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Friday, July 14, 2006
Republicans’ pandering unbecoming
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Last week’s pandering by congressional Republicans illustrates why the party is unlikely to attract black voters — and why preference now shifts to Democrats in November’s U.S. House elections, according to a new poll.
Last week’s deal with Democrats to extend expiring, and discriminatory, provisions of the Voting Rights Act of 1965 for another 25 years was an example of election-year pandering. Pure hypocrisy.
The extension is relatively meaningless in terms of protecting anybody’s right to vote in Georgia or elsewhere. What it does is polarize the two parties racially by giving voice and standing to third-rate microphone-grabbers, assuring that every possible dispute, like voter ID, is reframed as one of race.
That advantages politicians in both parties. The more Jesse Jackson and elected officials who appeal at the margins are given stage, the better it is for the Republican Party. Rep. Cynthia McKinney (D-Ga.) should be on retainer. She is a gift that keeps on giving. She’s guaranteed a safe district, and Republicans wouldn’t have it any other way.
In practical terms, preclearance of proposed changes in districts and election law by the U.S. Justice Department’s civil rights division is inconvenient, costly and polarizing, but largely empty of meaning for ordinary voters. Those who committed the sin for which Georgia is being punished are either dead or out of power. So are their schemes. Public opinion, courts and actual voters are perfectly capable of policing politicians who might be tempted.
The hypocrisy of national Republicans played out in the extension of Voting Rights provisions affecting all or parts of 16 states and based on elections of four decades ago. While the majority would cheerfully extend the discrimination another quarter century, something U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland (R-Ga.) attributed to “lingering prejudice toward Southerners,” they weren’t willing to apply those same provisions to themselves.
“The House failed to prove that the 16 states subjected to federal ‘preclearance’ of electoral laws are substantively different than the states not covered by the Voting Rights Act,” he said. “Proponents of the bill kept citing problems in Ohio and Florida,” but Ohio is not covered and neither is most of Florida.” Nor will they be, no matter how current their imagined sins.
Before another decade of Voting Rights politics is passed, Georgia will lock into two parties based on race. Or it will have political parties going the way of some mainstream religious denominations, splitting into factions. The Libertarian Party certainly has growth potential here, though it’s not yet a realistic alternative to pandering, big-spending Republicans or pandering, big-government Democrats. For now, it’s a vote cast to the wind.
A national Associated Press-Ipso poll of 1,000 adults contains numbers that should cause Republicans some consternation. When the 789 participants who are registered voters were asked whether they preferred a Republican or Democrat in their U.S. House district, the Dems were favored by 51 to 40 percent. Almost a quarter of conservatives, 24 percent, said they would vote for a Democrat.
I’m not convinced they would. For a conservative, the party of big government is not an acceptable alternative when spending is the cause of one’s discomfort with the party in power. It’s that problem again, always fatal for Democratic prospects. Republicans make themselves unappealing — until Howard Dean opens his mouth and the cut-and-run, anti-military wing takes to the microphones.
You have to believe that the GOP would be far more appealing to whites and blacks alike if it stood solidly on principle, as President Bush does on Iraq and the war on terrorism.
If you’re a black guy and you open your door in an election year, there’s a Republican waiting to pander, just as now. The black Democrats and the white Republicans have done a deal that benefits those in power, and it’s supposed to be evidence that both are looking out for the little guy, the little black guy in particular.
The little black guy and the little white guy would be far better off, and so would the GOP, if the party of limited government, fiscal discipline, strong defense and personal responsibility embraced policies based on core values. Black conservatives and white conservatives alike would be far more inclined to stick around if it came toting principle — four years out of four, not one.
• Jim Wooten is associate editorial page editor. His column runs Sundays, Tuesdays and Fridays.
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Political ads, voter turnout, days of aging
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Thinking Right’s Friday free-for-all. Pick a topic:
• Anybody who’d steal Coke secrets and try to sell them to Pepsi probably lacks mental capacity to form criminal intent.
• Of course political ads are over the top. And yes, they insult our intelligence. But they work. And no officeholder has succeeded or failed because of a campaign commercial. Commercials shouldn’t polarize racially, but otherwise I’d let ‘em run.
• You know you’re old when a headline writer, a young whippersnapper no doubt, pens this line to run over a story about the president’s birthday: “President turns 60 years young.” In the next phase, they start saying: “Hey, young fellow.” Then it’s “senior citizen” time. After that, you’re just a crank. Me, I’m somewhere between ” . . . years young” and “hey, young fellow.”
• Oh, no. Government has discovered that my generation is aging. Those on the payroll describe the coming “tsunami” of aging in ways that smell an awful lot like a new taxpayer-subsidized housing program. That, or inappropriate-to-the-area housing density for seniors. Government, back off. The private sector can anticipate and provide the kind of housing the ” . . . years young” generation demands.
• Republicans should make a greater effort to attract black voters. Intervening to get a drug-toter pardoned by a foreign government, as U.S. Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) did for Atlanta music producer Dallas Austin, is not what the Republican base had in mind, though.
• President Bush wants to rally world leaders to confront North Korea over its missile provocation. Some problems are the world’s. Some, involving the same regimes at different times, are America’s. We should use the United Nations and other organizations and coalitions. But in the war on terrorism, when our national interests are at stake, we have to be prepared to go it alone.
• The Griffin-Spalding County public school system reported the highest rate of disciplinary incidents in metro Atlanta, 122.7 per 100 students. Thanks for being honest. The metro average, as reported, is 59.2. Atlanta reported 50.9.
• Headline: “Leftist looks to courts in Mexico vote.” Same here. Florida, 2000. An activist Florida Supreme Court did this nation a great disservice in prolonging the uncertainty. If Mexico’s lucky, the Florida court’s not vacationing there.
• Time was Chechen warlord Shamil Basayev might have been called a freedom fighter. But in a world of Osama bin Laden, where hospitals and schools can be targets, there’s no such thing. His death, accidental or otherwise, invites celebration.
• Well, if Thinking Right can’t have the marketing agent for Atlantic Station and Ikea, can I at least have the one for Starbucks?
• On education, the responses of Mark Taylor and Cathy Cox to AJC questions could have been posted in 1950 or at any time since. And on the HOPE stipend, sacred-cow fanaticism in defending it from phantom assault leads politicians to make bad decisions — asserting, as both do, that tuition has to be held in check because increases threaten HOPE benefits. Unless expenses are held in check, the result of a tuition ceiling is more taxpayer subsidy.
• Projections are that Tuesday’s primary-day turnout will be 25 percent. Some complain that’s too few. Not me. Probably half those who do vote are informed. Why would anybody wish to drive more uninformed voters to the polls?
• Once again, the number of failing schools or failing students is not meaningful, except as it identifies problems. As standards are raised, unless we catch up last year’s failures and sweep up those who were on the brink, the failure numbers will grow. We should start asking questions when they don’t.
• Voter ID. Opponents are down to their last political weapons: microphones and judges. OK, so it takes a little longer. Persevere.
• Even going to jail, conservatives are classier. Linda Schrenko takes it straight-up. Bill Campbell whines.
• If he is elected governor, Mark Taylor will most assuredly continue the high school prom nights started by Gov. Sonny Perdue. It will give the first lady someone her own age to talk to.
• Jim Wooten is the associate editorial page editor. His column appears Fridays, Sundays and Tuesdays.
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