Well, that’s fine, Mr. Emanuelson, but talk is cheap. What are you going to do about it? Something to do with voter-ID laws? Caging lists? Literacy tests? Poll-taxes? Klansmen patrolling the polling places? What?
I live in Shelia Jackson Lee’s district. The Texas legislature has Gerrymandered the entire State to dilute potential Democratic voters. This is why the Legislature is in special session right now, to try and keep this in the courts as long as possible. Our last election was done under temporary maps mandated by a Federal Court in San Antonio, the plan is to adopt and tweak those maps, then say to the courts " what do you mean we discriminate " .
The point is Texas is not nearly as Red as our voting record looks. And, yes, the party in power will do whatever it can to stay that way.
Capt
I would think he’d be thrilled to have a monolithic block voting 90% for the opposition party every cycle, shame on him for suggesting otherwise.
Idiotic choice of wording doesn’t obscure the fact that this is a problem that needs to be addressed by any conservative party.
Er, no. The problem the Republican Party needs to address is not that black people vote, but that black people overwhelmingly don’t cast votes for Republican candidates.
The Tea Partier’s “choice of wording” does indeed obscure that fact.
I doubt anyone is thrilled when any group that votes against them 9-1 shows up at the voting booth. The key is to not sound like an idiot (especially not like a racist one) while talking about. So, mission not quite so accomplished.
eta: also, what Kimstu said, although I would mention that there are some practical impacts here, too. Yes, the absolute first thing anyone should do while running for office is try to convince everyone to vote for you. But, at some point, that ship sails and then you need to think about it as a pure numbers game (if that’s your thing). And that means making sure that your voters turn out in better numbers than the other candidates. You may not do anything to stop the other candidates’ voters from showing up (although there are legit things here, too - trying to convince them that he sucks or won’t live up to his campaign promises), but you sure as don’t want them to.
He said “…if they’re voting 9-1 for Democrats.” or words to that effect. I know, I know, that part of the sentence is so easy to overlook once the red rage kicks in from the first part.
It was that part that I was referring to. And clearly, his choice of wording did obscure the fact, in your case. Don’t worry, you’re not alone.
Just out of curiosity, what fact did you think I meant needed to be addressed?
Now I’ll take “Weaselly evasions and qualifiers” for $400, Alex.
Consider,
“I’m going to be real honest with you, the Republican Party doesn’t want black people to vote 9-to-1 for Democrats.”
See how easy that is to fix? Also, see how worthless of a sentence it is now?
This wasn’t just a bad choice of wording, because without that specific wording he’s not really saying anything at all.
eta: Consider also, “The Republican Party doesn’t want Democrats to vote.” That’d at least be honest without being racist.
The fact that black people vote 9-to-1 for Democrats.
Yes, I take your word for it that you personally (and probably most other Republicans as well) think that should be “addressed” by stepping up outreach efforts to black voters, not by discouraging or preventing black people from voting.
But given the long history in this country of conservative attempts to suppress black votes (and that includes the time when the anti-black-voting conservatives were Democrats, not just now when they’re Republicans), any conservative ought to know better than to say or imply that they’re bothered by blacks voting.
Yup. You Republicans might want to work on that little problem of your party activists saying things in public that “obscure” your message by making you look like racists and idiots.
Sounds like Missouri. We need a new proportional representation movement.
Relevant GD thread of mine from 2011: “Get-out-the-vote and voter suppression are not equally legitimate political tactics”
Try FairVote. (Founded in the 1990s as “CPR” – “Citizens for Proportional Representation” – although since then its focus has expanded to encompass other voting-system reforms and general ballot-access issues.)
But not much better otherwise. See thread linked in post #11.
Well, you said, “this is a problem that needs to be addressed by any conservative party” – not naming the Republicans, and there are no other conservative parties here that matter unless you count the Democrats – leaving unclear whether “the problem” is blacks voting (soluble only by suppressing or discouraging their votes); or blacks voting for Democrats (soluble only by such a major message-shift that it is debatable whether the GOP’s ideology could even remain the same); or conservative parties in general, not limited to the U.S., being unable to get the votes of historically-oppressed ethnic minorities in general (which would be extremely sociologically interesting if true).
No, that wasn’t unclear in the slightest. The “problem” is exactly what clearly stated - that blacks vote for Democrats in near-unanimity. Since Republicans want to be elected, they want people to vote for them, or not vote at all.
On reflection, this is a waste of time - you will just lie about it. You stupid troll.
Regards,
Shodan
:dubious: Surely you don’t mean that? What you mean is that they just want more people to vote for them than for the other guys.
Maybe there’s confusion here between “not voting” and “not wanting to vote”. I certainly don’t mind if the voters opposed to my preferred candidate are so unenthusiastic about their own party’s candidate that they end up saying “hell with it, I’m not gonna vote at all”. They could turn out for their guy if they wanted to, but their guy’s such a turdbrain that they don’t even want to. Fine and dandy. Serve them right.
But I would mind if, say, a busload of voters opposed to my preferred candidate tried to get to the polls before closing time but couldn’t. Equal access to the vote is the bedrock of democracy, and if we’re happy about any of our political adversaries encountering obstacles in the voting process, we’re doing it wrong. Even if we’re just saying “If you won’t vote for my guy then I don’t want you to vote”, we’re doing it wrong.
Yes, I’m sure that’s exactly what they want. And if they get more by virtue of the other guy’s supporters failing to vote, so be it.
But the notion of actually trying to persuade them to vote Republican? They haven’t gotten to that yet.
Actually, I sadly suspect he got it right the first time.