Tuesday could put her on the radars of donors across the country, whose dollars might enable her to tighten the race.

"I can win those votes: the independents, the moderates, the women voters, the people who've kept Jim Matheson in office for a dozen years through six elections," she said at Utah's Republican nominating convention in April. She said she would counter the notion that "if you're poor, if you're an immigrant, if you're of a different color or female, the deck is stacked, you don't have a chance and the Republicans are the enemy." (Love's campaign declined to be interviewed for this article.)

But despite her claims about her appeal to centrists and the undecided, Love's politics are in line with conservative Republican orthodoxy. She is anti-abortion, favors lower taxes and a repeal of President Barack Obama's health care law, and also wants to close the Departments of Energy, Education and Environmental Protection. She's also a darling of Tea Party groups.

"[Democrats] believe that federal government should educate our children, control our lands, regulate each business and provide our health care by force," Love said to Utah Republicans in the same speech.

LaVar Webb, a Republican strategist from Utah, told Reuters that Love's election could change perceptions about the Beehive State. "They wouldn't discuss this publicly, but the fact that a black woman could be elected in Utah I think would signal that (the state) is more diverse and open-minded and cosmopolitan than people believe," he said.

But Utah isn't that diverse, ideologically or racially: It's both both ruby red and lily white. Matheson, her opponent, is the only Democrat in the state's congressional delegation. And he's not exactly that far to the left himself, having voted against the Affordable Care Act, opposing abortion and is a member of the Blue Dog Coalition, a caucus of conservative Democrats.

According to the 2010 census, the Beehive State was around 2.5 percent black and more than 84 percent white. Those numbers are even more pronounced in Saratoga Springs, which is nearly 93 percent white and whose black population, which was never substantial, has shrunk even more as the city's population has exploded. About half of 1 percent of the town's population is African American. At home, at least, there just aren't that many black folks or moderates whom Love can court for votes.

The GOP is spotlighting black Republicans in speaking roles at this year's national convention even as the party's share of the black vote has continued to shrink. After making slow inroads among black voters in national elections -- President George W. Bush appealed to socially conservative African Americans and managed to get double-digit support among that demographic in 2004 -- Republicans nabbed less than 5 percent of the black vote nationally in 2008. But a recent poll found that Mitt Romney was pulling in 0 percent of the black vote. (The poll had a margin of error of 3 percent.)

Love has also been vocal in her disdain for black lawmakers in Congress. Earlier this year, she told the Deseret News that she would join the Congressional Black Caucus if she were elected, and then "take that thing apart from the inside out."

She's said that CBC lawmakers "profit from promoting an unsustainable entitlement system rife with failed poverty programs that perpetuates the culture of government dependency and discourages self-reliance among black Americans," and said that black voters need to know that their representatives "want to keep them on the 'government plantation.'"

Some black conservatives are heartened by Love's growing fame. Demetrius Minor, a political commentator and a member of Project21, a network of black conservatives, said Love is an icon among black conservatives. "The media, they kind of think being a black conservative ... you don't exist," Minor said. "She just so happens to represent an area that is predominantly white, but I think they like her character, and that transcends the color of her skin."

Gene Demby covers politics for Huffington Post BlackVoices. You can follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

Artur Davis, From Alabama Democrat To Republican National Convention Speaker

2012-08-27T15:03:01-04:00

Artur Davis took the stage at the 2008 Democratic National Convention in Denver to second the nomination of Sen. Barack Obama as the Democratic nominee for president.

The congressman from Alabama was the co-chair of Obama's campaign, and he had attended Harvard Law School with the senator from Illinois. Davis' name was regularly tossed around during that fizzy period, when political watchers unironically trumpeted a supposed new school of "postracial" black politicians -- young problem-solvers and dealmakers who didn't come up through entrenched black political machines or power bases and could win over white voters.

