Philadelphia Tribune - Index

Philadelphia Tribune - Sunday, September 07 2008 - Index

Sunday, September 7, 2008 Page 5-A
McCain the maverick’ no longer exists
John McCain has an impresive
personal story. Imprisoned
y the North Vietnamese for
ive and a half years, mostly in
he infamous “Hanoi Hilton,”
e showed great courage,
esilience and reservoirs of
trength. It is the central narative
of his life, a theme he
eturns to again and again.
In choosing Alaska Gov.
arah Palin as his running
ate, McCain picked another
olitician with an interesting
ersonal narrative. Hers isn’t
eroic — as his is — but it is
till inspiring. A mother of five,
he overcame long odds to oust
he entrenched Republican
overnor in 2006. When she
nd her husband learned their
ifth child would be born with
own Syndrome, they didn’t
erminate the pregnancy.
hat’s a decision I and many
ther Americans find
dmirable.
McCain hopes those comelling
biographies will be
nough to take him and his
unning mate over the line in
ovember. Since personality
atters as much as (and
ometimes more than) poliies
— George W. Bush was
lected in 2000 because he
as Mr. Congeniality — the
rizona senator has decided
o give short shrift to issues
nd go all out on charming
bama, pay us a visit or we might not vote
With the Republican and
emocratic national convenions
finally behind us, we’re
bout two months away, now,
rom the end of what probably
as been the longest-running,
ost highly scrutinized, most
xpensive presidential camaign
in U.S. history, and it is
till not clear that Black voters
nd Black communities will
enefit significantly, or at all,
rom its outcome.
It’s not like we haven’t been
all up in it.”
You can’t go to a barbershop,
eauty parlor, backyard barbeue,
workplace water cooler or
ny other place where African
mericans gather without
earing heated discussions
bout the campaign.
What you hear mostly is that
o matter how bleak it may
ook with regard to having our
ssues addressed, all of that
ill be promptly taken care of
nce Sen. Barack Obama gets
nto the White House.
It’s said as if it is an indisutable
matter of faith. Only
he foolish, it seems, those who
on’t care much about their
ersonal well-being or about
eing ostracized from the Black
ommunity, have demonstratd
the courage to question this
ine of thinking.
Rather than “Yes we can,” it
eems that Black folks have
dopted a different slogan for
he Obama campaign: “I HOPE
e can, sometime in the
uture. After all the important
ecisions are made, then they
ill get around to us, and that
Chicago: We have a problem.
That’s the Mayday signal
Obama staffers were sending
to campaign headquarters
when they heard Gov. Sarah
Palin speak to the nation at the
Republican National
Convention late last week.
I’ll be the first to admit that
the bar was set pretty low for
Palin. Let’s face it – ever since
GOP presidential candidate
Sen. John McCain made the
announcement a week ago that
Palin would be his running
mate, many Americans were
scratching their heads, and I
heard Democrats in Denver
whispering that John McCain
had a “senior moment” and
that this was the worst vice
presidential pick in modern
American history.
I was in Denver when I heard
the news and was fresh off the
acceptance speech by
Democratic presidential nominee
Barack Obama, and I must
admit I, too, was surprised at
McCain’s pick. But after I did
personal stories.
“This election is not about
issues. This election is about a
composite view of what people
take away from these candidates,”
his campaign manager,
Rick Davis, told The
Washington Post last week.
So it’s no surprise McCain’s
acceptance speech on
Thursday night was heavy on
biography and short on policy
prescriptions. The short film
that introduced him offered a
romantic, Hollywood-esque
arc: A rambunctious young
man trying to earn his place
in a family of war heroes goes
off to the Naval Academy and
becomes a fighter pilot. He is
chastened by the torture he
endures at the hands of his
enemies; the young hero not
only survives but triumphs,
winning a seat in the U.S.
Senate. It’s quite a tale with
the added dimension of truth.
McCain seemed most comfortable
when he was speaking
of the ideals he embraced in
those years — honor, service
and courage. But he was oddly
lifeless and unconvincing when
he rattled off a laundry list of
domestic issues, touching on
school choice, health insurance
and taxes. That’s clearly
not where his heart is.
Even less persuasive was his
attempt to snatch the mantle
will be just fine.” I know that
seems long for a political
chant, but I am a first-hand
witness. I hear it every day.
Like I said, it’s not like Black
folks haven’t been trying. As an
example, the Joint Center for
Political and Economic Studies
informs us that of the total of
4,440 delegates to the
Democratic National
Convention, there were 1,079
who were Black.
That’s more than 24 percent
of all Democratic delegates and
twice the percentage that
Blacks constitute of the
national population. That
Black delegate number is also
the highest number and the
highest percentage in the
party’s history.
