Race inside the race

The Republican Party and George Bush are trying to be this season’s
Rainbow Coalition. Making the first explicit major GOP play for black
support in recent memory, Bush spoke at the NAACP’s national convention
last week. Republican candidate Bob Dole passed up the opportunity last
time, conveying what has been the Republican attitude towards black
America for some time: Lincoln emancipated you. What more do you
want?

Bush, however, has a different message, wisely updated in recognition
of the trend that has many younger African Americans unenthusiastic
about watertight black allegiance to the Democratic Party. His appeal
was essentially this: OK, we haven’t done that well by you, but let’s
face it, we haven’t been trying. The Democrats have and look where
that’s gotten you.

Bush has a point — even if it is nothing other than a shrewd
calculation about how much less magnetism Al Gore will have with black
voters, as compared to Bill Clinton.

Clinton’s own “farewell address” to the NAACP was, as reported, a
hero’s welcome. A poor white son of the South, Clinton’s affection for
and from blacks — in spite of the fact that he won election in 1992
with a hard-nosed repudiation of the Democrats’ traditional embrace of
the black cause — is genuine. Poor blacks and poor whites have their
poverty in common. Racism and political opportunism don’t always
supersede that.

Al Gore, on the other hand, is a son of the Southern political
aristocracy. A liberal to be sure, but his third-rate imitation of a
Baptist preacher for the NAACP was nothing short of nauseating. He got a
standing ovation, which made the spectacle all the worse. When the vice
president imitates a man moved by the spirit, black Democrats like the
NAACP know that it’s time to get religion. Especially when it’s on
national TV.

Ralph Nader’s appearance at the NAACP convention was a milestone.
It’s been eight years since an independent presidential candidate spoke
there and Perot’s 1992 appearance misfired badly. Nader made an explicit
appeal for black people to become independents, a message which could
resonate this year more than in the past. This requires however,
directly challenging the black Democratic leadership from Congressman
Charles Rangel and the Congressional Black Caucus to Rev. Jesse Jackson
and Rev. Al Sharpton. They are the licensed brokers of the black vote
and regularly deliver it to the Democrats, much to the disempowerment of
black America. Nader has the potential to make that challenge.

Now, to the race inside the race. The presidential race — that’s the
one between Gore and Bush — has Bush ahead in some key battleground
states and Ralph Nader poised to wreck Gore’s shot at the White House.

But within the independent movement a brawl of significant
proportions is shaping up, too. This is the one inside the Reform Party
where the presumptive nominee — Pat Buchanan — finds himself facing a
more formidable challenge for the nomination than he (or most anyone)
expected from John Hagelin, a pro-reform independent political activist
for close to a decade who founded the Natural Law Party and has
advocated and litigated aggressively for opening up the electoral
process.

Buchanan had planned by this time to have a) no opponents in the
Reform mail and Internet primary; b) my endorsement which secured
support from non-aligned independents in the party; c) uncontested
control of the National Convention; and d) polls showing him well ahead
of Nader.

Instead, he a) has a primary challenge from Hagelin, whom while the
underdog has been underestimated by Buchanan; b) lost my endorsement
after he sabotaged the core principle of our alliance, which was
building a left-center-right coalition around a political reform agenda
inside and outside the party. Instead, Buchanan went whole hog for a
unilateral party takeover driven by his social conservative brigades; c)
he first partnered with Perot-allied Dallas-led forces to throw out
Jesse Ventura and Chairman Jack Gargan to assure his control of the
National Committee and the National Convention, but bungled the alliance
by strong-arming and double dealing his supposed friends such that he
now has a full scale party revolt on his hands; and d) in failing to
carry through on his pledge for a broad left/right campaign centered on
challenging the corruption of the political system, he narrowed his
appeal and stalled his own run. In contrast, Nader is campaigning on
nothing but opposing the globalist corporate takeover of the U.S.
government, which is why he is at 8 percent in the polls with increasing
momentum. And Buchanan’s problems don’t stop there.

Hagelin, who I endorsed after my resignation from the Buchanan
campaign, has charged that Buchanan may have improperly submitted names
of voters for primary balloting. After attempting to gain access to the
voter list in order to campaign it was discovered that Buchanan had
imposed a secret deal on the chairman of the Presidential Nominating
Committee to restrict release of the list. The party’s Executive
Committee voted 7-2 to provide Hagelin with access to the list and to
allow a process for verifying the legitimacy of the Buchanan voters.
Buchanan has threatened to sue. Meanwhile, Hagelin has gained ground by
exposing Buchanan’s supposed corruption. This has turned the primary
into a referendum on whether the Reform Party will survive as a populist
force against corruption — reflecting the spirit of the movement which
created it — or devolve into a corrupt Buchanan Party.

What’s the connection between the black vote in the contest for the
White House and the battle for the soul of the Reform Party? It boils
down to this. Lots of Americans are questioning the value of their
partisan allegiances. But breaking an old political tie — like black
loyalty to the Democrats — requires that there be somewhere to go that
doesn’t suffer from the same corruption. That’s why the fight in the
Reform Party is so important. It’s about whether there will be any
incentive for Americans — including black people — to join up.

Political corruption hurts the average American because it means
policy is being shaped and resources are being used to benefit special
interests and their special representatives — i.e., most of our elected
officials.

Corruption disproportionately impacts on blacks and other oppressed
people — who are the most politically disempowered to begin with.
Consequently, black America has a strong interest in an independent
anti-corruption movement.

This is not unlike the recent police beating of a black suspect in
Philadelphia. Many have said that the incident stems from the racism of
the police. Others dispute this by pointing to how several of the police
officers involved are black. But both positions miss the point. The
incident is not about race. It’s about police brutality. When that
occurs, blacks are disproportionately victimized.

Ultimately, the problem is that police have license to use excessive
force just as politicians and the two parties have license to corrupt
policy and politics. Let’s take away the license.