Polls show
Blacks `Like` Bush
(but do Republicans like them?)
-Earl Ofari Hutchinson-

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Bring Us Together, Mr President The President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, also known as PEPFAR, is America's initiative to combat the global HIV/AIDS epidemic and is now part of the Global Health Initiative. Begun under Bush in 2004, PEPFAR has, since then, committed more than $30 billion to funding for the AIDS epidemic. PEPFAR continues to represent the largest financial commitment by a single country to responding to HIV and AIDS worldwide.

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Old time chivalry and courtesy
Secretary of State
just simple kindness ~ greeting

Blacks `Like` Bush

But Do Republicans Like Them?

At first glance the new poll from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies that shows that more than 40 percent of Black voters like Republican presidential candidate George W. Bush seems preposterous. The supreme article of faith in American politics is that Blacks are the ultimate Democratic party loyalists.
In recent presidential elections, the Democratic candidate has grabbed 80 to 85 percent of the Black vote. Since less than fifty percent of whites vote for Democrats, this cinch Black vote is the cushion the Democrat presidential contender must have to win the White House.
Despite this idee fixe in American politics there are good reasons why Black leaders and Democrats should not ignore or ridicule the Center' poll. The Center is no fly by night outfit. It is the one of the nation's oldest and most respected Black think tanks. Many elected officials and political analysts rely on its polls and surveys to gauge the mood of African-Americans. Another reason to take the poll seriously is that Blacks are more prosperous than ever and more conservative than many think. Two recent polls by the Center confirm this.
It found that for the first time ever more Blacks than whites claimed they were better off financially in 1998 than the year before. It also found that the a majority of Blacks favor stiffer sentences for drug use, violent crime, and three strikes offenses, and generally support school vouchers.
Finally, Black leaders must know that many Blacks reflexively vote Democratic not because of any inherent believe that the Democrats offer everything for them, but because they feel that the Republicans offer nothing for them. And Republicans have no one but themselves to blame for this. They have blown every chance they've had to attract more Blacks to their ranks.
The Colin Powell debacle in the 1996 presidential election was a near textbook example of how Republicans have mastered the knack of turning Black voters from potential political friends into enemies. The general was universally liked by Blacks and non-Black voters, liberals, moderates and even many conservatives. But he never got out of the Republican box.
The major conservative groups ganged up on him and threatened to wage war against him if he actively sought the Republican nomination. The general didn't have the right stuff for many in the Republican party. In a twinge of guilt, perhaps, the insiders insisted that Powell deliver the keynote address at the convention, and it was impressive. However, the GOP mistreatment of Powell hurt themselves most of all. Had the party had embraced Powell -- and had he actively stumped for the Republican presidential nominee, it would have forced large numbers of Blacks to listen and ponder the party's political message.
This would have posed deep political peril for the Democrats. Blacks make up a big part of the population in the states that control the majority of the nation's electoral votes. But Republicans mistreat Black voters for another reason. They, like most Americans, buy the myth that Blacks are doctrinaire Democrats.
For nearly a half century following Reconstruction the Democratic Party was the party of segregation and Jim Crow. Blacks by necessity were staunch Republicans. The first dozen Black elected congressional officeholders were Republicans. During the Depression Blacks leaped at FDR's promise of jobs, and relief and voted overwhelmingly Democratic. But they did not totally abandon the Republicans.
In 1956, Republican president Dwight Eisenhower sent the first civil rights bill since Reconstruction to Congress. The same year, Ike grabbed forty percent of the Black vote to win reelection. In 1960, Richard Nixon also received a sizable percentage of the Black vote against John Kennedy. The Democrats got the Black vote back in 1964 partly because LBJ made good on his civil rights pledge. But also because Blacks feared that Republican candidate Barry Goldwater's platform of "states rights" sent a strong signal that Blacks were not wanted in the party.
Blacks got the same negative signal from Nixon. Powell criticized his former bosses Ronald Reagan and George Bush for not showing more sensitivity on racial matters. Despite the three decade-long cold shoulder from Republicans, many prominent Blacks such as Powell and Alan Keyes still vigorously support the party. And in the few places where Republicans have made any kind of real attempt to outreach to Black voters they have significantly boosted their vote total among them.
Bush has a golden opportunity to snatch the political and ideological blinders from the eyes of Republican leaders and change the perception that his party is nothing more than a cozy, good ole white guys club. If he does that he will find that many Blacks will join the club. If he blows the chance no matter how many Blacks say they like him, they will again dutifully pull the Democratic lever in 2000.

