I’m not a Republican. I don’t think anyone on the board would mistake me for one. However, I share the disappointment felt by black Republicans. And I hate that I’m agreeing with Newt Gingrinch about something.
Seems to me that it’s a no-brainer that with the changing demographics of the US citizenry, the GOP’s going to have to be more welcoming to black and Hispanic voters. That means participating in forums that are not lily white, rural, and/or suburban. I believe there are issues that black and Hispanic voters tend to care about more than whites, but that they still reasonate with the majority of voters. When you represent the chunk of the population that blacks and Hispanics do, you can no longer be called a special interest group.
I really don’t know what to make of this. Racism seems like the obvious answer, but why would the top runners be more racist than the second-tier contenders? Is it fear of the Angry Black Mob? Well, that begs the question: Why should we elect someone who’s afraid of a constituency that ain’t going away any time soon? Or we supposed to believe that Rudy can put Osama bin Laden in choke-hold but can’t field questions from Tavis Smiley? And while Rudy has much to account for in regards to racial harmony, what do Thompson and McCain have to be afraid of? Mean ole Tavis has never come out against them, as far as I know. There were also plenty of black Republicans in the national audience. What, they don’t count? They don’t deserve a chance to see the contenders fight for their vote?
And wouldn’t a savvy candidate, upon knowing that weaker rivals are going to be stealing the limelight as Huckabee did, make sure he was there to win cool points?
Politically, it makes no sense to me. So perhaps their excuses weren’t just blow-offs and they really did have previous engagements. But I guess the cynic in me says that these guys would be tripping over themselves if this debate had been scheduled in any other venue. This was a historic event. These guys had the power to challenge all kinds of misconceptions. All kinds of opportunities were tossed out the window here. What lame-os.
Yeah, Dems probably don’t care all that much about black people besides getting their votes. But at least they show up to functions and shake hands. Hill’s the whitest girl on Earth married to a black man (<tongue in cheek>), but she’s probably got just as much black support as Obama does. Why? Not because she says all the right things (this black woman hates that she supported the war and is now trying to backpeddle, all weasley-like), but because she gives some respect. Why can’t Republicans at least fake it? I mean, Bill O’Reilly has even observed that black folks know how to act in public. If he can see the light, anyone can.
Or maybe Newt and me are both just making a big deal out of nothing.
Whatcha’ll think? I’d love to hear from the Republican contingent here.
I don’t have an answer, but it blows my mind that they did this (and a similar thing for the Latino debate.) They come across as either not caring about these major segments of America or too scared to answer tough questions from them. Perhaps they think this will be forgotten next year.
I can see Republicans not showing up at a debate sponsored by a gay support organization, since they have a homophobic base, at least in part. The third possible explanation is that the major candidates think they have a bigoted base. I’m not a Republican anymore, but I don’t think that’s true.
Krugman has also made the point that this kind of crap is going to make the Republicans a minority party going forward, unless the centrist part (all three of them) takes over.
I am a Democrat, and quite involved politically. That said, I haven’t watched a minute of any debate on either side yet. It is too early and I don’t get a lot of information from the debates anyway.
I think it was bad for the contenders to skip the debate, but to the country at large, I don’t think most people even knew there was one.
[rove]Black? No reason, and why bother. The black vote is so strongly held by the Democrats, it would be wasted effort for the Republicans to target it. That same effort (and it IS a zero-sum game in this case) is better spent in other places.
The Hispanic vote, where some Republicans have seen some victory, is a different story, and it is a good use of campaign resources to chase.[/rove]
I agree, although I did watch a little of some of the debates.
Plus, I’m not a big fan of these special interest debates. Perhaps we could focus certain debates on more general (though still broad) issues like foreign policy, domestic policy, taxes, etc. But the Dems are running around debating in front of every sub-group that summons them. Didn’t we have a thread recently asking us if the Democratic party was nothing more than a patchwork of special interest groups? That strategy seems to support the idea that they are.
Also not a Republican, and adding a “me too” to the overall sentiment. The Republican Party has affiliated itself with the spiritually devout. That doesn’t look, demographically speaking, like a very good idea if you look at the age stats on the Bible-pounding whitefolks crowd, but it’s my understanding that blacks and hispanics are less agnostic and possibly more socially conservative than the whilte folks who tend to vote Democratic (this often being to the dismay of the liberal Dems, but such voters have not deserted the Democratic party in droves).
I picture folks from not just just hispanic and black but some other Christian-centric minority groups tuning in to the election campaigns and thinking they like some of what the Republicans are saying about traditional values, but they don’t like the reputation of being “not the party for minorities” that clings to the Republicans, and some of the blather about immigration sounds like codewords for racism and ethnocentrism as policy. You might sell them on the idea that affirmative action is tokenism and that Republican policies that are truly blind to your demographics are better for their family. But not if you don’t do something to send the signal “We are for you folks, we are your party, hop on board”.
Ignore the racial aspect for a moment, and consider whether they would attend a debate at Berkeley. There’s no one to convert. The other candidates certainly aren’t seeking to win over anybody in attendance, they just don’t have similar campaign budgets and want that shred of freebie publicity.
