Stanley Crouch
GOPers are clueless in making the most of issues that will draw black voters
http://www.NewsAndOpinion.com |
When President Bush signed a bill into law last week calling for the construction of a museum of black history in Washington, we
saw, once again, that the Republicans have no idea how to make the most of issues that will draw black voters.
Here you have something coming to fruition that Negroes have been trying to get done since 1915. For all those decades, nothing
happened. Now, with a Republican-run Congress, the museum is passed into law - yet you would almost have to be in the CIA to
know that such a thing happened. Bush signed the bill privately with no public ceremony whatsoever.
Only some numbskull would have planned it that way with no statement from the President, no orchestrated hoopla, no
celebration, no cameras, no spots on black radio, no press conference, no nothing. Very bad advice. Criminally bad.
I think this is the fault of the President's political adviser, Karl Rove, who works with an all-white staff and seems to have absolutely
no idea how to appeal to black people or how to take advantage of an action that could help build an alternative image of the
Republican Party.
The way that the White House played the black museum means there is almost no defense against Democratic adversaries. If
someone were to speculate that the reason for the almost secretive signing was that the Republican Party is afraid of alienating
Southern Republicrats or Southern rednecks (as opposed to Northern ones), what could the GOP say?
Here was an opportunity that was lost, one that gives an impression that may well be far from the truth but leaves a bitter
aftertaste.
Everyone with whom I have talked believes that the problem is that the White House is more attuned to symbolic relationships with
blacks than substantial ones because there is no one near the top who can tell those in charge, like Rove, how to avoid missing
opportunities.
After all, the White House made more of the President's decision to refurbish the home of Frederick Douglass than it made of
building this museum!
That is proof positive of how clueless the White House team is. Or as one white Republican woman said to me, "They may or may
not be racist, but they do not put much effort into winning over black votes. I believe they think that is impossible, which is why
they basically ignore black people."
Well, Mr. Rove, here's wishing you a white Christmas, just like the ones you've always known.
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JWR contributor and cultural icon Stanley Crouch is a columnist for The New York Daily News. He is the author of, among others, The All-American Skin Game, Or, the Decoy
of Race: The Long and the Short of It, 1990-1994, Always in Pursuit: Fresh American
Perspectives, and Don't the Moon Look Lonesome: A Novel in Blues and Swing. Send your comments by clicking here.
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