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_ OPINION The Chronicle tRMisr H. Pitt Publisher/Co-Founder CiAiHi Pitt Business Manager Ericka Asiury Office l^fcnager r. KCVIM WaLKCR Managing Editor Kay Stuitz Production Supervisor 7 - NiUOMI Ncwipspw PuWteters Association North Carolina Pratt Aaaocmiion Certified Audit CAC of Circulation Amalgamated * Publishers, Inc. ?I II? Mi 3 I File Photo James Thompson inserts his ballot after voting at the 14th Street Recreation Center last week. ?w Lesser 01 two evils? * Political analysts are partly blaming apathy on the part of African-American voters in the South for last week's embar rassing election results for Democrats. Apparently, since blacks decided to stay home. Democratic incumbent governors in South Carolina and Georgia were upset, and Florida Gov. Jeb Bush cruised in a race that was supposed to be tight. Lower than expected black voter turnout is also being credited with helping ' the Republicans regain control of the Senate. ' This newspaper has been a constant advocate for black folks going to the polls. The right to vote is a right that black folks fought and died for and, therefore, is one we should cherish just as much as our freedom. But no one should be scratching his or . her head trying to figure out why blacks stayed away. In one corner is the Democratic Party, which is so used to getting support from black folks that it doesn't even come and ask for it anymore. In the other corner is the Republican Party, which is big on talking about compassion and inclusiveness, but bad at practicing them. What is a black voter to do? Be taken for granted or be treated like he or she doesn't even exist in the first place? The Democratic Party has managed to hold onto its black base for the time being. About 80 percent of blacks were expected to cast votes for Democrats last week. But it is becom ing clear that the party will not be able to simply count on blacks supporting Democrats at the polls without good reasons. The Democrats have become experts at dangling carrots. The party has used key words in black circles, words like affirma tive action and inclusiveness. And most of the time that is enough to generate support. But blacks are waking up and smelling the coffee. They are seeing that they are not getting their votes' worth. Their neigh borhoods are getting worse, they are having to stretch their dol lars a lot further, and their children are still lagging behind their white classmates and are more likely to go to prison than to college. Some blacks are getting frustrated with the Democrats and switching over to the Republicans. But that will not be a path that many blacks will follow. . ?: Even Madison Avenue would be hard pressed to fix the pub lic relations problem that the Republicans have among blacks. The party has cheered on and immortalized outright bigots such as Jesse Helms and seems to have no qualms with the fact that the party is nearly lily white. Elizabeth Dole wanted to show so badly that her campaign was inclusive that she had to bus in her own black folks for a rally held for her recently at Salem Col lege (no blacks showed up on their own). J.C. Watts Jr.. the only black Republican in Congress, chose not run for another term. In his soon-to-be released book, he too is critical of his party. Black America is in a political Catch-22, so it should hot be a shock if African-Americans choose to voice their dissatisfac tion by simply staying home, although the community may pay i;in the long run for this apathy. Submit letters and columns to: Chronicle Mailbag, P.O. Box 1636. Winston-Salem. NC 27102 O Please print clearly. Typed letters and columns are preferred. If you are writing a guest column, please include a photo of yourself. We resen e the right to edit any item submitted for clarity or brevity. You also can e-mail us your letters or columns at: news@ wschronidecom. t? / mew ^ \ 7 I $>\V?S \ r ToWe^e | Jh V \Me3te /C, \ tcen... / I our familys i domestic seolrfiy alert i , inoj? /i*" ish |n040k>o,wr i f orwge hea-tvestlll I (gotajob I veujow scrapie ev I ~Z~Z (nested i blue intmt I l1vin& like I green an unindictep / : ceo i ?? j I <=ri ll It's the issues, dummy k Armstrong Williams j[ Guest Columnist The Republicans won nine of the 12 close Senate races Nov. 5. That didn't happen by accident. Those contests swung in the Republicans' favor because the president spent the last two weeks in a cam paign flurry. Everywhere he stumped, the local news ran an endless political loop. He gen erated excitement and atten tion. His very presence added kick to state politics. It shocked people into paying close attention. Privately, some handlers ' worried that the president was taking an unnecessary risk by stumping so visibly. They worried that he would lose credibility if the Republicans ended up whiffing in the Sen ate. They worried that signifi cant losses could expose Bush's 60 percent approval rating as nothing more than hangover from Sept. 11. Then a funny thing hap pened on Election Day. For the first time since 1934, the president's party picked up seats in