Just four years later, when many Democrats talk about Davis, they ask the same question, with a mix of befuddlement and exasperation: What happened to that guy?

Davis is set to speak at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., and the moment stands to be the culmination of his apostasy.

"I have been encouraged by the welcome reception I have received from Republicans, from national officials to old congressional colleagues to the Virginia Republican Party," Davis told The Huffington Post. "What has been a pleasant surprise is the volume of supportive email from rank-and-file Republicans that follow television appearances or attacks from Democrats."

Davis says the words "race" and "African American" will not appear in his convention speech.

"While my leaving the party has gotten attention for predictable reasons -- a former Obama supporter, African-American elected official and all that -- the reality is that according to Gallup, 9 percent of Obama supporters do not plan to vote for Barack Obama," Davis told The Huffington Post's Jon Ward. "He got 70 million votes. That translates, even by my math, into 6.3 million people."

Behind the scenes, Democratic officials say that Davis' switch was an attempt to stay in the spotlight, and last week, the Democratic National Committee released an ad to that effect. The spot used Davis' words against him, turning his previous pro-Obama convention address about the promise of an Obama presidency into an itemized list of Obama's White House accomplishments. "Artur Davis' speech at the GOP convention isn't about Barack Obama ... It's about Artur Davis," the ad concluded.

Davis brushed aside the spot. "My old Democratic friends are reminding me of an old rule: In politics, if you fear someone is getting through and people are listening, attack them as fast as you can," he said. "I do wish they had not reminded me that I have gained weight in four years."

It's been a wild ride to this point. When Davis first won the House seat that represents Birmingham, Ala., in 2002, it was a shock to the local Democratic order. After a bruising primary, he'd managed to unseat Earl Hilliard, the first black congressman the Yellowhammer State had sent to Washington since Reconstruction and a politician many people thought was unbeatable. Hilliard's strategy, in part, rested on portraying Davis as not black enough, a tactic used against Barack Obama in Chicago, Mayor Cory Booker (D) in Newark and former Rep. Harold Ford (D) in Tennessee. Davis, then 34, countered by stitching together an unconventional coalition of disaffected black voters in his district and donors from the coasts. He portrayed the old guard, which grew out of the civil rights movement, as out of touch and, nationally, appealed to Jewish voters upset by Hilliard's critiques of Israel.

But Davis was never really all that liberal. Once he landed in Congress, he voted for the Federal Marriage Amendment that would have banned same-sex marriage. He voted to allow drilling for oil and gas in Alaska's National Wildlife Refuge. And most notably, or notoriously, depending on whom you ask, Davis broke party ranks with the rest of the Congressional Black Caucus to vote against President Obama's signature health care law, criticizing it as too expensive and unwieldy. Jesse Jackson said at the time, "You can't vote against health care and call yourself a black man."

Those stances, and the distancing from Alabama's black political power structure, were seen as an attempt by Davis to bolster his conservative credentials and his independence from Obama in deeply red Alabama, with an eye on the state's governorship.

The political repercussions were resounding and total. Though polls had Davis up by 30 points in the Democratic gubernatorial primary, he ended up being throttled by Ron Sparks, who was white, even among black voters. Sparks beat Davis by 70 percent in some black Alabama counties.

"You have to understand. I love Artur like a son," U.W. Clemon, the state's first black federal judge, told the Birmingham News at the time. "I've never personally known a politician with more intelligence, more gifts than Artur, with the exception of President Obama."

"But, I also have to say that I've never been more disappointed in a person in my life," Clemon said about Davis' no vote on the health care law. "Artur walked away from the people who needed him the most, and he walked away from himself."

Even though Davis' star may have dimmed in some eyes, his appearance at the Republican convention is not without its political benefits. It needles the other side -- think Sen. Joseph Lieberman (I-Conn.), just eight years removed from his nomination as the Democratic Party's vice presidential nominee, stumping for John McCain in 2008. But there's also the signal Davis' speech sends, with one of the president's most high-profile black supporters defecting and criticizing him so publicly.

