The Republicans and the Black Vote

Stories like this one, about black evangelicals' flirtation with the GOP, are a reminder that the declining salience of racial politics - which Paul Krugman thinks will deliver the country back to the Democrats - could theoretically end up cutting in the GOP's favor in certain respects, as middle-class, socially-conservative African-American voters become more comfortable with the idea of voting for Republicans. So are blog posts like this one, from Fred Siegel, who notes that even at a moment rife with bad news about downward mobility among African-Americans, old-fashioned racial politics are playing almost no role in the Democratic primary campaign. And so are numbers like these, from a Pew survey on African-American public opinion:

A 53% majority of African Americans say that blacks who don't get ahead are mainly responsible for their situation, while just three-in-ten say discrimination is mainly to blame. As recently as the mid-1990s, black opinion on this question tilted in the opposite direction, with a majority of African Americans saying then that discrimination is the main reason for a lack of black progress.

One of these years, these kind of shifts will produce a spike in the Republican Party's miniscule share of the black vote. But I'm pretty sure that 2008 isn't going to be that year.

Comments

One of these years, these kind of shifts will produce a spike in the Republican Party's miniscule share of the black vote.

Southern Republicans domination of your party is going to be a hard problem to cure, so I wouldn't hold my breath after'08, either.

Posted by SomeCallMeTim | November 26, 2007 12:13 PM

If Rudy is the nominee, he will get less than 3 percent of the black vote. Maybe less than one percent.

Posted by Comment | November 26, 2007 12:30 PM

Wait... I don't get it. Paul Krugman's thesis is that racial politics on the part of whites is what cut against Democrats during the rise of movement conservatism. That blacks are less inclined to think of black progress in racial terms is neither here nor there.

Unfortunately for the GOP, so long as the Tancredo nativists wing are too large to ignore, and too racist to form coalitions with blacks and Hispanics, the GOP is going to have trouble forming a governing coalition.

Posted by Tommaso Sciortino | November 26, 2007 12:44 PM

Hmm, yeah, the party of Trent Lott and Macaca Allen and New-Orleans-got-what-it-deserved isn't going to see much of a black vote any time soon. Real front page stuff there.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | November 26, 2007 12:48 PM

I wouldn't hold your breath, Ross...trust me, as a black educated male, I don't see many folks out here talking about voting for the G.O.P. anytime soon.

And while blacks are certainly conservative in some respects (especially in re: religion where there's some overlap with white evangelicals, especially on gay marriage/rights), every black American remembers Katrina. They see an administration that is opposed to affirmative action. And then, of course, there's stuff like the George Allen incident.

Race is still a big issue in American politics and I'm always surprised at how much the pundit class discounts it.

Posted by Mike P | November 26, 2007 1:24 PM

I am quite sure that the GOP could do some things to make it possible to increase its share of the black vote significantly.

But one of those things is going to be acknowledging the party's racism-- and Reagan's central role in it-- that Krugman discusses and so many conservatives have denied in response.

The GOP's central problem with blacks is that it also wants the votes of racists. Drop the appeals to the racists and, while the GOP surely won't carry the black vote, it will at least peel some of it off from the Democrats, as I am sure there are plenty of black voters who like low taxes and militaristic foreign policy, and don't like gay marriage and abortion. But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it to happen.

Posted by Dilan Esper | November 26, 2007 1:29 PM

Putting aside Katrina and Iraq and the Southern strategy for a moment. To most people who aren't political junkies, the face of Republicanism is guys like Rush Limbaugh. As long as this remains the case, the GOP's share of the black vote won't increase appreciably.

Posted by WillieStyle | November 26, 2007 1:36 PM

Gerson, being a hopeful evangelical, fell for the mirage of compassionate conservatism. Conservatism is basically about limited government, a free economy, realistic foreign policy, and strong societal institutions of church and family, i;e. the Burkean little platoons are far more important than any such thing as compassionate governmental conservatism. Why the hell should anyone expect the guv'mint to pay for their drugs or set bureaucratic standards for education.

