Out of curiosity, TOC recently attended a Voter Education event at a local church.  Of course, since the church has a mostly black membership, the event was more catered to community activism around getting out the vote.  Even though it was fairly clear from the conversation that most participants supported Democrats, no lines involving disallowed endorsements of candidates were crossed.

Because of the non-profit status of the church, this particular forum was not appropriate for discussing policy positions of candidates; however, a broader question should be raised.  While there are many organizations working to make sure certain populations (the elderly, the poor, the young) go out and vote in the black community, how many organizations are working to make sure blacks are engaged with the issues to the point they can make an educated voting decision?  Another question is how do these same people who give their vote get to the position to hold politicians accountable?  With all of the ‘get out the vote’ groups working to do just that along with other civil rights groups fighting voter ‘suppression’ laws, I wonder which of these groups are arming their target communities so that they can charge politicians with expectations and hold them accountable. TOC has yet to hear that story.

Perhaps these groups expect blacks to vote for Obama because he is black or because the GOP is “racist”.  Sadly, just voting for these reasons will not increase the percentage of black males that graduate from high school (less than 50%) or change the fact that one in three black males aged 20-29 are under some form of criminal supervision (per Wikipedia), or change the trajectory of the incredibly high murder rates in Chicago and New Orleans. (Besides, if Obama had a plan to address these issues that disproportionately affect blacks, it seems he would have laid such plans out at the NAACP annual convention this summer. He skipped it, but I digress).

If the left wants to drive voter participation, it is for nothing more than the left’s political gain unless these voters are empowered to demand something for their vote. Similar to what was discussed in Part I (what good is having political power when I do not have the economic empowerment to participate in this economy) it does me no good to have the political power of a vote when I do not have the tools of knowledge to ensure my vote will be good for me.  All I am doing is giving a blind vote to whatever political organization decided to convince me to vote, helped me fill out the voter registration card, or offered me a ride in the first place.  Why else would they work to get me to vote?  Blacks vote for Democrats “just because” (TOC still wishes someone would explain what the “because” is), but that does not turn into specific gains for blacks.  Since LBJ’s war on poverty the country’s poverty rate – which disproportionately affects blacks – has seen little improvement. TOC has his own theories on why.  Some argue it is due to plantation politics.  Regardless of intent, Democrats have held the White House or some branch of congress for all 21 congressional sessions since 1969 except 3, yet the poverty rate since 1969 has varied little.  Even worse, Democrats controlled everything in Washington from January 2009 until January 2011, but only passed an entitlement-ridden stimulus and a health care bill they cannot get away from fast enough.  Black youth unemployment is as high as 35%.  How does that increase black empowerment? How does that close the wealth gap? The health gap?  The education gap?  Is anyone planning to hold Democrats accountable in November?

The even more important question is how do we – en masse – make sure Democrats are fighting to close these gaps if they want our votes?

As a conservative, my personal belief is that Democrats cannot earn our votes, so they use Ebonics, race baiting and Obama’s blackness. The other side of the coin is, what do we, as black conservatives, do to explain how conservatism can make things better for the black community. We know the answer but it is far harder to explain to someone suffering through poverty that economic freedom is better for them and their kids IN THE LONG RUN than economic dependence. We have to take that charge.

Someday, get out the vote drives need to be good for more than the political strategy of helping manipulative democrats.  That would be good for all of us in the LONG RUN.  Perhaps then, getting out the vote drives will be just as beneficial for the GOP as for the Democrats.  That would be a sign that someone in Washington would finally have to actually care.

It is arguable that this election is one of the most critical ones we have seen in more than a generation.  The stakes are extremely high, as America is at a crossroads in terms of its ability to lead the world economically.  Fundamental questions persist as well, particularly around the role of government in health care, education and our banking system after one of the most disastrous financial meltdowns in history.

