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Sunday, September 16, 2007

White Out

posted by on September 16 at 13:22 PM

Remember how George W. Bush and Karl Rove were going to make the GOP our ruling party for decades to come by, amongst other things, embracing minority voters? Hugging black schoolchildren and reaching out to the worst instincts—excuse me, the traditional social conservatism—of Hispanics?

Well, so much for that.

Three of the four leading Republican presidential candidates turned down invitations to a PBS debate this month at a historically black college in Baltimore, leading moderator Tavis Smiley on Thursday to accuse them of ignoring minority voters.

Smiley told USA TODAY the rejections are part of a pattern, noting most GOP candidates declined invitations to address several black and Hispanic groups, including a Univision debate for a Latino audience.

Democrats need to hammer way at this.

Via Sullivan.

RSS icon Comments

1

51%.

Posted by Mr. Poe | September 16, 2007 1:41 PM
2

Well, to be fair - you can't blame a candidate for not wanting to walk into a venue where they'll face hostile questions and a booing audience - like 'W not going in front of the NAACP.

Posted by raindrop | September 16, 2007 1:50 PM
3

Well thank goodness these candidates aren't interested in convincing people they would be a good president.

If Greg Palast is to be believed they're already a couple million votes ahead for the Presidential election anyway.

The Democrats would use this to their advantage if they were interested in winning the Presidency. It doesn't seem like a high priority to them.

Posted by Don Juan Nebulon | September 16, 2007 2:10 PM
4

Perhaps, @2, but successful campaigns are not built on preaching to the converted. And you'd think that the GOP might do something here, because if they're going to give up appearing before anyone but white people in suburban/rural areas, their party will go the way of the Whigs in the next couple decades. (Which sounds great to me, of course.)

Posted by tsm | September 16, 2007 2:12 PM
5

Ya le dije al mi amigo Jorge Bush: es necesario recibir mas votos hispanos, si le gustaria ser victorioso en la luchas electorales.

En particular en los estados previamente "rojos" de Nevada, Colorado, Nuevo Mexico, y ahora Louisiana.......

Pero no, ahora parece que el partido republicano disminuira, hasta que sea un partido solamente para los blancos y solo del sur y las partes del oeste sin muchos latinos. Con el crecimiento de la poblacion hispano, los democraticos podran ganar en el oeste donde hay mas latinos, asi que en el noreste, incluso Maine Y NH, en el media oeste, y en la costa del pacifico, para crear una mayoria permanente.
Los republicanos son tontos!

Posted by Vicente Fox | September 16, 2007 2:24 PM
6

No surprise there. Remember, the GOP is moving from a national party to a regional one, and that region is the South. Fortunately, my Hispanic brethren are moving there en masse as well, and will lead the GOP to either embrace racial justice or to embrace extinction. Either one is good.

Posted by Gitai | September 16, 2007 3:41 PM
7

Republicans? Racist? No, say it aint so!

Posted by SDA in SEA | September 16, 2007 4:52 PM
8

Yeah, I don't know how many more votes Democrats can even get by loudly trumpeting Republicans' racism. Everyone already knows Republicans are racist. It's been part of their platform since the invention of the Southern Strategy and it ain't going away.

Posted by Kiru Banzai | September 16, 2007 5:28 PM
9

You've got to give Bush/Rove some credit for embracing minorities. Sure, all of their policies are actually against the interests of said minorities. But, when it comes to duping potential voters, Bush is indeed a "uniter, not a divider".

And then there's that Cabinet - Condi Rice, Colin Powell, Alberto Gonzales - all very high positions filled by minorities (unlike any previous administration of either party).

OK, that's the last even semi-complimentary thing I will say about Bush ever. Unless he resigns. Or kills himself.

Posted by Mahtli69 | September 16, 2007 5:38 PM
10

@2 says "Well, to be fair - you can't blame a candidate for not wanting to walk into a venue where they'll face hostile questions and a booing audience"

No, you can. You CAN fairly ask a candidate to have the courage and conviction and belief in their own and their party's ideas. You CAN ask a candidate to explain him- or herself to those critical of said candidate.

And if said candidate can't do this, you can FAIRLY ask "if that lazy coward is unwilling to face a critical audience of voters, how can we expect him/her to face the highly critical world that currently despises what the current president has done to the US?"

Posted by Andy Niable | September 16, 2007 7:01 PM
11

...and now all this last-minute BS about border security makes sense.

I don't understand minorities or 'mos that are Republican. I don't understand people who KNOW minorities or 'mos and are Republican.

Well, no, I do...I just don't like it. When I was in D.C. on a class trip one time in the late 90's, a Republican and a Democrat pundit came to speak to our group, which consisted of kids from L.A., Philly, and Detroit. The Detroit kids dismissed the Dem out of hand because he mentioned that he was vegetarian, and started whooping for the Republican because he said he liked guns and red meat.

Dumb fucking people, man.

Posted by Kat | September 17, 2007 4:21 AM
12

probably bush gets more hispanic votes than you think. and blacks too. really, latinos are VERY conservative, probably all they dislike about bush is his racism. which anyway is also part of the white troupe of democrat leaders.

Posted by girl in spain | September 17, 2007 7:37 AM
13

Why bother with the black/hispanic vote? In a day and age like this when the RepubliKKKans can just purge the voter roles, ask for special expensive I.D.s, limit the number of voting machines in minority neighborhoods to make the lines a headache or even flyer minority neighborhoods with posters saying things like "Violations of the voter laws are a Crime" (and then let you decide if you want to risk voting since you might not understand the current laws-du-jour)

Posted by Colton | September 17, 2007 9:19 AM
14

@9,

Na-ah. Minorities, especially African Americans, seem to have a nasty habit of not immediately forgetting when they've been fucked over, unlike the majority of white people. That's why Republicans will never get more than a piddling number of black votes, and I guess they're starting to figure that out. Better to stop trying to court black voters than to change their policies to help those voters.

Posted by keshmeshi | September 17, 2007 10:01 AM
15

I think you meant to say they're getting ready to spend 40 years in the wilderness ...

Posted by Will in Seattle | September 17, 2007 11:34 AM

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