Earl Ofari Hutchinson is a nationally syndicated columnist and director of the National Alliance for Positve Action. email:ehutchi344@aol.com

According to Thomas Sowell, people who identify themselves as conservatives donate money to charity more often
than people who identify themselves as liberals. They donate more money and a higher percentage of their incomes.

Update on Bush: April 2001 - according to a recent poll in the Wall Street Journal, Bush's actual approval rating among Blacks has risen from 13 percent in January to 33 percent April 2001.

Update on Bush: 2002 - Jet Magazine declare that President Bush is at the height of his popularity with Blacks.

Blacks who cast their ballots against Bush in the November 2000 election are now giving him a big vote of confidence since the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and the Pentagon, according to the results of public opinion polls.

A recent Gallup survey found that more than two-thirds of Blacks approved the way Bush is handling his job as president, and one conducted in early October found that Bush's approval ratings among Blacks exceeded 80 percent. A recent New York Times/CBS News poll also found that nearly three out of four Blacks approved of Bush's performance.

Update on Bush: 2003 - for those who say that the erstwhile 'moderate' Bush is now pandering to the hard right with unconscionable tax cuts to the wealthy, be it remembered that the President kept his promise of adding prescription drug coverage to Medicare.

2010 Triumph
Allen West victory
Lt. Col Allen West

If you love jobs
don't hate those
who make jobs possible!

Friends of Diversity

agoodblackman.com is a web site dedicated to loving, honoring, uplifting and celebrating Black men by providing a place of information and inspiration.
Go there ~ and rediscover a legacy of excellence.

Dr. King preached it in the 60s, Rev. Jackson wrote a famous article on it in the 70s. Endemic racism is to blame for much, but not all. Personal responsibility begins at home. Black men must again lead their families. They must role model the youth.
Be proud ~ Be the man God wants you to be.

Are white liberals writhing with nervousness these days as they observe the emergence of articulate black conservatives as a potent political force? A phenomenon of coalition-building that helped Bush modestly may one day spell political disaster for the left (out). Women joining hands with minorities.

Harbinger of things to come? ~ possible nemesis for white liberalism

A season of healing in the Old South ~ is it time to quit scapegoating the red states for all of American history?

Tea Party Triumphs surprise the media ~ do victories (2010) betoken an upsurge in conservative fortunes just around the corner?

George W. Bush : a legacy of caring for the African AIDS suffering (his intervention saving perhaps 10 million lives)

The Bible urges compassion and mercy toward the poor (Powell was right) Compassionate conservatism is not a "liberal" plot. The dittoheads flat missed the point of Sunday School.

Michael Taube (2013) - The real Reagan record on civil rights he signed the MLK Day into law

Conservative pundit Charles Krauthammer on MLK stature ~ the greatness of the King legacy seems only to grow as the years go by

Whither Republicanism : THE "grand old party" of Lincoln now redeemed (by KKK ideals) from Lincoln and Liberalism

Republican "lynching" of Lincoln - exposes their real (latent) racism & misogyny - Lincoln of Illinois was the liberal (n-word) red states hated most

Sarah Palin infuriates the good ol boys ~ (Sorry Rush, you're flat wrong about Sarah!) Can a pretty girl help show America the way back to greatness?

