*First appeared in the July 9 edition of the Laurel Chronicle newspaper
On Monday, civil rights leader and U.S. Representative John Lewis tweeted the following: “53 yrs ago today I was released from Parchman Penitentiary after being arrested in Jackson for using ‘white’ restroom.” His tweet was accompanied by a black and white mug shot taken at the Jackson police department.
Lewis was part of the Freedom Riders who traveled the South to protest segregation. In 2011, Mississippi joined with the riders to commemorate the 50th anniversary of their Freedom Rides. At Gov. Barbour’s request, the state played a large role in coordinating many of the memorials and activities planned for that week. As the staff member responsible for this project, I gained new perspective on an age-old issue.
Seeing the Governor of Mississippi, on behalf of the state, welcome the Freedom Riders, apologize for their mistreatment in 1961, and thank them for the chance to atone and reconcile was powerful.
That’s just one of the many reasons I can’t stomach it when I read accusations that Haley Barbour is responsible for “race-baiting” in the recently concluded U.S. Senate campaign.
The narrative that Haley Barbour drummed up black votes in some desperate scheme to re-elect Thad Cochran is bogus. Indeed, he’s been trying to increase black participation in Republican politics for decades – not out of desperation, mind you, but out of a sincere desire to grow the conservative movement.
In a 1997 column that appeared in the Washington Post, then-outgoing Republican National Committee chairman Haley Barbour had some parting advice on growing the GOP.
“We are failing to communicate effectively to many women and minorities why our proposals are the right policies…Look at the issue of education…Too many never heard us say our goal is to have education money spent in local schools instead of on the Washington bureaucracy. [Minorities and women] never heard us say we want to give parents, teachers, and local school boards more control than the unions and federal bureaucrats. They never heard us say of school choice: Bill Clinton and Albert Gore should not be the only parents living in ‘public housing’ able to send their children to private schools.”
Haley Barbour thinks the GOP’s message on education policy ought to resonate with black and women voters.
Scandalous!
In 2003, Barbour had the opportunity to heed his own advice when he challenged former Gov. Ronnie Musgrove for the state’s top job. WLBT, the NBC-affiliate in Jackson, covered his efforts to court black voters: “[Barbour] has been traveling around the state…meeting with black community leaders” to better understand their concerns for Mississippi’s future.
Outrageous!
In 2007, when Barbour ran for re-election, his campaign focused on job growth, educational opportunities, and rebuilding from Hurricane Katrina – issues that resonated with a cross-section of Mississippi voters. According to a 2007 Associated Press article, Barbour strived “to win 20 percent of the black vote, and blacks figure prominently in his ads and campaign literature.” He even received the endorsement of the former president of the historically black Jackson State University and had a campaign staff member assigned to minority outreach.
Despicable!
When the election rolled around, Barbour enjoyed somewhere between 20-25 percent of the African American vote. He’d be the first to tell you that he worked hard to get those votes, and that many of his black supporters were the same folks who cast a vote for Thad on June 24.
Conspiracy!
You get the point. Haley Barbour has consistently tried to grow the Republican Party, not by abandoning conservative principles but by messaging them in a way that gets the attention of prospective voters, whether they’re black, female, or Hispanic.
A product of the Reagan White House (and we’ve heard a lot about Reagan lately), Barbour has always applied a “big tent” philosophy to growing Republican ranks. Instead of some litmus test to determine party eligibility, Barbour adheres to that old Gipper quip: “The person who agrees with you 80 percent of the time is a friend and ally, not some 20 percent traitor.”
In order to push forward conservative principles, we must win elections. To win elections, we must continue growing the GOP, which means all of us – from liberty-lovers to freedom-fighters – must get serious about outreach to minority and women voters.
To borrow some more parting advice from that 1990s outgoing RNC Chairman: We’ve got to “communicate not only what we’re for, but why we’re for it and how it will improve the lives of everyday Americans...[We’ve got to] reach out to those who agree with us on the issues but do not yet vote for us.”
Showing posts with label Big Tent. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Big Tent. Show all posts
Wednesday, July 9, 2014
Tuesday, April 15, 2014
Tea Party, MSGOP share conservative vision despite public narrative
*First appeared in the April 16 edition of the Laurel Chronicle newspaper.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you already know the primary race for U.S. Senate between long-time incumbent Thad Cochran and Jones County native state Senator Chris McDaniel is pretty…heated, for lack of a better word.
In my mind, the real casualty of this primary battle isn’t either candidate, but rather the future of the conservative movement in Mississippi. If you believe the talking heads, the Twitter trolls, the “lame-stream” media, the Facebook status-sharers, then you believe there’s a war raging between “establishment” Republicans and Tea Partiers.
To that I say, poppycock.
We’ve seen this scenario play out across the country, where newly formed political groups (such as Tea Party factions and others) unilaterally decide “their” candidate is the most conservative and best choice for office. If you don’t support our guy, they’ve said, then you must be “establishment.” These groups have in large part been egged on by national organizations with access to experienced lawyers, ruthless campaign operatives, and individuals with deep pockets (think: green).
Seems like this strategy has finally come home to roost, so to speak, right here in Mississippi.