Is that working overtime for
Obama, or what?
On the other hand, the Joint
Center’s senior analyst, David
Bositis, also informs us that
out of 2,380 Republican delegates
who gathered in
Minnesota last week, only 36
were Black, or 1.5 percent of
all Republican delegates.
That number, said Bositis,
represented a 78.4 percent
decline since the 2004
Republican Convention, when
some homework, and called
some party activists, I came to
the conclusion that the
McCain-Palin ticket will be a
force to be reckoned with.
Palin’s acceptance speech
solidified my political instinct
that this was a good choice by
McCain. Let me tell you why:
First, Palin speaks many languages
fluently. Her native language
is that of a working
mom.
Regardless of what you may
think of her policy positions, I
am sure many women, and
especially those who are mothers,
can instantly relate to the
juggling of family and career
and the societal pressures that
many women face when entering
and exiting the professional
world.
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., attends a rally Friday in Cedarburg,
Wis. — AP PHOTO/MORRY GASH
of change from his rival,
Barack Obama. (How many
times did he use the word
“change?”) McCain is 72 years
old; besides, he is a card-carrying
member of the Republican
Party, which has held power
for the last eight years. It’s
hard to run as an insurgent if
you’ve been part of the establishment.
The aging war hero apparently
believes that he is still the
167 Black Republican delegates
made an appearance.
It’s not like you didn’t see the
odd Black face in the
Republican crowd as the cameras
“panned” through the convention’s
attendees last week,
but it was absolutely clear that
the Republican Party, at the
national level, and for purposes
of this presidential election,
has given up even on the
appearance of being committed
to Black voters and their
issues.
I guess it’s one of those “eye
for an eye” kind of things.
That effectively leaves the
full weight of the Black community’s
issues on the
Democratic Party. And, with
one out of four delegates at the
national convention, there
should be a solid and substantial
commitment by that party
to the things we need. Indeed,
there has never been a general
election major party presidential
campaign so directly
dependent for its success on
Black voters.
Make no mistake, now that
the political and racial lines
have been drawn, the
Republicans will absolutely be
“playing hardball” between
now and Nov. 4. It was clear
that the Republican leadership
had already reached that conclusion
when they selected
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin as
John McCain’s running mate.
Palin was selected to shore up
McCain’s conservative base, to
attract white female voters and
to represent small-town
I’ll bet you two paychecks
that the McCain campaign is
going to deploy her to battleground
states with the highest
percentage of women who have
not yet decided whom they will
maverick, the daring, even
swashbuckling, senator who
bucks a Republican machine
to serve the interests of the
people above the party — a
“Mr. Smith” played by John
Wayne instead of Jimmy
Stewart. But that McCain gave
up the good fight after his
crushing defeat at the hands of
Bush forces in the 2000
Republican presidential primary.
Since then, the maverick
America, as compared to urban
America.
If the Republicans hadn’t
found her already living in
Alaska, they would have had to
go into a laboratory and create
her. She is the ideal candidate
to carry the party’s newly refocused
right-wing conservative
message, to stay fixed on that
agenda and to not be distracted
at all by Black or urban concerns.
Don’t be confused. This
woman is very, very good at
what she does, and in an election
wherein the nation should
have long ago lost interest in
having another Republican
president follow George Bush
into office, she has managed to
make Republicans competitive
again, literally, overnight.
Here is the question ... given
that kind of anti-urban focus
by the national Republicans,
who are moving ever more
coldly and efficiently to lock in
their base, how will the
Democrats respond?
Because Black voters still look
at the political process and see
“fairness,” because “we are stuck
on emotional,” because “we are
stuck on making history,” we
expect, naively, that all the registered
Democrats will vote
Democratic and that all the registered
Republicans will vote
Republican.
Regrettably, in the real
world, that “ain’t always the
case.”
The fact is that people do
cross party lines during general
elections – especially when
vote for in this election.
Second, Palin is a hunter
who is a lifetime member of the
National Rifle Association.
Now, I know there are some
who get the hebee jebees about
one of the candidates happens
to be Black, no matter what
they tell the pollsters.
Philadelphia voters need look
back only as far as the 1999
General Election for mayor. In a
city with a nearly five-to-one
Democratic-to-Republican voter
registration, (even today, there
are 449,182 registered
Democrats in Philadelphia, as
compared to 100,959 registered
Republicans), John Street, the
Black Democrat in that race,
was only able to beat out Sam
Katz, the white Republican, by
about 7,200 votes.
That almost seems hard to
believe, but apparently tens of
thousands of registered
Democrats simply walked into
the booth and voted against
their own party.