On the other hand, Gerson did turn a few decent phrases for Bush, who well knew his capacity to find the right language for the heartland that was helpful in winning two national elections.

Should the conservatives return to the political wilderness, they might understand that, however enthusiastic, Gerson and his evangelical friends contributed significant votes to their cause and at least had their hearts in the right place.

Posted by Peter Leavitt | November 26, 2007 2:59 PM

Pardon the above misplaced post.

Posted by Peter Leavitt | November 26, 2007 3:17 PM

every black American remembers Katrina

What exactly do they remember about Katrina? Do they remember that at the time Katrina happened both New Orleans and Louisiana were controlled by Democrats? I guess they must have forgotten that.

Posted by Steven | November 26, 2007 6:31 PM

"Race is still a big issue in American politics and I'm always surprised at how much the pundit class discounts it."

Posted by Mike P

Don't be - it's part of their job.

Posted by Barry | November 26, 2007 6:47 PM

Southern Republicans domination of your party is going to be a hard problem to cure, so I wouldn't hold my breath after'08, either.

Tim, I think if you make it plain you regard the Southern voter as a malignancy, it will be more difficult for the Democratic Party to attract Southern voters.

If Rudy is the nominee, he will get less than 3 percent of the black vote. Maybe less than one percent.

Why ya figure?

Unfortunately for the GOP, so long as the Tancredo nativists wing are too large to ignore, and too racist to form coalitions with blacks and Hispanics, the GOP is going to have trouble forming a governing coalition.

So you are of the view that a.) uncontrolled immigration is in the interest of black voters or b.) that Mr. Tancredo and his votaries want neither the support of black politicians nor black voters for their programs because... well just because.

Hmm, yeah, the party of Trent Lott and Macaca Allen and New-Orleans-got-what-it-deserved isn't going to see much of a black vote any time soon. Real front page stuff there.

Mightn't you specify who of consequence said that New Orleans deserved to be flooded, and what connection they have to the Republican Party (as opposed to, say, environmental organizations)?

I wouldn't hold your breath, Ross...trust me, as a black educated male, I don't see many folks out here talking about voting for the G.O.P. anytime soon.

And while blacks are certainly conservative in some respects (especially in re: religion where there's some overlap with white evangelicals, especially on gay marriage/rights), every black American remembers Katrina. They see an administration that is opposed to affirmative action. And then, of course, there's stuff like the George Allen incident.

Mr. Mike P, can you please specify any of the following:

1. What substantive measures the Administration has undertaken to contain the use of racial-preference schemes in Federal employment, the awarding of Federal contracts, or in labor relations among private parties;

2. How the President is expected to control the weather;

3. How deficiencies in public infrastructure, which are capital investments undertaken over many years and involve three or four layers of government (and often public corporations as well as agencies) are to be solely attributed to the sitting Federal administration (as opposed to the municipal administration in New Orleans, to take one example).

4. What percentage of the black population ever heard about Gov. Allen uttering the word 'macaca' and what percentage of the black or non-black population could have been expected to offer a definition of that term as recently as two years ago?

And can you explain any one of the following:

1. Why the government's disposition toward the presence or absence of racial patronage in public or private employment employment should be a deal-breaker for nine-tenths of the black population, given that the policy itself is not supported by anywhere near that proportion of that subgroup;

2. Why the damage to New Orleans should be an exceptional motivator for the black electorate given that less than one percent of the white or black population are residents of New Orleans;

I am quite sure that the GOP could do some things to make it possible to increase its share of the black vote significantly.

Why?

But one of those things is going to be acknowledging the party's racism-- and Reagan's central role in it-- that Krugman discusses and so many conservatives have denied in response.

There is no reason for the Republican leadership to give credence to the fancies of the opposition, yours or anyone else's.