"I don't spend time worrying about people who base their personal loyalties on politics or who view support for Mitt Romney as some act of racial disloyalty," Davis said Sunday.

He's gestured toward another possible congressional run in Virginia, although he demurred when asked if his plans had become more concrete. And he said that despite anemic support from voters of color, Republicans still have a case to make to those communities. "It will take two things: a seriousness about using conservative values to close some of the gaps that exist in society, and an understanding that conservatism cannot just be a defense of economic liberty, it must engage ways to promote upward mobility and opportunity for the middle class and the poor."

Since his switch, Davis has been a vocal proponent of voter ID laws, which he maintains are necessary for preventing voter fraud. But voting fraud is virtually nonexistent, and voting rights groups have warned that such laws will keep many blacks, Latinos and young people from voting, since those groups are less likely to have government-issued ID. Significantly, those groups are also much more likely to vote for Democrats.

Davis was defiant when asked if he faced any personal fallout by switching sides.

"More amusing are the individuals who were political antagonists who dress themselves up as former friends to get their name in the paper," Davis said. "I also appreciate the many Democrats who tell me privately that they are embarrassed by the party's attacks and sense a personal bitterness in the attackers."

Gene Demby covers politics for Huffington Post BlackVoices. You can follow him on Facebook and Twitter.

GOP Attorneys General Target Voting Rights Act, Ask Supreme Court To Strike Down Key Section

2012-08-24T17:00:00-04:00

Several Republican state attorneys general called a key provision of the Voting Rights Act unconstitutional and asked the Supreme Court to strike it down.

The officials from Alabama, Arizona, Georgia, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas submitted a brief in a closely watched case arguing that the law oversteps federal authority and places an unfair burden on certain states.

The case at issue involves a plan to reshape a district in Shelby County, Ala., a largely white suburb of Birmingham. The new district maps led to the sole black council member in one of the county's towns losing his seat. But the Justice Department blocked the certification of the voting results, and the town eventually redrew its districts. The black council member later re-won his seat.

Under Section 5 of the Voting Rights Act, certain states and jurisdictions with a history of disenfranchising voters must seek federal approval, called preclearance, before they can change their voting rules. The law was considered one of the great achievements of the civil rights movement, as it blocked states and towns from using tactics like poll taxes and literacy tests that were meant to keep blacks from voting.

But the officials contended in their brief that the areas that must submit to preclearance -- "covered jurisdictions" -- are unfairly singled out and that many of their regions have higher minority turnout than many places that don't have to get federal approval before changing their election rules.

A covered region can "bail out" of those strictures if it shows that it hasn't discriminated against voters in the preceding 10 years, has followed the preclearance rules, has ended voting practices that prevent "equal access to the electoral process," has attempted to make registering to vote easier and has fought efforts to intimidate voters.

The brief asserts that the list of states that have to get approval is "obsolete" and "not linked to current conditions" and that the law is overriding their ability to make their own rules. It also argues that bailing out is "illusory," because no states have been able to get out of the preclearance rules. Dozens of individual counties and towns, however, have been able to successfully bail out.

The National Black Chamber Of Commerce, which is officially nonpartisan but tends to support conservative causes, weighed in with a brief of its own, also calling for the rules to be struck down.

"The government officials who are partners in this effort are people of good faith, and do not deserve to be labeled and treated as presumptive discriminators," the NBCC brief read. "Federal control of elections, through the 'preclearance' process, undermines these officials’ authority and flexibility, to the ultimate detriment of their constituents – many of them minorities. Worse, Section 5 has been abused in some instances to reinforce stereotypes regarding minority voters’ preferences and affiliations, preventing voters who do not embody these stereotypes from electing their candidates of choice."

The briefs come just days before a three-judge panel is set to rule on the constitutionality of South Carolina's voter ID law in a trial set to begin on Monday. The voter ID law was blocked by the Justice Department late last year, and South Carolina is one of nine states that must get federal preclearance.