In this national election, in
order for the Democrats to win,
the party is going to have to
embrace its base, comprised
largely of Black voters, in much
the same way that Republicans
have moved to embrace the
conservative Christian element
of their own party.
With the lines drawn so clearly,
the Democrats can’t afford not
to absolutely maximize their
Black and urban turnout.
What happened in
Philadelphia in the most recent
primary election is a perfect
case in point. Even though
Barack Obama took virtually
every predominantly Black
ward, he did not achieve his
own campaign’s turnout goals
in those same wards, and as a
direct result wound up losing
that thought, but you must
remember that when you get
out of the urban areas of
Philadelphia, New York and
San Francisco, there are a lot
of Americans who view hunting
and gun ownership as a way of
life.
In fact, it’s part of the culture
of the communities in which
they live, thus an essential part
of the fabric of who they are.
Palin speaks the hunting language,
and that could be a
huge advantage to the hunters
and rural voters who where
offended when they heard
Obama say to a group of supporters
in San Francisco that
many rural people “cling to
guns and religion.”
Third, Palin is a conservative
and she can fire up the
Republican base while McCain
spends his time speaking to
moderate to Democratic-leaning
voters. As a fiscal conservative,
a state maverick and a
pro-lifer, Palin most definitely
speaks the language of ideo-
the state of Pennsylvania.
The campaign, for whatever
reason, got overconfident and/or
complacent and left thousands of
all-important Black votes on the
table. The same scenario may
very well repeat itself in
November, in predominantly
Black voting districts, all across
the country.
If that happens, the “historic
campaign” and the prospect of
substantive Black social and
economic inclusion will both
be dead in the water.
Hey, I just saw on the
Internet this morning that
Barack Obama was in
Pennsylvania last night, in
Lancaster. I understand that
there are about 5,800 Black
people of voting age in
Lancaster, as compared to
470,000 Black people of voting
age in Philadelphia.
Please, somebody, send the
senator’s limo driver a
Mapquest printout with directions
to 52nd Street, to
Germantown Avenue, to
Susquehanna Avenue, to
Federal Street and to
Cheltenham Avenue.
Whether the Obama campaign
knows it or not, it’s time
to create a real sense of
urgency at the grassroots level,
and there is no better place to
do it, than in Philadelphia, the
biggest city in this most critical
“swing state.” — (AP)
A. Bruce Crawley is president
and principal owner of
Millennium 3 Management
Inc.
McCain picked the right one as his running mate
Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.,
and vice presidential candidate Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin, attend
a rally Friday in Cedarburg, Wis. – AP PHOTO/MORRY GASH
has set about ingratiating himself
to the same establishment
he now vows to fight. He has
adopted nearly every one of
Bush’s failed policies.
Don’t be fooled by Palin.
She’s just a fresh face to rev up
the culture wars. She opposes
abortion, even in cases of rape
and incest; she urged an
Alaska librarian to ban books;
she believes creationism
should be taught in public
schools; she asked ministry
students at her former church
to pray for a plan to build a
$30 billion natural gas pipeline
in the state, calling it God’s
will. In choosing her, McCain
caved in to the rigid Christians,
who now form the core of the
GOP.
Still, his gamble could well
pay off. Even in a year when
voters say they agree with
Democrats on most issues, the
polls still show the presidential
contenders virtually tied. It’s a
very close race.
No wonder. The John
McCain on display as he closed
his speech, speaking passionately
of duty and sacrifice, is
still a compelling figure. That
McCain, who has not always
been on display this season, is
a man who wants to resist partisanship,
a man who wants to
clean up corruption, a man
who would shrink from the
vicious attacks his campaign
has, in fact, run against
Obama. If voters believe in that
McCain and think that’s all the
country needs, he wins.
But if the campaign is fought on
the issues, McCain loses. That’s
why he stays away from them.
If you have editorial questions,
please contact Alan
McDermott at amcdermott
@amuniversal.com.
logues and movement conservatives
who are yearning for
their modern-day Ronald
Reagan.
Despite of some criticism
about her lack of executive
experience, which this author
thinks is a thin argument
because she has more than
Obama, it’s most likely a draw
in that they both have thin
resumes on this issue.
Nevertheless, Palin is and will
be a force to be reckoned with
over the next 50 days. She
proved to the nearly 40 million
people who watched her speech
that she is fearless and not afraid
to take on her critics.
She’s what I call a pit bull in
high heels, and she is deadly
good. She’s unapologetic and
commanding. We’ll see what
the American people decide
come Election Day.
Robert Traynham is the host
of Roll Call TV, which can be
seen on CN8, the Comcast
Network Sundays at 10 p.m.