The GOP's central problem with blacks is that it also wants the votes of racists.

Dilan, please explain what elements of the Republican Party's advertising campaigns are simultaneously effective at repelling nine-tenths of the black electorate, recruiting the racist vote, and doing so in such a subtle fashion that scarcely anyone can provided a coherent and persuasive exegesis of these advertisements.

Drop the appeals to the racists and

Again, what and when?

while the GOP surely won't carry the black vote, it will at least peel some of it off from the Democrats, as I am sure there are plenty of black voters who like low taxes and militaristic foreign policy, and don't like gay marriage and abortion. But I wouldn't hold my breath waiting for it to happen.

Dilan, please explain what features of Gerald Ford's 1976 campaign amounted to an "appeal to racists"? Was it the production values in those ads that Pearl Bailey made for him? He garnered 8% of the black vote running against a Democratic candidate that was as tainted on the question of race relations as any nominated in the last sixty-odd years.

While you are at it, you might consider why a selection of Democratic candidates - e.g. Eugene McCarthy and Gary Hart - have had abnormal difficulty appealing to black voters in party primaries. Were they appealing to racist voters?

Posted by Art Deco | November 26, 2007 7:03 PM

A guy walked into Art Deco's house wearing a Klan outfit and waving a Confederate flag. He held a noose and a copy of "The Turner Diaries" in his other hand. He turned on the radio and chuckled as he heard Michael Savage begin a rant.

An all-white bulldog came out of the bedroom, happy his master was home.

Snausage time!

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | November 26, 2007 9:05 PM

MLandJ: That was an absurd cheap shot in terms of its content, but I have to say that it was the first one of your attempts at humor that was well-crafted enough to make me laugh.

Posted by James Kabala | November 26, 2007 10:55 PM

Dilan, please explain what features of Gerald Ford's 1976 campaign amounted to an "appeal to racists"? Was it the production values in those ads that Pearl Bailey made for him? He garnered 8% of the black vote running against a Democratic candidate that was as tainted on the question of race relations as any nominated in the last sixty-odd years.

While you are at it, you might consider why a selection of Democratic candidates - e.g. Eugene McCarthy and Gary Hart - have had abnormal difficulty appealing to black voters in party primaries. Were they appealing to racist voters?

That's just stupid. First of all, Carter was not tainted on race issues. Second, Ford was running after the Nixon administration, which pursued the Southern Strategy to a fairthewell. Third, not getting black votes in the primaries isn't the issue; Hart and McCarthy both would have carried the black vote in the general.

More generally, I encourage all you Republicans-- KEEP THINKING THAT THERE'S NOTHING YOU NEED TO CHANGE TO GET BLACK VOTES. That's right, keep thinking that way. It will only make it easier for Democrats to get elected in the future, as the country grows more and more racially tolerant as educational levels rise.

Posted by Dilan Esper | November 26, 2007 11:41 PM

Steven,
Let's go back to Katrina for a second and realize that it affected not just New Orleans and a lot of the rest of Louisiana but also other parts of Gulf Coast; it was a disaster bigger than most states could handle alone which is why an evacuation was called for and the state(s) requested FEDERAL assistance. I'm not saying it's Bush's fault that Katrina happened (he's not God...or the Devil) but the speed and scale of the reaction could have been MUCH better (and this is something we saw with the wildfires in So Cal).

Put it this way...black folks are way more likely to remember (and agree with) Kanye West saying "George Bush doesn't care about black people" than they are to believe Bush's promises of help being on the way and that he wouldn't forget about the people in the affected areas.

Posted by Mike P | November 27, 2007 12:58 AM

Maybe it's just me, but Art Deco doesn't seem to be too wild about black people.

Posted by Daniel Shays | November 27, 2007 2:41 AM

It's almost ... almost seems like he has -- what do you call it -- a grudge or something against them....

Hmm. Go figure.

