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Wed. Sep 18, 2002

Political Fratricide

Political Fratricide – This month’s Congressional Black Caucus conference wasn’t exactly a lovefest. " ’People were talking retaliation,’ said Ron Walters, the director of the African American Leadership Institute at the University of Maryland, of last week’s CBC events in Washington. ’They were saying [presidential hopeful] Sen. Joe Lieberman is dead in the water, and so on and so forth.’ "

Excuse me, but aren’t you supposed to be battling Republicans? Or have many Democrats just written off the 2004 Presidential election, and instead decided to use it as an intramural death match? If so, please set up a concession stand for the Republicans, so they’ll at least have some popcorn while watching the Dems self-destruct.

" ’When you unseat two black candidates, it’s not a freak thing, it’s a strategy. It took black candidates by surprise, and it’s made them very angry,’ he said. ’Why the leadership of the party didn’t do anything, that’s the big mystery.’ "

Mr. Walters leaves off one vital point, but perhaps in his clear shock and anger, he hasn’t noticed. His statement implies that two black candidates were replaced with, I don’t know, KKK members from Mars, or something equally anti-black. In both cases, a Black Democrat was chosen over a Black Democrat by the constituents of their district.

Absolutely shocking!

This is what is painted as a ”freak thing,” when it is in fact Democracy in Action. And it shouldn’t be surprising, as not only do "Political observers say McKinney was the only one to blame for her own defeat" with her long history of harsh controversial statements, there’s other history as well.

"Murray Friedman, head of the Center for Jewish History at Temple University and author of What Went Wrong: The Creation and Collapse of the Black-Jewish Alliance [...] said past anti-Semitic rhetoric against Jews by visible members of the black community like the Rev. Al Sharpton and the Rev. Jesse Jackson, and the fact there was no clear support for Israel by black members on recent resolutions in Congress, have exacerbated this growing rift between the two traditional allies."

And that doesn’t even include Louis Farrakhan, famed anti-Semite, and McKinney’s prime endorser in the Aug. 20 primary. Or her father, Billy ”Jews have bought everybody, Jews, J-E-W-S” McKinney. But of course, this is all caused solely by the evil Jews who politically assassinated innocent black candidates who’d done nothing at all, in order to replace them with racist Martians. It had nothing to do with the candidates themselves.

"Walters said the party has gone on double duty to quell the anger among blacks, who are by a vast majority Democrats. He doesn’t buy that McKinney had lost support among the black voters in her district, but blames Republicans and Jewish outsiders, and a lack of support from the party."

Thank you, Mr. Walters, for your 600-mile-away judgement. I’m sure it was very hard to see the turnout from Maryland, but trust me, as someone a bit closer to the scene, McKinney lost support among voters of all stripes. It’s starkly visible in the precinct numbers, and it was in the paper, for anyone who cares to read: "For example, at Stoneview Elementary School, a McKinney stronghold and the site of a melee over ballot access for the 1,767 people who showed up to vote in the 2000 general election, only 169 people cast ballots Tuesday, most of them for McKinney."

There’s your evidence that "McKinney had lost support among the black voters in her district," Mr. Walters. In her ”stronghold,” less than 10% of the people who turned out for her two years ago felt motivated to do so on August 20. Race and religion had nothing to do with it. But you go ahead and waste the next election on the politics of denial, rather than learning from the evidence and improving because of the lessons.

The Republicans think it’s a great idea.