When is a group “special interest” and when is it just another demographic?
I guess what I’m wondering, what makes this debate more “special interest” than one held at, say, the University of Miami or Harvard? These are predominately white institutions, not necessarily reflective of America economically or culturally.
I actually think general-issues debates are kind of boring, if only because the questions are well-known and the answers are all scripted. The candidates’ entire platforms are built on general issues.
But this is free television publicity. You’d think even if they didn’t care for the people in the audience, they’d want to still win over anyone tuning in on TV.
McCain said they get at least one debate invitation a week, and often more. You can’t do them all. If all you want is free TV time, then you pick the ones that will have the largest audience. Was this among the largest?
I had the debate on while I was working out last night, figured I’d hear what they had to say. While it was a predominantly black audience there were certainly plenty of white people there as well, it’s not like they were up in front of the Black Panther leadership council or something.
While the questions that I heard were ones that I think are of particular interest to blacks and hispanics they resonated with me as well (middle-class white guy) - voting rights, the war in Iraq, incarceration rates of Americans, education and jobs, etc.
I am not a Republican but I didn’t see or hear anything that struck me as potentially “scary” to one of the candidates who didn’t show up; they were being asked good, relevant questions by the audience and moderators. It’s not like John McCain would have been put on the spot to name his ten favorite African-American poets. I’m not sure why those guys didn’t show up but I will guess it was a combination of things:
Prior engagements.
Feeling that they aren’t going to get a lot of the black vote anyhow so why bother.
Concern that they’d look totally out of touch with the audience they were speaking to.
Ironically enough, the guy who struck me as the biggest crazy wingnut on stage was Alan Keyes. I’ve read some of the stuff he’s said before but seeing him speak was interesting.
No, but doesn’t it seem really like it would bring good PR to the party?
The party is seen as a harborer of racists, bigots, and the clueless. Everyone knows this. And Bush & Friends haven’t done a good job of changing anyone’s minds.
Seems like at least showing up to the joint would have been a way of doing this. If that’s not important, then maybe what they say about Republicans is true.
I think the Republicans would be well served to debate before a black audience. However, I think such a forum ought to be well-run, and Tavis Smiley ain’t the guy to do this. He is undeniably partisan, and when he hosted the Democratic debate he explicitly took all of the question themes from his book. That’s commercializing the event in a pretty explicit way.
Using a less partisan figure like Bernard Shaw or Juan Williams would diffuse these concerns.
Still, these considerations ought to be weighed against the PR hit that ensues when we skip out. And it is clear that there will be one from this.
I would like to ask the Democrats of the board, though, what substantial difference there is between Republicans skipping this debate and Democrats boycotting the planned one on Fox News? As far as I can see, there isn’t much of one, apart from the racial politics component.
Well, I think there’s a difference between refusing to be a part of something and telling people why beforehand, and refusing to be a something but not giving a good (or believable) explanation.
I’d have more respect for the no-show Republicans if they had just said, “We don’t like Tavis”. Shoot, I don’t really like Tavis. But even if they stayed away because of Tavis, they didn’t have to slight the black Republicans who were involved with this thing.
Two somewhat related possibilities that come to mind. Either being/appearing racist is a part of how one gets to the top in the Republican party in the first place. Or, the front runners are thinking of winning this election instead of getting cred for the next, and are scared of alienating the Republican base.
Referring to my answer above, it is undeniably true that top-tier Republicans would have a lot to lose, potentially, by appearing at the Smiley event. Even if it was an event they wanted to do, which it surely was not, they risked a potentially embarrassing moment or lending credibility to a candidate in the second tier. That is why all top-tier candidates will limit appearances of this type.
Second-tier candidates literally have nothing to lose and everything to gain, so you tend to see them at all sorts of events.
This goes for the Democrats as well, incidentally. In the Democratic Fox News debate I mentioned, Sen. Joe Biden stateted that he would be there. What did he have to lose?
Fox News doesn’t vote, for one thing. I suspect the refusal was a result of negative coverage for the past six years. If Republicans refused to attend a debate sponsored by MoveOn.org, I don’t think anyone would think badly of them.
Why do you say they’d risk an embarrassing moment? Do you mean a hard question? A criticism of Bush is that he seldom puts himself in a position where he has to answer hard questions, so don’t you think a Republican candidate able to do this would get brownie points?
You’re demanding a lot from me. I already said they should debate before black audiences.
Still, I think you have to understand how much just going out in public is risky for political candidates anymore. Not long ago George Allen was on the cover of the American Spectator being touted as the next conservative president. These days he holds no elective office, and it is a pretty safe bet that whatever is in his future, it isn’t the presidency.
And this was a man with a reasonably good legislative and gubernatorial record when it came to race.
While these debates may change no minds if everything goes right, they sure can if things go wrong - if a flub or misstatement is made. Therefore candidates try to limit appearances, ensure terms favorable to them, and do many other things to neutralize this risk.
One of these things may well be lining up a moderator more fair than Tavis Smiley. That seems reasonable on the face of it. I hope that is what they do, and hold a debate at some time in the future of this sort. Otherwise, they feed a perception that the Republicans earned to some degree over the years,