Palin shines for blogger group in Vegas ~ a new breed of activists (online) is just what America needs -- citizen journalists

Why Conservative Women Are 'Prettier' Than Liberal Ladies - Lindy West on "pretty princess news" (the more feminine she is, the more apt to be Republican)

Values and Personal Responsibility ~ do the old conservative principles have a fighting chance in our relativistic, 'anything-goes' era?

Islam and the West are intertwined through history. Quit blaming Bush for his pro-Arab alliances (which lopsidedly help America)

Please President Obama ~ Use your eloquent "bully pulpit" to expose the persecutions in Darfur

George Bush holding AIDS stricken child in Ghana

George Bush's Africa AIDS Achievement Big But Ignored

December 2, 2011
World Health: At a star-studded gala Thursday, President Obama drew big praise from AIDS activists and NGOs for expanding AIDS-fighting programs. But the real accomplishment rests with his predecessor, President Bush.
After quietly helping to save 30 million lives from the scourge of AIDS across the African continent, it would seem that higher honors would be in store for Bush, whose AIDS initiatives there have been an astonishing success.
Obama, to his credit, acknowledged Bush in his World AIDS Day speech Thursday, as have serious-minded Africa advocates including rock singer Bono.
But among the garden-variety NGOs, media elites or activist groups, Bush gets little credit. While President Bush was in Zambia to begin a new effort to save lives on a women's anti-cancer initiative, the increasingly unhinged Amnesty International was busy screeching for Bush's arrest over there for his supposed "war crimes."
The fact remains that Bush saved millions of lives, not just the 50 million Muslims he brought freedom to, but the 30 million Africans he helped to save from AIDS.
He never got recognition for one of the most successful foreign aid initiatives ever, certainly not the Nobel Peace Prize President Obama won for doing nothing in 2009. Bush's accomplishment should be better known.
A decade ago, Africa was literally dying. While the rest of the world advanced through free market reforms in the last two decades, Africa was left out, in no small part because so many of its people were either dying of AIDS or expecting to die. This curse made development or hope in the future nearly impossible.
Full IBD Editorial
Obama praises Bush
Even Hillary defends GWB

Thomas Sowell

Aleister Crowley once (somewhat wryly) commented:
'Part of the public horror of sexual irregularity so-called is due to the fact that everyone knows himself essentially guilty.'

Great GOP leaders saw government as source for constructive good

Republican sex scandals - does "Judge Not" apply here?

Pray for those in Authority (supporting the president)

Women on the right more feminine, stylish, demure?

TEA PARTY - why are conservative gals so hot?

'Sexy Republican women' phenomenon

you-tube: Are Republican women sexier?

Palin blogger lays out case (sexy GOP gals)

Jedidiah Bila - talk about hottie on the right

Fox babes - feminine - and FOXY

Hottest Conservative Women In The New Media

Defending a big-tent Republican (Bush # 41)

UPLIFTMENT: A mother's prayer

What happened to Powell?

Hot conservative women

Meet Herman Cain (2011)

blame game: was 2008 crash really Bush' fault?

When Bush took over in 2000 he took charge after Clinton's penny-pinching. BUSH stepped up and confidently, freely began spending money on needful, important expenditures and allocations. With boldness and strength, Bush did what he had to do, spending vigorously and courageously, and ignoring the naysayers and nervous nellies. So yes, a somewhat large deficit was the result. Bush had the optimism and vision to believe in the future. Maybe we should thank him, instead of giving him flak.

We have a responsibility that when somebody hurts,
government has got to move. [President Bush, 2002]

When George Dubya went out on a limb

Ground Zero - New York City

Post Script to 9 - 11

Usama masterminded 9-11 attacks

Love Your Enemies - but kill bin Laden?

Whatever happened to the Republicans?

Richard Nixon

It's probably not very wrong to state that of the presidents since World War II, none have experienced such a "fall from grace" in the public's memory than Richard Nixon. Much of his wounds were self-inflicted. Suspicious and secretive by nature, a loner by disposition, cunning and shrewd by inclination, Nixon was ready made for the role of "villainy" in the eyes of his enemies.