Voter ID laws have been passed in eleven states since the 2010 midterm elections, during which Republicans picked up several statehouses. Supporters of the laws, which require that voters present ID before they cast ballots at polling centers, argue that they're necessary to prevent in-person voter fraud. All of the states that have passed voter ID laws since 2011 have Republican governors and Republican-controlled statehouses.

But studies have shown that in-person voter fraud is virtually nonexistent, and a wave of critics of the laws contend that the groups most likely to be turned away at the polls for not having valid state-issued IDs -- African Americans, Latinos, the poor and young voters -- are also groups that traditionally vote Democratic.

“According to South Carolina’s own data, minority registered voters were nearly 20 percent more likely to lack a photo ID issued by the Department of Motor Vehicles than white registered voters, and thus to be effectively disfranchised by the state’s proposed requirements," said Leah Aden of the NAACP Legal Defense Fund. "Indeed, there are more than 80,000 registered minority citizens in South Carolina who lack a DMV-issued photo ID.”

The group also said that one in four African Americans and 16 percent of Latinos nationwide lack a government-issued ID.

IF YOU HAVEN'T ALREADY, DON'T FORGET TO REGISTER TO VOTE:

Artur Davis DNC Ad Slaps Former Obama Ally-Turned-Republican With His Own Words

2012-08-23T18:34:00-04:00

The Democratic National Committee has released a new video touting President Barack Obama's accomplishments and needling Artur Davis, a one-time Obama surrogate-turned-Republican, by using Davis' own words against him.

Davis, a former Democratic congressman from Alabama, was a co-chair of Obama's last presidential campaign. But earlier this year, he switched parties, and now Davis is set to speak at the Republican National Convention in Tampa, Fla., on Monday night.

In the campaign spot, Davis is seen delivering the nominating speech at the 2008 Democratic convention, outlining the ambitions of an Obama presidency. As he speaks, statements appear, a la Pop Up Video, describing how President Obama has kept various pledges.

"Artur Davis' speech at the GOP convention isn't about Barack Obama ... It's about Artur Davis," the ad concludes.

Davis took the ad in stride. "My old Democratic friends are reminding me of an old rule: In politics, if you fear someone is getting through and people are listening, attack them as fast as you can," he said. "I do wish they had not reminded me that I have gained weight in four years."

Davis broke with Obama when he voted against the president's signature health care law in 2010, the only member of the Congressional Black Caucus who did so. At the time, he was running, unsuccessfully, for governor of Alabama.

He has also written columns advocating for voter ID laws to prevent voter fraud, which studies show barely exists. Voting rights advocates say such laws serve to disenfranchise people of color and the poor, who may lack the needed ID. And earlier this year, Davis said he was mulling a run for Congress as a Republican in Virginia.

New Black Panther Party Leader Says Blacks Are Under Siege In Tampa Before Republican Convention

2012-08-22T12:37:50-04:00

The New Black Panther Party, a black nationalist fringe group, is claiming that Tampa is "under siege" by white people, Republicans and Tea Partiers.

In a rant on Black Power Radio, Michelle Williams, the group's chief of staff, said that the Republican National Convention, which is being held in the city next week, had been put on curfew by the city. "In the city of Tampa, we are under siege by the Republican National Convention, headers of this collective-minded group of white people, tea partiers, tea baggers, people who hate black people," she said.

"Black people have to stay in our homes," she said. "They don't want any presence of anybody who looks like me, walks like me and talks like me to be anywhere near the Republican National Convention. The Republicans hate black people."

The NBPP has no connections to the original Black Panther Party, and are considered a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center.