the House and Senate during the midterms. And they did so because the president's ideas on taxes, his doctrines on Iraq and homeland security carried the day. What did the Democrats muster in retort? Very little. Fearful of standing against the president on Iraq and of losing Southern voters if they butted heads on Bush's tax cuts, the Democrats took to the defen sive and receded into a black hole from which they never managed to emerge. This is not a new pattern. When first elected, it was believed that that questions of legitimacy would preclude Bush from taking any bold policy steps. The thinking was straightforward: Congress was so equally divided that no leader could wield bipartisan support. With both sides will ing to dig in their heels and simply wait it out for another four years, the best the presi dent could hope for was a few ceremonial victories. Deeply sensitive to poll numbers, many political advisers rea soned that a few ritual victo ries would surely be better than tethering one to signifi cant losses on key issues. So the Democrats took their more controversial issues off the table and went on the defensive. Shockingly. Bush refused to be a toady. He circled the wagons around core issues like a universal missile defense shield, a refusal to entertain the Kyoto Treaty, a Patients Bill of Rights and tax cuts. What is most telling is Bush took definitive stands on contro versial issues such as faith based initiatives and stem cell research. Whereas the Democrats were busy consulting polls. Bush did something rather astonishing: He displayed genuine leadership. And a funny thing happened. His credibility increased, not decreased - a fact that was perfectly embodied by the midterm election results. Gone now are the ques tions about legitimacy. Gone are the innuendoes of intellec tual inferiority. The guy the Democrats painted as bum bling just kicked their butts on every major policy front. He did so by establishing clear doctrines on homeland securi ty, economy and foreign affairs. The Democrats had no such national messaged They offered no overarching ideas. Instead, they simply called Bush names. Most recently, Sen. Hillary Clinton derided him as "President Select." It's the oldest trick in the book: If you can't attack the issue, attack the personality. That is all the Democrats have right now. And that's why the "bum bling guy" just swept the elec tions. , Someone really ought to tell the Democrats, "It's the issues, dummy." www.armstronfiwilliams.com It's 1994 all over again Val Atkinson Jones Street (Note: Vul Atkins wrote this column immediately after the elections Nov. 5.) On that chilly Tuesday night in November of 1994. I recall standing in the lobby of the North Raleigh Hilton Hotel and watching monitors spew out election results. I couldn't believe my eyes and ears. Republicans were win ning everywhere. Republican political unknowns were win ning seats in North Carolina's 2nd and 4th Congressional Districts. Republicans were winning local races from county commissioner and school boards to District Court and Superior Court judge ships. \ They made tremendous inroads into the statewide ' judicial races and they won the N.C. House for the first time j in rememberable history. On the national scene they even 1 won the control of the House. This was the first time the Republicans had controlled the U.S. House of Representa tives in more tharl 40 years. Some of these gains weren't unexpected. Histori cally. the party in control of the White House usually loses congressional seats. But it's unheard of for a sitting presi dent to see his party gain seats during mid-term elections. This is precisely what hap pened Nov. 5. If things stay the way they are. it appears that the Repub licans will lose a few gover lors but will retain control of he U.S. House and take back control of the U.S. Senate. Ir North Carolina. Republican have held their own in the N.C. congressional delegation They replaced Jesse Helm with another Republican, anc Robin Hayes held on to his Kth District seat. And beyond that, it was a complete victory for the Republicans.(first of all they narrowed the Democrats' lead in the state Senate consider ably, and it was unsure at the time of this writing whethei the Republicans or the Democrats will control the N.C. House. In the judicial races it was a complete whitewash. Repub i licans managed to remove the i last remaining African-Ameri ; can from the N.C. Supreme Court (G.K. Butterfield). and i they removed two very quali | fied African-American women i from the N.C. Court of Appeals: Judge Wanda Bryant i aird Judge Loretta Biggs. This is retrogression at its worst. The Democratic Party | in general and black Democ rats in particular are going to have to start standing up for what they believe in or we'll all be pushed back into the sea of irrelevance. Stay tuned! Contact Val Atkins at JonesSlreet@nc .rr.com Biggt Butterfield Bryant
Winston-Salem Chronicle (Winston-Salem, N.C.)
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Nov. 14, 2002, edition 1
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