Can any of the candidates with without the Black vote

[Classical_Liberal]

How come so many refused to support the Congressional Black Caucus when they were fighting for voting rights in Florida. Voting rights are the most imporatant civil rights issue of all.

note to mods: at the bottom of this article it says I can publish this as long as I acknowldge the source.

========================
agence france presse

Sunday, January 7 4:03 AM SGT

Congress confirms Bush victory after contentious session

WASHINGTON, Jan 6 (AFP) -

George W. Bush was officially declared winner of the 2000 US presidential
election Saturday after Electoral College votes were counted and certified
by Congress in a contentious session featuring a walkout by black
lawmakers.

Democratic Vice President Al Gore, who won a majority of the popular vote
in the bitterly contested November 7 election, announced the result in his
capacity as US Senate president, giving Bush 271 electoral votes to his
266, with one abstention.

Bush's running mate Dick Cheney was declared vice president-elect by the
same number of votes over Democrat Joe Lieberman.

"I am honored," Bush said in Texas as the lawmakers gathered.

"It's a humbling experience to become the president of this great land.
And I want to reiterate what I said before: I'm going to be the president
of everybody, whether they supported me or not. And people need to know
that; people need to know that this is going to be an administration that
will make decisions on what's best for America."

EDITED BY ADMIN: COPYRIGHT

[buff2]

1. Repukes are racists......

And the white southerners who vote for the repukes do so because of the racial issue. The stupid numbnuts vote against their own welfare,just to keep themselves segregated. I can see right through this bullshi*.The repuke CON-servatives want nothing to do with anyone who supports minorities.....that's why they hate democrats with a vengence. And as for the dems who refused to stand with the black caucus in 2000.....they should all lose their seats and be replaced with REAL democrats. I've had enough of those phony republicans in democrats clothing. Because the repukes are so blatantly racist,the dems are afraid to stand up to them. What we need more than anything in this country is a BLACK President. I know Al Sharpton would straighten out those hate filled Trent Lotts and Tom Delays....God if only he could win,I know things would be so much better.Too many people don't want a black President,so it will probably never happen in MY lifetime. What a shame.

[Classical_Liberal]

2. Kerry and Edwards were among those who refused to stand

with the CBC on voting rights. Gephardt was in on this decision. These are the candidates who along with Sharpton are bashing Dean. I don't think Sharpton has the character to be president. I like Mosley Braun better of the two black candidates. Yes they vote against there interests and what in the hell is wrong with getting them to see that? If enough of them do we might win some Southern States.

[Zynx]

3. No Dem can win without the black vote.

They are the essential portion of our coalition and they should not be taken for granted.

[CMT]

4. so far as I can tell no candidate has really enthused the black

vote in this election cycle. Heck, Zogby poll has even Sharpton leading among African-Americans with only 14% and Dean is in a statistical deadheat with him at 11%. But so far no candidate has developed a rapport with African-Americans the way Bill Clinton did. It is something that has to be worked on.

[TexasMexican]

5. Maybe

Arent blacks only 12% of the population? What percentage of voters do they make up?

Need more work with hispanics.

[CMT]

6. within the democratic party

they make up more than 12% of the voting population. For instance in South Carolina they will be nearly half the voters. Now I agree that we need to work on the Latino vote but believe it or not, African-American turnout is still higher than Latino and African-Americans deserve as much consideration as any voting bloc.

[TexasMexican]

7. Fair enough.

So does anyone have any numbers about what percentage of voters are black, and hispanic, and whatnot.

[newyawker99]

15. Hi TexasMexican!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast:

[Jane Eyre]

8. No way

Democrats cannot win without getting the black vote. Period.

What that means is that the Democratic candidate has to motivate the black voters to turn out. Bush Jr. got even less of the black vote than his daddy did, but it wasn't for lack of trying. Black voters are the most consistently Democratic voting block there is and there is no evidence that the Republicans are making significant headway in their efforts to attract black voters. Black voters may not vote for the other party, but they will stay at home if the candidates do not appeal to them.

