GOP Presidential Herman Cain again solemnly told a pack of pesky reporters in New Hampshire recently that he was absolutely confident that in a head to head match-up against President Obama that he could snatch a third of the black vote. The notion that he can get a big chunk of the black vote for the GOP is intriguing. It's intriguing because it has a ring to it that appeals to GOP leaders who have long imagined that if they could get the right black candidate and package their message just right they could draw an appreciable number of black voters. It's a good talking point with GOP hawker Cain out there leading the pack of GOP presidential contenders in some early but meaningless straw polls. Cain, though, is hardly the first to step into fantasy land with the notion that the GOP can grab lots of black votes.
In 2010, a record number of black Republicans ran for Congress. They had the GOP salivating at the prospect of not only putting a slew of black Republicans in Congress but doing it with substantial black votes snatched from the Democrats. Then former Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell excitedly gloated that "This will be the most successful election cycle for African-American Republicans in at least 20 years." It wasn't. The two black GOP candidates that won, Tim Scott in South Carolina and Allen West in Florida registered barely a blip on the chart of black voters and won with white votes in near lockdown GOP leaning districts.
Since Cain has declared his candidacy he has not secured the endorsement of one major black business, civic, or political organization. He has not secured the endorsement of a single nationally known black political leader. That includes well-known, and well-connected, African-American Republicans, Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell. In fact, he hasn't even gotten the endorsement of Scott or West. His support has been almost exclusively from the noisy, extreme, and disjoined Tea Party acolytes.
Blacks in the past have groused at and bashed the Democrats. But they still overwhelmingly vote for them. The off-the-chart vote blacks gave President Obama is repeatedly cited even by black Republican hopefuls as an aberration in that blacks turned the election into a holy crusade to get one of their own in the White House. It's wrong on two counts. Obama was more than just the fulfillment of a civil rights dream. He had a solid program for change that frontally challenged and promise of reversing the social and economic damage, race baiting, and neglect that characterized three decades of Republican rule in the White House and the sledgehammer attacks on or malign neglect of civil rights leaders and concerns when Republicans were out of the White House.
The rock solid loyalty of blacks to the Democrats is also based on simple pragmatism. The Congressional Black Caucus is Democrats, with the sole exception of West, and so are the leaders of the mainstream civil rights organizations. Despite the shots they take at the Democrats for taking them and their vote for granted, black Democrats and civil rights leaders are still highly respected. Most blacks still look to them to fight the tough battles for healthcare, greater funding for education and jobs, voting rights protections, affirmative action, and against racial discrimination. Civil rights organizations were the only groups that consistently fought back against Reagan, Bush Sr., and W. Bush's draconian cuts in job, education, social service, funding and programs, their retrograde nominees to the Supreme Court appointments that would roll back the civil rights clock, and their peck away at affirmative action, civil rights and civil liberties protections.
The Tea Party has done absolutely nothing to dispel that suspicion. Tea Party leaders loudly protest that blacks should not lambaste them as racists based on the quackery of a few bigots and race-baiters among their ranks. The fact that those bigots and race baiters are there in the first place and with few exception Tea Party leaders have kept their mouths shut about them, let alone not drummed them out of the movement, is damning proof for blacks that their finger wag at big government, taxes and their tout of the Constitution and personal freedoms is just a cover for latent and no so latent bigotry toward one black man, President Obama.
The best assurance that black voters will not move even a fraction of an inch toward the GOP is Cain himself. His shoot-from-the-lip gaffes, jibes, and insults of blacks as "brainwashed," his shrug off of racism as irrelevant, his tout of an economic program that would blatantly increase the already gaping economic disparity between rich and poor, and his outrageous shock jock type quips and demeanor make even the most disinterested, skeptical, and hostile African-Americans toward the Democrats stay firmly planted in the Democratic column. Cain's quip that blacks will back him is the ultimate guarantee that they'll stay there.
Earl Ofari Hutchinson is an author and political analyst. He is a weekly co-host of the Al Sharpton Show on American Urban Radio Network. He is the author of How Obama Governed: The Year of Crisis and Challenge. He is an associate editor of New America Media. He is host of the weekly Hutchinson Report Newsmaker Hour on KTYM Radio Los Angeles streamed on ktym.com podcast on blogtalkradio.com and internet TV broadcast on thehutchinsonreportnews.com
Follow Earl Ofari Hutchinson on Twitter: www.twitter.com/earlhutchinson
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The republicans have done everything possible to keep the economy from improving so the President will be blamed. He has tried numerous programs to improve the economy but the republicans continue to block his bills. Cutting the deficit equals CUTTING JOBS. Most of the cuts have been to programs that affect African Americans the most. Do not be fooled.
Black poverty------is up under Obama
Black police brutality------is up under Obama
Obama has been a failure, he doesn't address black issues
Why would black people want to vote for Obama again
"The notion that he can get a big chunk of the black vote for the GOP is intriguing. It's intriguing because it has a ring to it that appeals to GOP leaders who have long imagined that if they could get the right black candidate and package their message just right they could draw an appreciable number of black voters."
To my understanding, Cain is pretty much just a puppet set up to break up the Black voting block so that Obama does not get re-elected. The mistake that the GOP is making is assuming that if they push a Black candidate with conservative views that he'll be able to pull votes just as Obama did, with the mistaken belief that the only reason Blacks voted for Obama was because he was Black.
I'm sure we'll all be amused by how well that DOESN'T play out in 2012.
The people of Uz Beki Beki Beki Stan, you imagine that they aren't working hard themselves?
The pure opposition to to President Obama and the open willingness to change previous positions on issues if he happens to support them, screams "DON'T LET THE BLACK GUY SUCCEED!!!".
You may not see it or care to acknowledge it, but President Obama has (I believe intentionally) quoted Republicans and offered plans, ideas and bills initiated by Republicans that are now opposed by some of the very same Republicans who supported them before he brought them to the floor. They've had Democratic Presidents before and when they (the GOP) were given what they asked for, they'd compromise. With this particular President, when he gives them what they ask for, they decide they don't want it anymore. There is a reason why.
And whether anyone cares to admit or not, we know the reason. It may not derive from hate - but it is what it is.
When that plan didn't work, there has been no "Plan B" to fall back on and we've had to witness the painful, spineless floundering since then.
The Republicants have opposed every single piece of legislation that Obama has proposed since day one. They want... YOU want him out... We know the Republicant jobs program is to do nothing. To keep the Bush tax cuts for the wealthy... yeah yeah that's a good idea!
Please explain how Black politics have been set back 20 years?
To have the Congress that the President has, he has performed extremely well. So, I disagree with your assessment.