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Opening Arguments

Clueless

Poor Todd Rokita. The Indiana secretary of state is engaged in a probably futile attempt to extricate himself from his Imus moment:

Secretary of State Todd Rokita went on an Indianapolis radio talk show today to try to put to rest a controversy he created last week when he compared black voting support for Democrats to a master-slave relationship.
Rokita, a Republican in his second term as secretary of state, made the comment while speaking to an all-white audience at a Republican dinner in Daviess County last week. Some blacks, including in the state legislature, have expressed outrage at Rokita's comments. And several callers to the "Afternoons with Amos" show hosted by Amos Brown on WTLC-AM told Rokita that while they accepted his apology for what he called a sloppy choice of words, they also felt a public official needs to always be cognizant that words can hurt.
Rokita's slavery metaphor may have been thoughtless and inappropriate, but his frustation, and that of the Republican Party, is understandable. Why do 90 percent of blacks vote Democratic, and why does the GOP have such a hard time making inroads? It's not unlike the Democrats' apparently equally clueless frustration over evangelicals:
Then, a week later, the DNC celebrated Easter with another statement from Dean, including his definition of the holiday. "Easter Sunday is a joyful celebration. The holiday represents peace, redemption and renewal, a theme which brings hope to people of all faiths."

Dean's Easter statement seems to bend over backwards not to mention Jesus and demonstrates either a misunderstanding of the evangelical community or a fear of alienating other voting blocs with religious talk.

Blacks and evangelicals have at least one thing in common. The people within the groups are individuals pursuing specific dreams and living specific lives, and they resent being grouped together with many others based on a single characteristic and "figured out" by other people with agendas. Whatever scorn you wish to heap on Todd Rokita, give an equal measure to Howard Dean, and consider your own preconceptions.

Comments

alex
Wed, 04/18/2007 - 5:13am

Leo, how can you possibly equate the two?

If Howard Dean had said the GOP is to evangelicals what a snake-oil salesman is to fools, that would be the equivalent of Rokita's master-slave talk.

What's more, it would appear to me from the above that Dean and the Dems couldn't care less about appealing to evangelicals. They most certainly do understand them. They also understand that the only way to win them over is to jettison everything the Democratic party stands for, which isn't about to happen.

Doug
Wed, 04/18/2007 - 7:18am

"Easter Sunday is a joyful celebration. The holiday represents peace, redemption and renewal, a theme which brings hope to people of all faiths."

Yeah, that's a lot saying that black people are acting like slaves.

Leo Morris
Wed, 04/18/2007 - 10:42am

Both of you seemed to have missed the point that it is the parties' inability to attract a large group of voters that I equated, not the specific incidents. And you don't think hyping Easter without mentioning Jesus is even a little clueless?

alex
Wed, 04/18/2007 - 4:15pm

I get that point, Leo.

It's just that your point's not well supported by the premise that Howard Dean is pandering shamelessly to evangelicals and failing miserably at it.

By my reading, Dean's pandering shamelessly to mainstream Christians, the kind who want to be perceived as tolerant and inclusive, and he's getting it just about right.

Bil Browning
Thu, 04/19/2007 - 3:46pm

I feel obligated to point out that the Dean Easter quote was originally given out in an American Family Association fundraising appeal. It is not correct. As most folks know, they lie. To raise money. Which is JUST like the snake-oil preachers they are... In fact, the 2nd, 3rd and 4th paragraphs of the story you linked to are directly taken verbatim from the AFA e-mail. You can see their alert here: https://secure.afa.net/afa/activism/TakeAction.asp?id=247 Personally, I'm a big fan of the not-for-profit Religious organizations sending the message, "I will remember your censoring of Christ and the Resurrection the next time I go to vote." What happened to non-political to keep the 501(c)3?

They are quoting Dean's statement in an e-mail to fellow Democrats. But the problem is they left out a LOT of that statement. Like the part where he talks about Christianity... Hard to raise money calling the Dems Goddless liberals if you quote that part!

Dean's actual statement:

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