With this in mind, TOC’s concern is around how we choose a President.  While it is true that shenanigans happen on both sides of the aisle, the lead political stories of last week seem more troubling than normal.  Total disclosure, TOC is a supporter of Mitt Romney and feels he is more than qualified to be President.  With that being said, I struggle to reconcile the attacks the Obama campaign has levied against Romney.  Although TOC deserves an explanation for why Obama’s $840B stimulus package has done little to turn around our economy – as it was supposed to do – the campaign seems little troubled to provide one.  It is even more troubling that the campaign has not only failed to provide such an explanation but has also failed to lay out a specific detailed plan for how we will get out of this economic quagmire in a second term if Obama is re-elected.  Instead, we have been told that Romney is an outsourcer and his plan is more of the same we saw under Bush.  The latest version of the attack comes from Stephanie Cutter of the Obama campaign, who stated that Romney was either lying about when he left Bain or was guilty of a felony since some documents from Bain had his signature after his supposed departure from the company in 1999.  A bipartisan report has already stated that Romney did not serve in any decision-making capacity for Bain after 1999, when the supposed outsourcing took place.

A concerned citizen may now be asking what does all of this have to do with getting unemployment back under 6%, and TOC would agree with that concern.  Even if you are a die-hard Obama supporter, you should still prefer to have the President explain to you what you can specifically expect in his second term.  Electing Obama should not be an end, but instead a means to some end that you clearly understand.  Unfortunately, that is not what we get when we turn back the dial 12 years to the end of 1999 and spread accusations about felonies.  None of us win.

This instance presents a fundamental question for America.  How are we to choose our leaders, particularly those to fill an office as important as President?  Compare the way our last couple of elections have been conducted compared to, say, a job interview.  In recent elections, there has been limited attention paid to what would be a critical job interview question:  what did you accomplish in your last role?  Indeed, we never talked specifically about Senator Obama’s time as a senator.  TOC is not just thinking of the voting record of the then-senator, but also of his exemplifying himself as a leader.  We never got to that point in discussing him or Senator McCain, for that matter.  We have a great way to test to see if people are great politicians, but how do we assess their leadership?  Going back to 2008, the fact that Senator Obama had no distinguishing record as a Senator was considered an asset by some high-ranking people within the Democratic Party.  Interviews from PBS’s Frontline – The Choice 2008 reveal that several high-ranking people, including former Senator Tom Daschle, thought that it was better to have a less-experienced Obama run for President due to the fact there would be no record for people to attack.   While this may work in politics, is it really good for a party to select a nominee primarily because of his lack of a record (inexperience) so he does not have to answer questions from his interviewers (the electors)?

Let us fast forward to 2012.  We find the same President Obama now attacking his opponent on his record while an executive at Bain Capital.  The irony is incredible, but such a review is appropriate if fair.  We should have that opportunity to interview Mitt Romney – the same opportunity we did not get with then-Senator Barack Obama.  Unfortunately, the conversation to-date is very lacking.  We have seen misrepresentations of what private equity really is, which have been refuted by the likes of key Democrats like Corey Booker and Bill Clinton.  We have also seen what seems to be a focus on events at Bain that took place when Romney was not there.  Of course, the back and forth is good for the Sunday morning talk shows, but the electorate remains distracted and confused with all of the noise and name-calling.

It is ironic that President Obama, who was elected with the benefit of a razor-thin executive record, now unfairly attacks an executive that has a long, distinguished record to attack.  All the while, we still do not have a clear understanding of why Obama’s $840B stimulus package missed the mark so badly and what Obama would do differently if elected.  That would be the first question TOC would ask in an interview!

Is this any way for us to elect a President?  Is this any way for an incumbent to present his plan for the future?  When do we get our chance to stop selecting politicians and start finding leaders?

