MichaelFauntroy.com

Food for Thought for New RNC Chairman

The Republican National Committee is on the verge of choosing a new leader that will be tasked with leading the party out of the political wilderness.  This is a critical choice that the party must get right.  In this case, the leader of the party will likely have a disproportionate impact on its fortunes going forward.  

The problems it faces are fundamental and will continue if it chooses a leader who is committed, in nearly all circumstances, to the conservative principles of the past.   Those principles, built upon a culture war political foundation, have run their course.  A leader who insists on maintaining them, likely in a new-and-improved package, will oversee a party that continues its decline.  The Party has to understand that its decline is about more than properly marketing its ideas or improving its technological deficiencies.  It’s about aligning itself with the national ideology.  The country is in the middle.  The Republicans are not.

The next leader of the Republican Party must go beyond words and make it a hospitable place for moderates and minorities.  Given the demographic changes facing the country, the Party will continue to regionalize itself if it doesn’t.  According to Census Bureau projections, the United States will cease being a majority White country in the year 2042.  The math should force the Party to reach out to minorities.  Given what we know about minority voting trends, the Party will have to turn away from comprehensive conservatism to win their votes.

The Republican Party needs a leader who understands that the party has to ideologically remake itself if it wants to be relevant in the years ahead.  Voters want cooperation and ideas that make sense to them, not the constant pressing of the political hot buttons for the sake of winning elections.  That kind of politics has won elections for the Republicans, but has also helped degrade our political discourse.  The country wants more.  The new leader of the Republican Party must be brave enough to move the Party away from its old ways and to clothe itself in a new manner of thinking.

Walter Fauntroy Retires

Here is a WashingtonPost.com clip with reflections from Martin Luther King, III, John Lewis, and Marion Barry on the life and work of Walter Fauntroy.

Radio Interview: Michael Fauntroy Discusses Race on Minnesota Public Radio

Here is a clip of a discussion I had with Kerri Miller of Minnesota Public Radio on her show "Midmorning."  Jack White of The Root and I hashed over some issues and I enjoyed the discussion.  Please check it out when you can and, as always, tell a friend.

What Will Obama's Presidency Mean for Race in America?

I think it Barack Obama’s election will say less about race than many expect.  That's because he's likely to say very little about it during his presidency.  My understanding of life is:  problems don't go away by ignoring them.  But politics allows limited candor on certain issues and race is certain one of them.

Race operates on a number of levels and his ability to get elected president is something my generation of African Americans isn’t terrible shocked by.  We thought it would happen during our lifetimes, we just didn’t know when.  While his election is a tremendous milestone, America’s racial issues can’t be undone by the presence of one person, no matter how powerful.  In that regard, Obama represents one tree in a much larger forest and we shouldn’t overstate his potential to change the way we deal with racial issues.

Obama’s election is tremendous.  But I’ve long wondered if he would have been so validated by the larger society if he were not biracial or graduated from Morehouse College (alma mater of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr. among many others) instead of Columbia University and Howard University School of Law (alma mater of Vernon Jordan, Doug Wilder, David Dinkins, among many others) instead of Harvard.  Further, I think the deracialized campaign and the fear of being characterized as a “Black” presidential campaign reveals a great deal about the state of race in America.  Would he be president if he were seen as the “Black” candidate or willing to discuss the issues that have a unique impact on African Americans?  I think not.  He would have scared too many Whites.

Ultimately, Obama’s election should be seen as a jewel in the crown of the civil rights movement.  The work that took place during the 1960s to ensure integration and other groundbreaking change made it possible.  Many of the young whites who were drawn to Obama had a far more integrated upbringing either directly – through their neighborhoods and schools – or indirectly through popular culture.

We all should celebrate this great achievement for a man and the nation.  We should resist the urge to hang the “mission accomplished” sign on our racial problems.  That would erroneously discount the likelihood of racial prejudice rearing its ugly head in local and statewide elections.  Not every candidate is as eloquent and comforting as Obama.  Not every campaign gets this kind of attention.

Report: Black Support for Prop. 8 Overstated

I haven't followed the Prop. 8 story very closely but I am concerned about the finger-pointing at Black Californians as the cause of the passage of the ban on same-sex marriage.  Here is a link to a San Francisco Chronicle story about a study that has been done that finds actual support for the ban among Black Californians, far less than what was reported in the exit polls.  The study suggests that actual Black support for Prop. 8 was 12 percentage points lower that what was reported.  That is a significant difference.  Moreover, "party identification, age, religiosity and political view had much bigger effects than race, gender or having gay and lesbian family and friends," said Patrick Egan of New York University, who wrote the report with Kenneth Sherrill of Hunter College of New York for the National Gay and Lesbian Task Force.

Replace Harry Reid?

Barack Obama will soon be sworn in as the 44th President of the United States. He's deep into his transition and moving with dispatch to be ready to work immediately upon taking office. Given all that is on his plate - Israel/Gaza, Iraq, Afghanistan, economic crisis, plunging real estate values; you get the picture - one would think Obama wants to limit distractions as he prepares to enter the White House. But with friends like Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, Obama now has to deal with what is a tempest in a teapot - the seating of Roland Burris in the U.S. Senate. Reid's leadership on this has been abysmal.

Despite his dirty benefactor, Burris is qualified to serve in the job to which he has been appointed. Denying him a seat in the Senate is petty and unwise, particularly given the much bigger fish the chamber has to fry.  Moreover, it is hard to find anyone who believes that Burris will not ultimately be seated. Reid's mishandling of this issue leads me to conclude that now may be the time to revisit Reid's leadership of the Senate Democratic majority. While I'm sure that he is sincere in his belief that anyone appointed by the indicted Governor of Illinois, Rod Blagojevich, should not serve in the Senate, I'm also sure that his position is politically stupid and endangering a smooth transition to Democratic control of the government. Every second spent on this issue is one that can't be devoted to convincing the country that the Democrats are prepared to lead.

The Democrats should cut their losses and seat Burris. Perhaps they should cut their losses with Reid, too.

Michael K. Fauntroy is a professor, author, columnist, and commentator. He blogs at: MichaelFauntroy.com.