Author Topic: Salter: Black voters in GOP primary not a step backward  (Read 615 times)

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Offline Formerly Once-Ler

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Salter: Black voters in GOP primary not a step backward
« on: July 21, 2014, 12:16:48 am »
http://www.clarionledger.com/story/opinion/columnists/2014/07/19/salter-black-voters-gop-primary-step-backward/12896835/

Back in 1995 in the film “The American President,” Michael Douglas delivered a speech answering a rival that for many defined the cynical, hardball nature of politics when he said his opponent was “interested in two things, and two things only: making you afraid of it, and telling you who’s to blame for it. That, ladies and gentlemen, is how you win elections.”

Indeed. Exhibit “A” is basically any TV commercial or social media video you saw from either side in the 2014 Mississippi GOP Senate primary. This race made fans of hardball politics blush, cringe and recoil.

Part of the narrative being offered is that efforts to gain increased black voter participation in the Republican U.S. Senate primary somehow “set race relations in Mississippi back 50 years.”

How incredibly ridiculous that claim sounds! Here we are in Mississippi during the 50th anniversary of Freedom Summer — a time in which people were being murdered for engaging in voter registration efforts — listening to people claim that legal black voter participation in a Republican primary is a step backward in the state’s race relations.

Freedom Summer’s battles weren’t fought over the right of black voters in Mississippi to participate in the primary elections of one party or the other. Those battles were fought over the right to vote — period.

If some black Mississippi voters chose in 2014 to make legal second primary votes in the Republican primary to influence the outcome of that runoff, it was their right under current Mississippi election law unless they voted in the Democratic first primary.

What should have been the destination of the political journey begun in Mississippi before and during Freedom Summer a half-century ago was a state in which voters are voters and that all voters enjoy the free exercise of the franchise to vote as they please.

Mississippi law doesn’t require partisan voter registration and the significant limit is that voters can’t “crossover” between casting a first primary vote with one party and then a second primary vote in the primary of another party. Beyond that prohibition, voters have the right to choose.

Setting race relations back 50 years? Please.

I remember 50 years ago in Mississippi — complete with all the vestiges of segregation in schools, public accommodations, public transit and governments and courts at all levels.

There well may be some bruised feelings and legitimate disagreement over political tactics, but the ultimate decision of black voters in Mississippi to legally impose their will on a second primary election most certainly did not set race relations back 50 years.

With some 40 percent of Mississippi’s electorate now comprised of African-American voters, the political party that fails to reach out to those voters and attempt to engage them do so at their own political peril.

Perhaps what we’re really afraid to talk about is the fact that perhaps the old stereotypes are beginning to fall away.

The de facto partisan segregation is a model that bridged 1964 and 2014 — in which the majority of the state’s black voters tended to identify as Democrats while the majority of the state’s white voters tended to identify as Republicans, or so we all chose to believe based on election outcomes.

In the recent primary, the actual political behavior didn’t fit that model. But it didn’t harm race relations in the least.

Offline collins

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Re: Salter: Black voters in GOP primary not a step backward
« Reply #1 on: July 21, 2014, 01:16:26 am »
Well, when the opposition party AND the party actually in the run-off actively seek votes from blacks, especially if they weren't supposed to vote in the run-off, it's going to cause hard feelings.

Oceander

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Re: Salter: Black voters in GOP primary not a step backward
« Reply #2 on: July 21, 2014, 01:59:11 am »
a good little article

Offline Formerly Once-Ler

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Re: Salter: Black voters in GOP primary not a step backward
« Reply #3 on: July 21, 2014, 07:12:26 am »
Well, when the opposition party AND the party actually in the run-off actively seek votes from blacks, especially if they weren't supposed to vote in the run-off, it's going to cause hard feelings.
Way I was raised, somebody makes an allegation...same body got to prove it.  Has McDaniel come out with proof even one voter who voted in the rat primary also voted in the GOP run-off?  I have not seen that yet.  They keep on talking, and talking but I have yet to see any evidence.
 


If I remove the clause "especially if they weren't supposed to vote in the run-off" which modifies "blacks," I could mis-read your response as "When the opposition party AND the party actually in the run-off actively seek votes from blacks, it's going to cause hard feelings."  Further simplifying the sentence in to my own words yields",When the rats AND GOP actively seek votes from blacks, it's going to cause hard feelings."  Since the rats have always courted the black vote that leaves only one new thing here.  I know many McDaniel supporters are not angry that black voters took part in elections.  I'm sure that was not the message you intended to convey, and I'd like to think that the vast majority of Republicans would encourage black voters to vote GOP, but I know not all of them do. 

Conservatives should be careful how they phrase their anger over black voting in MS.  It is easy for the rats to exploit the charge of racism.  Want people to stop calling you a racist?  Stop talking like one.  Conservatives certainly should not talk like they assume black votes for Cochran are illegitimate.  The rats will certainly exploit that. The black voters in MS knew the GOP is going to hold that Senate seat.  The primary is open.  They have every right to vote for their Senator. 

When the GOP actively seeks black votes I'm a happy camper.  I think the first time you do something makes it more likely you'll do it twice or even more.

 

Oceander

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Re: Salter: Black voters in GOP primary not a step backward
« Reply #4 on: July 21, 2014, 04:25:54 pm »
*  *  *

Conservatives should be careful how they phrase their anger over black voting in MS.  It is easy for the rats to exploit the charge of racism.  Want people to stop calling you a racist?  Stop talking like one.  Conservatives certainly should not talk like they assume black votes for Cochran are illegitimate.  The rats will certainly exploit that. The black voters in MS knew the GOP is going to hold that Senate seat.  The primary is open.  They have every right to vote for their Senator. 

When the GOP actively seeks black votes I'm a happy camper.  I think the first time you do something makes it more likely you'll do it twice or even more.

 


Absolutely.

Offline Formerly Once-Ler

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Re: Salter: Black voters in GOP primary not a step backward
« Reply #5 on: July 22, 2014, 04:41:31 am »

Absolutely.

Good that we agree.  Thanx for the feedback.