How not to run for office
Mr. Arrogance
Tue Oct 24, 2006 at 07:50:02 AM PDT
When you're a winner, everyone's your best buddy. When you lose... not so much. While this particular demographic is huge, expect this to play out many more times.
A major effort to draw Latinos and blacks into the Republican Party, a central element of the GOP plan to build a long-lasting majority, is in danger of collapse amid anger over the immigration debate and claims that Republican leaders have not delivered on promises to direct more money to church-based social services. President Bush, strategist Karl Rove and other top Republicans have wooed Latino and black leaders, many of them evangelical clergy who lead large congregations, in hopes of peeling away the traditional Democratic base. But now some of the leaders who helped Bush win in 2004 are revisiting their loyalty to the Republican Party and, in some cases, abandoning it.
Why is it huge?The Latino backlash has grown so intense that one prominent, typically pro-Republican organization, the Latino Coalition, has endorsed Democrats in competitive races this year in Tennessee, Nebraska and New Jersey. The coalition is chaired by Hector Barreto, the former administrator of the Small Business Administration under Bush; its president is a former strategist for the Republican National Committee. The disaffection comes as Republicans face a challenge in building enthusiasm for the upcoming election among white evangelicals and other conservatives, who have been the core of the GOP's political base.
Taken together, the unhappiness among these groups could threaten GOP hopes of minimizing losses in the Nov. 7 congressional election and may undercut the party's goal of keeping the presidency in 2008. The Latino Coalition, for example, has endorsed the presumed Democratic presidential front-runner, Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), in her reelection bid this year.
Too many holes in the levee, not enough fingers. And if you don't fear the GOP, and they're not in power to look to for perks, why be their friend? They're certainly not yours. In some way, that happens to all losing parties, but this is special."There's a growing frustration and anger in the black religious community nationally as the Kuo book makes the rounds," Rivers said. "Meetings at the White House show you the door, but they don't necessarily open the door."
There will be this dynamic, along with the economically dissastisfied Reagan Democrats, the values-focused evangelicals, and Iraq-angered voters everywhere. There aren't enough plumbers in the country to stop up all the leaks in the good ship Lollipop, and besides, the unions are voting Dem
The immigration issue didn't gain many votes because while in theory, illegals are unpopular, but in person, people like them. Jose down the block is a nice guy with kids, so there is only so much
traction you can get with this, and then of course, it angers hispanics to no end.
With blacks, first, the candidates running are incompetent to a frightening degree. Blackwell is amazingly arrogant, Swann, a total idiot, and Steele, amazingly inept. None would ever make it in Democratic politics.
More importantly, talking to churches is a pointless strategy, because the ministers don't control the Congregation. They can take the money, but the church ladies are the center of gravity in the church. And blacks seperate religion and economics rather sharply. Just because someone goes to TD Jakes megachurch on Sunday doesn't mean she's not a Houston teacher and union member on Monday. So lining up the ministers would fail badly.
And outside attempts to reach black voters range from the insulting to the outright racist.
As America become 50 percent minority, the GOP is doomed as a whites only party, something Mehlman got and Rove didn't take as seriously as he needed to.
What did they do instead? Between Katrina, and Kanye West delivered the death blow to Bush's hopes of black support, and the immigration rallies, where Latino teenagers first formative political experience was opposing the GOP, they have ensured that another generation will not
listen to their pleas.
posted by Steve @ 11:36:00 AM
