NEWS
Thursday, March 27, 2003
If you can get through the first two lines of Daily Editor-in-chief Louie Meizlish's viewpoint today, there's not much more awaiting you. The viewpoint, titled "Republicans need to shift gears if they want more votes from blacks" begins thus:"It used to be that if you were black, you were a Republican.
The Republican Party's first convention - in 1854 in nearby Jackson - adopted a platform that was unquestionably pro-black. Its main plank, after all, was the end of slavery.
Only one question Louie: why? I am baffled. Here's a particularly good section:
"As Lansing-based GOP strategist Matthew Davis explains, Republican leaders cannot and should not follow the Trent Lott example. That's when one opposes affirmative action for years, and then, when taking heat for racially-charged comments, switches his position on affirmative action. "The Democrats didn't kick Trent Lott out of the leadership. It was Republicans," said Davis, who is half black. "It wasn't because he was an embarrassment, (but) to go on Black Entertainment Television and prostitute the way he did and abandon the principles that are held by so many Republicans (by saying he supports affirmative action) - that was galling."
....
In Davis' view, Republicans should hold their ground on affirmative action, but stress other GOP policy positions that are beneficial to blacks. Among them: often-criticized crime laws that incarcerate a disproportionate number of black Americans - but which punish those who commit the most crimes against blacks.
But the problem, at least with tougher crime laws and affirmative action, is that Republicans have been talking about that stuff for years and their poll numbers have only gone down."
I wonder if it occured to Louie to talk to any black students about this article. Here's the rousing conclusion:
"But if the Republicans can ever get their act together, and sooner or later they will, Democrats are in trouble.
As Eastern Michigan University political science Prof. Jeffrey Bernstein told the Daily earlier this month: "If the Republicans could ever find a way to win 20 percent of the African-American vote, they couldn't lose."
Maybe it's just me, but the article seemed to operate from the premise voting republican is a good thing. I, on the other hand, struggle to find any good reason to vote for people whose vision of America is so downright wrong.
Posted by Rob at 3:38 PM
