Like most political junkies around the
country I watched the President of The United States Barack
Obama and the man who wants to take his job Republican
nominee and Former Massachusettes Governor Mitt Romney
deliver speeches to The National Association of Latino Elected and
Appointed Officials (NALEO) this past week. Both Candidates
clearly realize what an important voting block the Hispanic community
is.
The appearance was more important for
Governor Romney because polling suggest that he trails the
President by huge numbers when it comes to the Latino vote.
Romney is clearly paying the price for the position that he took in
the GOP Primaries where he wasn't just to the right of Rick Perry
and Newt Gingrich on immigration he was to the right of Lou Dobbs.
Being African-American and
watching Romney struggle to make his case with Latinos, I
wondered about how equally difficult it would be for Romney or any
other GOP nominee to make the same case to the Black Community.
Before 1968 black votes were pretty
much split evenly among the two political parties, black people liked
The New Deal policies put forth by FDR and The Dems, but hated
the fact that scumbags like Strom Thurmond and Robert Byrd hid out
within the party given their ties to the support of segregation
and The Ku Klux Klan respectively. 1968
however should be thought of in the same manner of 1865, the year
slavery was officially ended, as a watershed year for race relations
and politics in the U.S.
1968 was the year that Republican
Presidential nominee Richard Nixon emplored “The Southern
Strategy”. Nixon basically said to disaffected White
Southerners, who voted Democrat all their life, but were upset about
the recent passages of The Civil Rights Act and The Voting Rights
Act ensuring equal treatment under the law for people of color,
to vote for him because he would be the guy who would champion their
causes.
Over 40 years later The GOP finds
themselves as the party of rich middle-aged white guys in a time
where it doesn't pay to be. This puts Governor Romney in the akward
position of having to speak to NALEO and the NAACP, which he will do
next month, knowing that he will garner little support. Latinos are
further disenchanted with the Goveronor's refusal to say whether or
not he, if elected would reverse the President's executive order that
would not deport the children of undocumented individuals who happen
to be in the country. As far as the black vote is concerned, if
Romney gets more than five percent he and his supporters should pop
champaign like they are the Miami Heat.
Romney isn't the first Republican to
carry this weight, GOP God Ronald Reagan, whose name brings tears to
the eyes of any card carrying conservative, got 14% of the black vote
in his 1980 Presidential Campaign. On the surface that
is a terrible number, but considering the challenge Reagan faced
particularly with disparaging comments about welfare queens and his
less than friendly approach towards the black community during his
time as California Governor it was not a bad feat. 1980
however was a time when Reagan could overcome his problem with
minorities by relying on his support from not just wealthy white
married couples, but also white working class men.With America's ever
changing demographics Romney doesn't have that luxury.
The Reagan election in '80 was also a
peak in black support for the Republican Party in Presidential
Elections also. George H.W. Bush and Bob Dole never got close to Bill
Clinton in terms of the black vote in 1992 and 1996 respectively, and
despite lukewarm feelings for both Al Gore and John Kerry in 2000 and
2004 the best that George W. Bush could muster in terms of black
support was the 9% he got against Kerry in his re-election campaign.
At the risk of speaking in
generalizations, the thing that the GOP doesn't get is that black
people for the most part are not going to vote against their economic
interests. When the African-American community looks at the amount of
public-sector jobs that have been shedded in the last five years they
know exactly where to point their finger. The fact that people of
color, black people in particular made up a huge portion of those
employees and the fact that Paul Ryan's budget plan, which
conservatives love almost as much as they claim to love the
Constitution, is reason enough to be skeptical of the GOP's economic
plans. The first order of business for President Romney should he
occupy the Oval Office is to institute The Ryan Budget which in
effect calls for the disappearance of more public sector jobs, which
in turn would contribute to a black unemployment rate that now stands
at 13.6%
If Republicans can overcome that by
proposing policies that don't just focus on free market, government
is the boogeyman solutions, the last mountain still may be
unscaleable, the mountain is named Barack and Michelle Obama. It
cannot be underscored how huge the first family is in Black America,
they are rock stars. The Obama's will forever be looked upon like
Jackie Robinson and Martin Luther King, people who made history when
it seemed almost impossible. No matter who the Democrats nominate in
2016 Clinton, Biden, Cuomo when that individual picks up the phone
and asks the Obama's to come and stump for them the black vote will
be pretty much guaranteed.
Not only do Mitt Romney and Republicans
have 2016 to worry about when it comes to minority voters
overwhemingly going left, the prospect of this turning into a 30 year
reality should be a very sobering wake up call for The Grand Old
Party.
I want to hear from you e-mail me at ebrew79@hotmail.com.or follow me on twitter @ebrew79
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