Indianapolis Recorder, Indianapolis, Marion County, 2 January 2004 — Page 9

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FRIDAY, JANUARY 2, 2004

THE INDIANAPOLIS RECORDER

PAGE A9

YOUR VOICE

What are your New Year's resolutions for 2004?

Saddam tests Dean's anti-war position

Denise Hughes

Sam Cox

“In 20041 hope to find a more “I would like to live a more fulfilling, better paving job, quit healthy life and be a better role smokingcigarettes and move into model to young men in our coma nice house.” munity.” • Denise Hughes - Sam Cox

By EARL OFARI HUTCHINSON The Republican National Committee didn’t say how much it would spend on its new ad and promo Campaign on Black radio stations and newspapers to woo Black voters. But whatever it spends it’ll be money wasted. President Bush’s efforts to reach Blacks have failed miserably and for good reason. He has repeatedly turned down requests by the Congressional Black Caucus, and civil rights leaders to meet. For the past 30 years, they, and not the Black conservatives that Bush and the Republicans delude themselves speak for Blacks, have fought tough battles in the courts and the streets for voting rights, affirmative action, school integration, an end to housing and jo,b discrimination, and police abuse. They are the ones who accurately capture the mood of fear and hostility the majority of Blacks feel toward Bush. ^ But Bush has done more than cold shoulder Black leaders and elected officials. He refuses to prod Congress to free up the billions he promised in his State of Union address last January to combat AIDS in Africa. He refuses to support tougher hate crimes legislation, and has been mute on the fight against racial profiling. He backed the white students in their effort to torpedo the University of Michigan’s affirmative action program, and he tried to ram rod Congress to confirm a wave of racially insensitive, ultra conservative appointees to the federal appeals court. His appointments of Colin Powell, Condeleezza Riee, Rod Paige, and Alphonso Jackson to high-ranking administration posts have not resulted in his promised racial remake of the Republican Party. The devil’s bargain that GOP presidential contender Barry Goldwater struck with the South in 1.964 assured the unshakeable loyalty of white Southerners. Goldwater blasted civil rights demonstrations, opposed the 1.964 Civil Rights hill, and promised to slash big government. This open pandering to Southern fury over integration resulted in the wholesale stampede of Southern whites into the Republican Party. The Democratic Party became the hated symbol of integratuHj, and civil rights." 1 Republican Presidents Rff

ard Nixon, Ronald Reagan, and the elder Bush excised Goldwater’s naked race-baiting appeals, but railed against welfare, crime in the streets, permissiveness, and quotas. This was racial code speak and Southern whites got the point. Before Secretary of State Colin Powell mildly dissented from his bosses’ opposition to the University of Michigan’s race-based affirmative action program, he criticized his former bosses Reagan and the elder Bush for not showing more sensitivity on racial matters. This has resulted in a huge and consistent vote bonanza for the Republicans in the South since the 1960s. It won’t change in 2004. Polls show that white males by big margins favor Bush oVer any Democratic challenger and that includes North Carolina Sen. John Edwards. The GOP, however, does not repeatedly fumble on its periodic public relations stab at bagging more Black votes because of a cold, calculated, and obsessive political hunt for white male votes. Many Republicans still swallow the myth that Blacks are cradle-to-grave Democrats, and believe that no matter what they do it won’t change. Though the few places that the GOP has done more than mouth platitudes about diversity and minority outreach and softened its hard line hostility to civil rights and social programs, and made a real effort to reach younger voters most notably in 2002, it has scored some successes. In 2002, it elected two Black GOP lieutenant governors in Maryland and Ohio. Also, Bush’s pet programs of faith based charities, school vouchers, minority business and homeownership, increased funding for historically Black

Minister Brenda Shaw “My goal is to simply conduct personal ministry because I’m always putting out for others. I need to take care of myself spiritually to better take care of others. - Minister Brenda Shaw