Posted by Daniel Shays | November 27, 2007 2:43 AM

James Kabala says: "I have to say that it was the first one of your attempts at humor that was well-crafted enough to make me laugh."

I'm glad you finally got one. Baby steps, Jimbo. Baby steps.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | November 27, 2007 3:45 PM

Daniel Shays suspects: "Maybe it's just me, but Art Deco doesn't seem to be too wild about black people."

It's not just you.

I'll bet he has the world's largest collection of Pat Boone records.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | November 27, 2007 3:52 PM

Art Deco, you can argue until you are blue in the face about the "rightness" of your positions. It doesn't obviate the fact that you are coming off as someone who holds racist positions.

And this is supposed to convince black people to vote for a political party you belong to?

Riiight.....

Posted by grumpy realist | November 27, 2007 6:32 PM

What did art deco say that is racist? Show me the exact excerpt. It seems like Grumpy, ML&J, and Daniel Shays just completely lack the ability to logically spar with art deco, and thus have to resort to frantic name-calling.

Posted by pjgoober | November 27, 2007 9:48 PM

I suspect that pjgoober doesn't think George Allen's "macaca" "joke" marked him as a racist, either. Art Deco's hamhanded and exceptionally dense "defense" of that comment marks him, too.

Posted by MoeLarryAndJesus | November 27, 2007 10:42 PM

I'm African-American and I will never vote republican thanks to people like Art Deco and pjbooper.

Posted by A Black Man | November 28, 2007 7:48 PM

I can't believe some of the post here...However, I find it too irresistible not to respond to the topic. I hope my response fits...Here goes:

There's very little the Republican Party can do get more of the black vote. Why, because most of my people, yes - I am a Black American, don’t know or have forgotten our own history. The Public School System, a liberal institution, will not teach history correctly out of fear of losing there only chance of corrupting the mind of children with their liberal ideology. Republicans aren't racist (one of the Dems ideology cornerstones); Racism an individual choice that can be and often is taught. However, history has proven to us that the Democratic Party has had more racist individuals in it than the Republican Party. I’m sure that everyone here will agree that Slavery was the greatest evil ever to beset black people in this country. Here’s some history that isn’t taught in the Public School System:

History Lessons
1. In the decades leading up to the Civil War, there was intense political debate on what to do about it. The Republican Party was founded in 1854 for the express purpose of ending slavery. The Democratic Party, by contrast, defended it to the bitter end.

2. After the war, the Democratic Party held a lock on the South for more than 100 years. All of the "Jim Crow" laws that prevented blacks from voting and kept them down were enacted by Democratic governors and Democratic legislatures. The Ku Klux Klan was virtually an auxiliary arm of the Democratic Party, and any black (or white) who threatened the party's domination was liable to be beaten or lynched. Democrats enacted the first gun-control laws in order to prevent blacks from defending themselves against Ku Klux Klan’s violence.

3. Franklin D. Roosevelt, a “Great Democratic President”, appointed to the Supreme Court a life member of the Ku Klux Klan, Sen. Hugo Black, Democrat of Alabama. In 1944, FDR chose as his vice president Harry Truman, who had joined the Ku Klux Klan in Kansas City in 1922.

4. Another Ku Klux Klan member, Sen. Robert C. Byrd, Democrat of West Virginia, personally filibustered the Civil Rights Act of 1964 for 14 straight hours to keep it from passage. He is still a member of the U.S. Senate today.

5. I encourage everyone to visit the Democratic National Convention official party history website at http://www.dnc.org/a/party/history.html. Notice how initially the Dems list their history from 1792 and every major election year up to 1848. That’s 56 years of uninterrupted history documented. Then they skip to 1912. That’s 64 years of history that they leave out. After that they skip around a bit more. Bottom line is that the Democratic Party cannot reveal who the really are...Hillary, Kerry, Byrd....oops. My bad; Byrd did and they continue to elect him anyways.