Bill Clinton knew how to relate to both black voters and white Southern voters. When it gets down to it, working class folks of all colors have the same basic issues. Howard Dean was trying to express that when he made the confederate flag comment. The problem is that Dean does not have the cultural background to understand how explosive that comment was.

[Classical_Liberal]

11. Excuse me? Edwards said the same thing.

this issue was just Demogogued. In fact I have heard Edwards specifically site the flag in reference to culture war issues as being frivolous and killing us in the South. Furthermore Edwards echoed Wallace in stating we don't need any northerners coming down here and telling us what to do. Last time those comments were made in a political context in the South it wasn't in support of civil rights and nobody pounced on it, much to my regret!

[JackSwift]

9. African Americans will vote Democratic by better than

a 9 to 1 margin this coming fall. More than anyone else, African Americans see through the political process.

[CMT]

10. that's true, but

the question is about turnout. Gore won in 2000 with a huge turnout among African-Americans and I still don't see any candidate yet who is causing the kind of enthusiasm that Bill Clinton or Al Gore had. It's not to say they won't. Like many of us they might vote in strong numbers just to get rid of Bush, but I would hope we can carve a message which will cause true excitement about wanting to vote.

[Tinoire]

16. What's worse

is that Gore didn't really have the African American vote. Shartpon and Jackson led a last-minute campaign that went door to door pleading with and begging people to vote for Gore. I was part of it and it wasn't an easy task. But it was doable and we knew we could do it. I don't see this happening for Dean because he's made several important faux-pas to the AA community. Gore only had one minor one and it wasn't on this magnitude. In the interest of a few votes, Dean has woken up some sleeping dogs he had been advised to let sleep. The confederate flag is a lose-lose issue for Democrats unless you condemn it and not only did Dean say that it was a local, not federal, issue (same position as Bush) but he gave it tacit approval. Whether he meant to or not is not the issue. The issue is perception and that perception isn't going to go away without some fancy, deft foot-work. Plus he's going to need to stop acting as if he's the only candidate talking about race and some kind of expert on it.

Frankly, frankly, Dean supporters please listen to us- you have no idea how unseemly it is and how insulting the whole thing is becoming. If you don't want people to start calling Dean "carpet-bagger" or "scallywag" (and this has already started) PLEASE GET THE TONE TURNED DOWN.

[Classical_Liberal]

17. If you called me a carptebagger or a scalywag, I would be honored

Tinoire you are a nice person, but it is really unbelievable that you criticize someone for using the rebel flag in their speech because they insulted African Americans, then have the nerve to call him carpet bagger and scalywag. The carpet baggers and the scalywags were friends of Blacks in the south. Those prejoritives were used by Confederate sympathizers to describe abolitionist. Granted Blacks may have expressed public outrage about them to keep their jobs, but in private they benefited and voted for them. Carpet Bagger was used as a prejoritive for abolishonists who voluteered for the freedman's bureau. One from my stae in Iowa established Texas A&M University as as the first desegregated University in Texas. ScalYwag was the term used for black politicians that had been elected by the freed slaves to serve in government.


Now Tinoire, we know you like Kucinich, but do you think maybe you advocacy is turning to malice toward those who are not him, and are not for him? Do you think that is helpful?

[Cleita]

12. Duh....

No candidate can win without the African/America, Hispanic, Asian, Native American, etc. etc. etc. vote, and did I not mention the White vote?

I think your question should be, "What are we going to do to fix our election system, so that no voter is disenfranchised?"

[angee_is_mad]

13. You are a Fan?

So you are a fan of the congressional black causas, when Dean makes a faux pas? I wonder how many posts you made about this issue before the confederate flag issue? Wondering minds would like to know!

[Classical_Liberal]

14. The greg palast BBC ram file has been part of my sig

on usenet practically since it happened. I post as Jenn on alt.politics.democrats.d

http://groups.google.com/groups?as_q=Palast&safe=images&ie=UTF-8&oe=utf-8&as_ugroup=alt.politics.democrats.d&as_uauthors=Jenn&lr=&hl=en