Watergate. After the betrayal by John Dean, and the inadvertent revelation of the taping system by Butterfield, the damage had been done. But it was the dogged and relentless determination of Woodward and Bernstein that laid the groundwork. Nixon's reputation fell like a stake of cards.

But how fair are we? Looming over all the rest of his image were difficult issues that generation was forced to deal with. Communism and the Cold War. Civil Rights and the coming of age of "the seventh son" (black man in America). Nixon was right in the middle of it.

Few would dispute that the reviling Nixon endured was any match for that heaped upon Lincoln. But Nixon's human sins, his hubris, his stubbornness -- were no less a part of his downfall than those of Lincoln, or (for that matter) Jefferson or Washington or Jackson. Even shining heroes like Martin Luther King, Jr. had their feet of clay.

Now comes the revelation that Nixon condoned abortion for white women whose careless sexual liaisons with Negroes resulted in a pregnancy. (Ahh those blasted tapes!!)

History will surely take into account other factors and strengths, and these embarassing quirks will be seen in somewhat less stark perspective. Nixon's shrewdnes and cunning were actually sharp assets in his geo-political outlook. He was a weighty rival of the Soviet menace. He was equal to the task of his China overture.

On Civil Rights, his own inclination ultimately found a voice in the apt Moynihan cliché, benign neglect. He seemed to want to offer a green light to both the emergent (full-fledged) economic citizenship of black Americans, while also aiming for the erasure of the long-lasting stigma on white southerners. Thus his known support for judges who enforced Civil Rights law, while also favoring the "personal responsibility" and pro-family (self-help) goals from within the black community. He wound up befriending dozens of the successful blacks, the socalled Talented Tenth. (Nowadays that Tenth is more like two-thirds!!) Sorry, maybe not quite that high.

The political side to that personal-responsibility logic was controversial, because it came across as a heavy-handed law-and-order conservatism. Nixon's view was that the marginalized and underprivileged, whether they realize it or not, truly desire to stand on their own two feet, and want to achieve success or "self-actualization" on their own. So in this important sense, our entitlement hand-outs may be doing the recipients a disservice. "To be kind, we must seem harsh."

In some respects, there is an irony regarding the irrational rage with which many liberals reacted to Richard Nixon. Economist Charles Morris notes that: Nixon's social conservatism, his conspicuous anti-communism and harsh law-and-order traditionalism, obscures the fact that "by contemporary definitions he was among the most liberal of presidents."
As president, Nixon must be credited with:

the greatest expansion of Social Security benefits since the program's inception under FDR.
with Quaker roots, he felt that racism was the greatest moral failure of the United States, yet he was tormented by the problem of ending deeply entrenched patterns - smoothly and peaceably.
he created the first affirmative action programs at the Federal level, which soon spread to other public agencies and to virtually all major corporations.
in economics he was a Keynesian through and through, favoring top-down management of the economy and fiscal levers to balance growth, boost demand, and keep inflation in check.
Nixon pushed for comprehensive health insurance and very nearly succeeded before the intense partisanship of Watergate overwhelmed him.

Nixon's Comprehensive Health Insurance Plan, which included universal coverage for the working poor and the unemployed (replacing Medicaid) was killed by organized labor, which was hoping for a better deal after the next election. It never got it. [from Arena Stage magazine]

Ronald Reagan

Charles R. Morris, a sober economist and sometimes prescient forecaster, gives Reagan credit. Morris states: "My personal belief is that the 1980s shift from a government-centric style of economic management toward a more markets-driven one was a critical factor in the American economic recovery of the 1980s and 1990s. But the breadth of the current [2008] financial crash suggests that we've reached the point where it is market dogmatism that has become the problem, rather than the solution. And after a quarter-century run, it's time for the pendulum to swing in the other direction."

Beser a guter soyne eyder a shlekhter fraynd
Better a good enemy, than a bad friend
[Yiddish saying, eastern Europe]