Principle Trumps Color
Selena Zito has written a great column in today’s Pittsburgh Trib-Review on Condi, Lynn Swann, Ken Blackwell and Michael Steele. Ms. Zito calls them the “new “A” team of the Republican Party. Not for the black of their skin, but for their values.”
Swann, the Hall of Fame wide receiver who played for the Steelers, is running for the party’s nomination to be Pennsylvania’s governor. Blackwell is running for governor in Ohio, where he is now the secretary of state. Steele, Maryland’s lieutenant governor, is seeking that state’s open U.S. Senate seat. Then there’s Condi. She’s not running for anything. Yet. Right now she’s too busy reshaping the Middle East.
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Lynn Swann, Michael Steele, Condi Rice and Ken Blackwell face the same handicap every morning when they look in the mirror. They’re Republicans, but they’re not supposed to be. Who made that rule? Democrats? When they contemplate their reflections, they are looking into the eyes of card-carrying members of the party of home ownership and opportunity. That’s content of character. Isn’t that how Dr. King would judge them? Isn’t that how you should judge them?
These are four people of accomplishment. Condi, as Ms. Zito says, is reshaping the Middle East. Steele and Blackwell have served honorably in public office. Lynn Swann hasn’t accomplished anything in politics but it’s hard to say that he hasn’t achieved a number of things in his life. And the political thing will take care of itself soon enough with Swann.
Bot how do Democrats see this group of African-American All Stars? Julian Bond would see them as “tokens”. That’s how he described Dr. Rice and Gen. Powell last week in Fayetteville, North Carolina. Dr. Rice and Gen. Powell do more in an average week than Mr. Bond’s done in a lifetime.
It’s a shame that the party of race-baiting evaluates African-American conservatives by ideology rather than the content of their character. I’d doubt that Dr. King would look kindly on the Julian Bonds of the world and that’s a shame.
Cross-post at LetFreedomRing
February 5th, 2006 at 8:14 pm
Without any real substance or plan, Democrats have nothing but race-baiting and class warfare to sustain them with minorities. The worn-out “Great Society” policies have failed and minorities are looking for real solutions and ideas.
February 6th, 2006 at 8:31 am
There’s no other political place in the country where the likes of Bond and Belafonte (and Sharpton and Jackson et al) can say the things they do and not be arrested for racial harassment, and that’s against “their own people” (whatever that means)! No other party, not even the communists, have targeted people of color for enslavement as much as the donkeys.
I hope Blackwell, Swann and Steele all three win their respective contests, and that all three end up as national players.