In closing, Republicans have tried to help all people to include black people, not by hand-outs, but by giving us fair opportunity to achieve the so called “American Dream” based "....not on the color of our skin, but on the content of our character....". These familiar words are the words of a registered Republican, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Most backs thinks he was a Democrat, because they don’t know our history. Dems love this as the claim to have been down for the struggle of my people from the inception of their party.

Democrats have the major media (minus FOX) to hide behind, promote victim-hood, push entitlement programs that keep my people poor, and controls the educational system that continues to set low expectations for minority students, [....] okay, though there’s much more I can say, I’ll step down off my soap box.

So, until we, black people, stop being racist ourselves, and decided to vote according to our values, the Dems will have a hold on us.

Posted by Know Your Roots | November 29, 2007 4:38 PM

Carter was not tainted on race issues.

As a state legislator in Georgia, ca. 1964, Mr. Carter described himself as a "Russell conservative". That would be Senator Richard Russell, a man who may have had many admirable qualities, but an antagonism to the South's peculiar institutions was not one of them. Mr. Carter did not at that time have a record in favor of dismantling Southern caste regulations.

In subsequent years, he made expedient alliances with Lester Maddox, Governor of Georgia (1967-70) and proprietor of the Pickrick Restaurant in Atlanta. Maddox was a rather crude character by the standards of Southern politicians. Wm. F. Buckley's description: "A man whose principal claim to fame is his expressed preference for hitting a negro over the head with an axe rather than serve him a plate of fried chicken." Jimmy Carter was elected Governor of Georgia in 1970 with the outgoing Governor as his running mate. Pix of the two of them arms upraised were published by the national press corps five years later when Mr. Carter was a Presidential candidate. Jimmy Carter's principal opponenent in the 1970 Democratic gubernatorial primary in Georgia was another former Governor, Carl Sanders. Rummage through back issues of the Boston Phoenix published during Mr. Carter's 1980 re-election bid and you will find a brief discussion of that campaign. A picture of Mr. Sanders being showered with champagne by black baseball players was distributed in rural areas of Georgia by Mr. Carter's operatives. Unlike the operations of the Massachusetts penal system, Mr. Sanders taste in liquor and company was not a public issue.

Mr. Carter's 1971 inaugural contained statements to the effect that the civic culture and public policy in Georgia were going to change. Lester Maddox was most surprised, and with reason.

Second, Ford was running after the Nixon administration, which pursued the Southern Strategy to a fairthewell.

What public policies did Mr. Nixon offer and what public statements did Mr. Nixon make that would persuade a reasonable person that he had it in for blacks? Was it mandating the Philadelphia Plan, erecting the Office of Minority Business Enterprise, or something else?

Third, not getting black votes in the primaries isn't the issue; Hart and McCarthy both would have carried the black vote in the general.

Most certainly it is the issue. These men were unappealing to black voters when compared to Robert Kennedy or Walter Mondale. You can apply the principles enunciated in your previous statements (that it indicates that Messrs. McCarthy and Hart were tainted) or not (and acknowledge that there are occult factors influencing the distribution of black votes that we haven't begun to discuss).

More generally, I encourage all you Republicans-- KEEP THINKING THAT THERE'S NOTHING YOU NEED TO CHANGE TO GET BLACK VOTES. That's right, keep thinking that way. It will only make it easier for Democrats to get elected in the future, as the country grows more and more racially tolerant as educational levels rise.

There are some social phenomena to which you can make only marginal alterations through conscious effort.

Posted by Art Deco | November 29, 2007 7:22 PM

Unfortunately for the GOP, so long as the Tancredo nativists wing are too large to ignore, and too racist to form coalitions with blacks and Hispanics, the GOP is going to have trouble forming a governing coalition.

If I recall correctly, Tancredo was the one GOP candidate that accepted the invitation to attend the annual NAACP convention...

Posted by le biel | November 30, 2007 9:04 AM