Money down a sinkhole in GOP's ad push for Blacks

colleges, and his approval of an African-American Museum could resonate with more than a handful of Blacks. Polls have shown that many younger Blacks are more politically conservative, if not down right indifferent, and hostile to the Democrats, whom they lambaste for tucking the Black vote in their hip pocket and saying and doing as little as possible on racial issues for fear this will stir up white among the NASCAR dads by reinforcing the old perception that Democrats tilt toward minorities. Despite this slight political window opening for the GOP, not a single Black Democrat or Black critic of the Democrats has yet broken ranks and called on Blacks to back the GOP. And of the nearly 4,000 blacks that the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, a Black think tank, lists on its roster of Black elected officials only 50 are Republicans. That number isn’t likely to get much bigger in 2004. During the 2000 presidential campaign, the Republican Party had a once in a lifetime chance to snatch the political and ideological blinders from the eyes of Republican leaders and bury the notion that the GOP is nothing more than a cozy, good ble’ white guys club. Republicans have so far badly squandered that chance. A few splashy ads and promos on Black radio and newspapers won’t change that. It’s just money down a political sinkhole. Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a noted author of nine books about the African-American experience in America. He is a radio host and TV commentator. His . Web site is thehutchinsonreport.com.

By RON WALTERS NNPA The capture of Saddam Hussein - and what that has or has not meant for America’s security - has highlighted Democratic front-runner Howard Dean’s role as the most outspoken- major candidate against the war. He solidified that position by launching a major foreign policy speech on the day after Saddam was found in a hole near his hometown in northern Iraq. Dean was immediately attacked by candidates John Kerry and Joseph Lieberman, each of whom tried to paint Dean’s antiwar position as reflecting a lack of experience. Lieberman was particularly shrill, saying that Dean’s position would have left Saddam Hussein in power. So what? It’s not like there are not dictators in other countries. Neither Bush nor Lieberman has proved that there was an urgent need to remove Hussein from power, despite the fact that •he was a despot. Let’s be candid. Saddam Hussein’s actions in his own country were not the real . reason that Bush invaded Iraq. Many critics have concluded that the control of Iraqi oil was the primary objective of the invasion. That suspicion has been heightened by *the Bush administration’s decision award post-war contracts in

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Iraq only to U.S. companies. So, the fact that Saddam was a despot - as bad as that was - is beside the point. The crucial issue wasn’t that Iraq possessed weapons of mass destruction, if that was really the case. And Bush has yet to convincingly link Hussein to the 9/11 terrorist attacks oh the United States. But Lieberman and Keriy don’t get it. Their position is roughly the same as Bush’s. And that’s been the main problem with the Democratic Party lately on so many issues. With so little difference between Democrats and Republicans on some issues, it’s not surprising that some voters are reluctant to embrace the party out of power. f Lieberman chastises Dean for moving away from the Clinton policy of being procorporate and pro-military defense establishment. But' how can the Democratic Party hold these positions and at the same time support labor and social programs that help the poor and disadvantaged? As much as they hate it, Democrats must make a choice. During most of the campaign, Democrats have presented a unified front by attacking George W. Bush. Party officials, eager to win next November, had urged can-

didates not to destroy each other during the process of picking a nominee. But the capture Saddam Hussein has changed all of that. In an odd way. an international issue is forcing candidates to reveal what direction they favor on the domestic front. At this point, the invasion of Iraq is still popular w ith 60 percent of the American people in general. But slightly more than half of the Black community disapproves, according to a recent Time magazine poll. Bush can campaign on the war and is even getting a bump for the capture of Saddam Hussein. It is clear to me that the Bush and Karl Rove will try to arrange the timing of Saddam's trial to create the t heater to coincide with the peak of the re-election campaign. Democrats, however, will be tested to drive Bush’s ratings down by telling the truth to the American people. They should campaign on it, lose on it, if they must, but stand 1 tall as the loyal opposition, rather than as metoo, pandering sycophants. Ron Walters is the Distinguished Leadership Scholar, director of the African American Leadership Institutein the Academy of Leadership and professor of government and politics at the Universit}’ of Maryland-College Park.

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