Ramblings' Journal

Black voters in GA starting to look at GOP courtesy of Herman Cain

Black voters across the state of Georgia are starting to look at the Republican Party, as a result of the candidacy of Herman Cain for the US Senate seat being vacated by Zell Miller.

Cain, owner of the Godfather's Pizza chain, has been running for the Senate on the Republican side of the ticket against current US Congressmen Mac Collins and Johnny Isakson, with the primary coming up this coming Tuesday.

A caller to Rush Limbaugh yesterday emphasized this swing to the right by some black voters.

RUSH: Now, look, I've been doing this show for 16 years, and every day -- well, not every day, but every week in these 16 years -- there will be an event happen that has made us think, "You know, the tide may be turning. There may be a shift going on, black votes going to Republican candidates," and it really hasn't happened. There's a percentage of 10-to-12% of the black population, which is middle and upper class, which has broken away from the traditional prescriptions of the civil rights coalition, the NAALCP, but the percentage isn't really growing. You're just hearing from different people in it. Now, I'm not trying to be negative about it. I think it's gonna happen at some point, because, like everybody else on the left, they're old. Their playbook is dying out. They haven't put any new plays or pages in it, and at some point, you know, being a membership of the Democratic Party power party table is not going to be that big a deal. I don't know how soon that's going to be, but the NAALCP is more firmly partisan than they have ever been.

CALLER: That's all they are.

RUSH: And to the extent that they're able to go out and marshal the traditional 88-to-90% of the black vote for the Democrat candidate, they still have that power.

CALLER: Well, the message that Herman is giving in black churches is asking them, you know, "Are you against abortion?" and they raise their hands, and "Are you for lower taxes?" and they raise their hands. He says, "Congratulations, you're all conservative Republicans," and when we get that message out that our core values are akin to their core values, and we get the real truth past the media, I think that turn will come and I hope it's now.

As conservative blacks get out into the community, the rest of black America is starting to see that we are not the "boogieman" or the "spook who sat by the door" that we have been made out to be by the "Soul Patrol."

As I said on a local Atlanta radio station this week, we are the same people standing next to them in line at the supermarket or the bank, sitting next to them in church and at the local PTA meetings.

And we know that black America wants the same things as the rest of America wants: safe streets, good schools, low taxes and a place to get a decent steak once in awhile.

Posted by mhking at July 17, 2004 08:14 AM