Herman Cain, please stop. Cease and desist with this claim of yours that you can win one third of the black vote if you were the Republican presidential nominee. Cain has made the claim frequently, the latest in a mailing he sent out to Iowa voters. According to news reports, Cain said “as a descendant of slaves, I can lead the Republican Party to victory by garnering a large share of the black vote, something that has not been done since Dwight Eisenhower garnered 41 percent of the black vote in 1956.”
Some political analysts have disputed that 41 percent figure, claiming that Eisenhower got 39 percent of the black vote in 1956.
I’m not going to quibble over a couple of percentage points. The bottom line is that Eisenhower got nearly 10 times the black vote percentage that Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain got in 2008.
Of more concern to me is the language Cain used: “as a descendant of slaves.” This was an indirect, snide attack on President Obama’s black bona fides. Cain’s implication is that, as a descendant of slaves, he’s the real deal when it comes to being black.
Obama, as the son of a Kenyan immigrant and a white American mother, isn’t a “descendant of slaves.” Cain’s implication is that Obama is somehow less black and therefore less worthy of the black vote.
It was as shameless and abusive of what I call “the slavery card” as we’ve seen in quite some time. But blacks that are liberals and Democrats can’t really call Cain on it, because they whip out the slavery card all the time.
And the race card. And the Uncle Tom card. Truth is, black liberals and Democrats can play 52 pickup with the deck of cards they have.
I’ve appealed to black Americans, Democrats and Republicans, liberals and conservatives, on the right and on the left to drop these references to slavery and all this “Uncle Tom” business. You can see where that got me.
Earlier this year, black Republican Rep. Allen West of Florida used the slavery card when he likened himself to Harriet Tubman, the legendary and bold African American former slave who led hundreds to freedom on the Underground Railroad.
West said he was a modern-day Tubman, determined to lead blacks away from the Democratic plantation. His remark was similar to Cain’s assertion earlier this year that blacks have been “brainwashed” into voting Democratic.
Neither statement was greeted with whoops of joy from liberal black Democrats, who cried “Foul!” over West’s and Cain’s use of language. Blacks vote Democratic, critics of West and Cain claimed, because blacks traditionally vote their interests.
Oh, do we now? I hate to use one state as an example, but it’s all I have for right now. In 2006 Maryland’s black voters cast their ballots, in droves, for then-gubernatorial candidate Mayor Martin O’Malley of Baltimore.
These voters had no good reason not to vote for the incumbent, then-Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., other than the fact that he was a Republican.
But black Democrats voting for their interests would have noticed this about O’Malley’s record:
• A $58 million public school deficit was run up on his watch. O’Malley admitted he didn’t keep an eye on the school superintendant responsible for running it up.
• He didn’t keep an eye on it because he was too busy telling Baltimore’s state’s attorney, a black woman, how to do her job, using profane and abusive language in public while doing it. (Imagine the reaction of a white Republican had done this.)
• His anti-crime strategy was only borderline constitutional and disproportionately affected young black men.
With that record, O’Malley still got the black vote. Still think you have a chance, Mr. Cain?
Examiner Columnist Gregory Kane is a Pulitzer nominated news and opinion journalist who has covered people and politics from Baltimore to the Sudan.