This week the Mississippi Tea Party called on Mississippi Republican Chairman Joe Nosef to “stay out of the Mississippi U.S. Senate Primary or resign.” Wowzers!
The Tea Party is offended the MSGOP chairman said Chris McDaniel ought to clear up as fast as possible the rumor that he was participating in an event with a vendor selling “white pride” paraphernalia.
Nosef went further, saying running for the “United States Senate is a very important thing and as a party we need to always be careful and focused and serious about what our views are and what our interests are.”
This is reasonable advice to me. It actually sounds like something my father might say: Address rumors head on; tell people the whole story; and then go on about your rat-killin’. People are going to believe what they’re going to believe.
The Tea Party’s next complaint against Nosef was his recent appearance on the Paul Gallo radio show. During the show, Nosef said “primaries are always going to get dirty” and that he was bothered by the motives of out-of-state groups involved in Mississippi’s Senate race (many of these groups were involved in states where the Republican nominee ultimately lost the general election).
My paraphrasing of his comments: When Republicans lose general elections, they also lose the ability to impact policy-making.
In my opinion, this is a bad thing for conservatives. We can’t enact conservative legislation without first winning elections.
I’m not sure why the Mississippi Tea Party didn’t like Nosef’s comments which were, once again, very practical in nature. I daresay his comments are exactly what the chairman of the Republican Party ought to be saying: Let’s win elections. Let’s enact conservative policies. Let’s be smart about both of those things by working together, not against one another.
And that’s really what worries me. The Mississippi Tea Party and related groups are organized by conservative Mississippians who believe in the conservative principles of the Republican Party. I’m a big tent ideologue and tend to believe we all fall somewhere in that tent.
Yet all of this talk of “establishment” versus “Tea Party” versus “libertarian” versus so-on and so-forth isn’t helping the conservative cause. The Democrats won’t need to divide and conquer if we voluntarily divide ourselves.
If the conservative movement is to survive – and thrive – then we mustn’t let out-of-state groups dictate our in-state relationships, nor rush to judgment when party officials like Chairman Nosef offer up common-sense advice to Republican candidates.
Unless you’ve been living under a rock, you already know the primary race for U.S. Senate between long-time incumbent Thad Cochran and Jones County native state Senator Chris McDaniel is pretty…heated, for lack of a better word.
In my mind, the real casualty of this primary battle isn’t either candidate, but rather the future of the conservative movement in Mississippi. If you believe the talking heads, the Twitter trolls, the “lame-stream” media, the Facebook status-sharers, then you believe there’s a war raging between “establishment” Republicans and Tea Partiers.
To that I say, poppycock.
We’ve seen this scenario play out across the country, where newly formed political groups (such as Tea Party factions and others) unilaterally decide “their” candidate is the most conservative and best choice for office. If you don’t support our guy, they’ve said, then you must be “establishment.” These groups have in large part been egged on by national organizations with access to experienced lawyers, ruthless campaign operatives, and individuals with deep pockets (think: green).
Seems like this strategy has finally come home to roost, so to speak, right here in Mississippi.
This week the Mississippi Tea Party called on Mississippi Republican Chairman Joe Nosef to “stay out of the Mississippi U.S. Senate Primary or resign.” Wowzers!
The Tea Party is offended the MSGOP chairman said Chris McDaniel ought to clear up as fast as possible the rumor that he was participating in an event with a vendor selling “white pride” paraphernalia.
Nosef went further, saying running for the “United States Senate is a very important thing and as a party we need to always be careful and focused and serious about what our views are and what our interests are.”
This is reasonable advice to me. It actually sounds like something my father might say: Address rumors head on; tell people the whole story; and then go on about your rat-killin’. People are going to believe what they’re going to believe.
The Tea Party’s next complaint against Nosef was his recent appearance on the Paul Gallo radio show. During the show, Nosef said “primaries are always going to get dirty” and that he was bothered by the motives of out-of-state groups involved in Mississippi’s Senate race (many of these groups were involved in states where the Republican nominee ultimately lost the general election).
My paraphrasing of his comments: When Republicans lose general elections, they also lose the ability to impact policy-making.
In my opinion, this is a bad thing for conservatives. We can’t enact conservative legislation without first winning elections.
I’m not sure why the Mississippi Tea Party didn’t like Nosef’s comments which were, once again, very practical in nature. I daresay his comments are exactly what the chairman of the Republican Party ought to be saying: Let’s win elections. Let’s enact conservative policies. Let’s be smart about both of those things by working together, not against one another.
And that’s really what worries me. The Mississippi Tea Party and related groups are organized by conservative Mississippians who believe in the conservative principles of the Republican Party. I’m a big tent ideologue and tend to believe we all fall somewhere in that tent.
Yet all of this talk of “establishment” versus “Tea Party” versus “libertarian” versus so-on and so-forth isn’t helping the conservative cause. The Democrats won’t need to divide and conquer if we voluntarily divide ourselves.
If the conservative movement is to survive – and thrive – then we mustn’t let out-of-state groups dictate our in-state relationships, nor rush to judgment when party officials like Chairman Nosef offer up common-sense advice to Republican candidates.
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