While almost all of the attention of the political world was dedicated to the Supreme Court last week, Charlie Rangel quietly won the Democratic primary for New York’s 13th Congressional District. Rangel’s primary fight, along with those of Eddie Bernice Johnson in Texas’s 30th district and John Conyer’s upcoming primary in Michigan’s 13th district, are among the most noteworthy involving African-American US House Representative incumbents.
These three representatives are indicative of a troubling trend in the area of leadership in the African-American community. The next generation of political leaders is not being groomed from generation to generation. Indeed, the average age of the members of the CBC in the US House of Representatives is 61 – 4 full years above the average for the general population in the House. Unfortunately, there are no African-Americans currently serving in the US Senate. Outside of the White House (and several mid-tier positions in the executive branch), there is a stark absence of fresh African-American leadership in Washington. The members of the CBC are getting older. The President has fewer African Americans in his first term cabinet that can vault to prominent political careers (perhaps Eric Holder and Lisa Jackson) versus the cabinet of George Bush (Condoleezza Rice, Colin Powel, Rod Paige, and Alphonso Jackson).
TOC writes this in the spirit of bipartisanship – as in it is not meant to be a direct criticism of one party and a promotion of the other. Of course, as a conservative, TOC laments the stark discrepancy in the number of African-Americans that choose to be Democrat versus Republican. Numerous pieces have been written about the discrepancy in numbers between African-American conservatives and Democrats; I would prefer not to tackle that here. With that said, there is no question that African-American Democrats must do a much better job of developing their next generation of leaders. Conservative African-Americans disagree with Democrats on how to solve the health gap, wealth gap and education gap from which so many African-Americans suffer, but we hopefully are steadfastly focused on that end. That end should be just as important to African-American Democrats. It requires grooming the next round of political leaders and knowing when to surrender power and allow these leaders to develop. The seeming unwillingness of some African-American Democrats to do so is disturbing. It makes one suspect that these Democrats are paying lip service to helping their constituencies and are actually far more concerned with their individual legacies.
TOC came to this conclusion by following Eddie Bernice Johnson’s primary fight in South Dallas. The race started with a young, well-groomed Taj Clayton and a state senator from Texas – Mallory Caraway – vying to oust Johnson. Johnson had just ridden her way through several scandals (links here and here). How is it that Johnson, who violated the terms of a foundation scholarship, could survive and get 70% of the vote in the primary against a well-groomed Harvard-educated lawyer with close ties to the 2008 Obama campaign? There are some political realities, as the non-Johnson vote was split between Clayton and Caraway, but together they only received 30% of the vote. It definitely did not help that Barack Obama swooped in and endorsed Johnson, more than likely for political reasons (a new Democrat in that seat would have less seniority in the House and Johnson gave Obama unquestioned loyalty, allegedly). Why else would Obama give a campaign-ending endorsement against such a well-polished up-and-comer? In Michigan, John Conyers has been mostly quiet on the biggest scandal hitting his political family – the indictment of his wife Monica Conyers for bribery. Despite Conyer’s age and family’s legal troubles, Obama endorsed him as well. As far as Charlie Rangel is concerned, the 82-year-old was not endorsed by President Obama, but the White House gave no clear signal about not supporting the censured congressman. Maybe prudent politics call for sitting on the fence when Clyde Williams has a scandal-free experienced political background, without the name recognition to win.
President Obama has been troublingly ineffective in this area. The aforementioned endorsements of aged CBC members in lieu of up-and-comers are dreadful enough, but it gets worse. In a move that got far too little conversation in national and African-American circles, the Obama White House gave early support to New York Kirsten Gillibrand over Harold Ford, Jr., another up-and-coming young and incredibly potent African-American Democrat. Why would an Obama White House go so far out of its way to support Gillibrand even before Ford announced a run against her? Political pundits concluded that Obama was swayed by Ford’s centrist social views, but in light of the subject of this post, the Obama administration clearly was not concerned with supporting who could have been only the fourth African-American elected US senator (remember that Roland Burris was appointed) since Reconstruction. How could a President who so heavily depended on African-American votes be so ineffective in grooming the next generation of African-American leaders? The supposedly-racist George Bush had more senior African-American advisors (as stated earlier), and this administration goes out of its way to impede the development of the next generation of African-American leaders. Unfortunately, this is a trend for which Obama may never have to answer.
In closing, TOC will repeat something very important. The end needs to be bigger than political careers. There is no question that, no matter what side of the political aisle one lies, closing the gaps African-Americans face as a community is a multi-generational task. It seems this task is secondary for some. If Democrats believe social justice and entitlements are part of the solution, we can agree to disagree as conservatives; however, I am troubled that the John Lewises, Jim Clyburns, John Conyerses and Charlie Rangels of the world are too worried about their own power to let someone else lead while the Obamas of the world are too worried about politics as usual – almost to the point that our mutual end is reprioritized off of their radar screens.