In recent years, the group has become a favorite villain among conservatives. In 2008, two NBPP members, including one holding a nightstick, stood outside a Philadelphia polling station in a largely black neighborhood and yelled at people arriving to vote. A conservative activist shot video of their activity, which resulted in right-leaning radio hosts and activists calling for an investigation. Federal authorities filed a lawsuit against the group, asserting that they were intimidating voters. But after looking into the incident, the Justice Department eventually dropped the suit, largely because no one had actually complained about being intimidated.

But many conservatives said the suit was dropped for political reasons, and said that Attorney General Eric Holder's Justice Department only prosecuted whites for violations of civil rights laws.

Abigail Thenstrom, a Republican appointee to the Justice Department, pushed back on that idea, saying that the legal bar for the charges against the group was higher than any of the evidence against it, waving off the group and its tactics as "small potatoes."

Get a grip, folks. The New Black Panther Party is a lunatic fringe group that is clearly into racial theater of minor importance. It may dream of a large-scale effort to suppress voting — like the Socialist Workers Party dreams of a national campaign to demonstrate its position as the vanguard of the proletariat. But the Panthers have not realized their dream even on a small scale. This case is a one-off.

Earlier this week, Republicans in Pennsylvania said the Justice Department's planned inquiry into the constitutionality of the state's new voter ID law was politically motivated, and argued that federal officials would be better served revisiting the 2008 New Black Panther Party voter intimidation case. A conservative SuperPAC called FightBigotry.com released an ad that President Obama endorsed and allowed anti-white racism, and the ad focused specifically on the NBPP voter intimidation suit.

The NBPP made waves earlier this year when it offered a $10,000 bounty for George Zimmerman, the man who shot Trayvon Martin. Williams later apologized for offering the bounty.

Mitt Romney Is Capturing Zero Percent Of The Black Vote, According To New Poll

2012-08-21T20:13:52-04:00

Take a guess as to what percentage of black voters Mitt Romney is winning this election. Now take whatever number you've got in your head and go lower.

According to a new NBC News/Wall Street Journal poll, President Obama is beating his Republican opponent among black voters by a whopping 94 percent to 0 percent. The numbers are pretty brutal for Romney among Latinos, as well: he's losing to the president almost 2 to 1. The poll has President Obama ahead among all registered voters, 48 percent to Romney's 44 percent.

The numbers aren't a complete surprise -- the Republican party has fared poorly with black voters for decades. But there was a moment in the mid-aughts when the GOP was starting to see hints of progress. Both Bob Dole and George W. Bush actively courted conservative black voters and even managed to eke into double digits. (Not a small accomplishment, considering Democrats regularly won 90-plus percent of black voters in national contests for decades.) In 2005, Ken Mehlman, who was then running the Republican National Committee, even apologized to black leaders for the party's use of racially divisive tactics, in a gesture that suggested that Republicans were making a serious play to slice off bits of the black electorate.

But Barack Obama's campaign in the 2008 upended even those meager gains. Obama won 96 percent of the black vote in an election that also saw unprecedented African American turnout.

Mitt Romney addressed the NAACP in July to make his pitch to African Americans. "With 90 percent of African Americans voting for Democrats, some of you may wonder why a Republican would bother to campaign in the African-American community, and to address the NAACP," Romney said to the audience. "Of course, one reason is that I hope to represent all Americans, of every race, creed or sexual orientation, from the poorest to the richest and everyone in between."

Although Romney was greeted with polite applause, he did manage to ruffle some feathers during his address. He was jeered when he said he would repeal president Obama's healthcare law. "If you're looking for a president who will make things better for the African-American community, you're looking at him," Romney said to boos and snickering. One NAACP official claimed that Romney flew in black supporters to applaud him.

On the other side of the ledger, the poll shows the president pulling in around 40 percent of white voters, which would be a historic low for a winning candidate if he's re-elected in November. (No Democrat has won the white vote since 1964, the year President Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act into law.) A report released in July found that President Obama would need to improve upon his record 2008 showing with black voters or he would struggle mightily in several key states that remain up for grabs.