Sean Conner is black and Republican. Last Sunday night, he was also in a room full of black Democrats.
You’ve got to “admire the man’s notion of fair odds,” if I may borrow a phrase from director John Sturgis’ superb Western “The Magnificent Seven.”
Conner was speaking at the annual gathering of black newspaper columnists called the Trotter Group, named for William Monroe Trotter, the black activist and journalist who personally challenged President Wilson’s segregation policies in 1914. It would be an understatement to call members of the group liberal. The truth is, most are bluer than Papa Smurf.
So there was Conner, who works for the VERY red Republican National Committee, trying to tell the Trotterites and students gathered on the campus of Howard University what went wrong for the Republicans in 2008. And he looked darned uncomfortable doing it at times.
The RNC would have been better off sending me for that task, although I’d have been doing double duty as both a Trotter member AND a Republican. But I sure wouldn’t have been as skittish as Conner about my choice of political party. In fact, I’d have told those assembled my number one reason for switching my party affiliation from Democrat to Republican.
That reason would be Baltimore Democrats, of course. I just couldn’t take being a Democrat in this town one year longer. Democrats have been in power — in the positions of mayor, City Council president, comptroller and state’s attorney — for more than 40 years. The results of that power have, so far, been distinctly underwhelming.
But back to what I would have told the Trotter gathering. What went wrong? How about a top five list?
5. Former Secretary of State Colin Powell backed President-elect Barack Obama. McCain might have avoided that if he’d selected Powell as his running mate.
4. Obama isn’t former Vice President Al Gore or Sen. John Kerry, the two losers Democrats put up in, respectively, 2000 and 2004. With Obama, Democrats finally had a candidate who could string two sentences together without making them yawn.
3. The economy tanked shortly before the election. Good luck for Obama, VERY bad luck for the GOP.
2. Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice didn’t run. For years people have been shooting me e-mails telling me that they yearned for Rice to run, and would vote for her if she did. She certainly would have brought more to the table than Sen. John McCain or any of those characters who ran in the primary — notable exception: Texas Rep. Ron Paul — did.
True, she did have the baggage of supporting President Bush’s war in Iraq. But Rice could have reminded Americans, more eloquently than McCain did, that Bush merely carried out the war those saber-rattling, war-whooping, chest-thumping Democrats called for in the late 1990s.
With Rice, voters would have been able to cast a ballot for the first black president and the first female president at the same time. Now THAT would have been truly historical.
1. Republicans have performed so badly over the past eight years that maybe they should have just sat this election out and endorsed the candidate of either the Libertarian or Constitution parties.
Face it; some years the presidential candidate of one of the major political parties should just sit it out. Need examples?
1924 — Democrats take over 100 ballots to nominate some side of pork who couldn’t even beat President Coolidge, not exactly Mr. Charisma.
1932 — After three years of Depression, incumbent President Hoover takes a beating at the polls from Franklin D. Roosevelt. Should have sat that one out, Herb.
1964 — Republican presidential candidate Sen. Barry Goldwater got blitzed at the polls by incumbent President Johnson. With the civil rights movement in full swing and the memories of slain President Kennedy still fresh in the minds of Americans, did the anti-civil rights Republicans think they had a chance in this one?
1972 — President Nixon obliterates Democratic nominee Sen. George McGovern. Should have sat that one out, Dems.
1980 — Incumbent President Carter gets booted out of office by a B-movie actor in what could well have been the Democrats’ most humiliating moment of the 20th century.
Sometimes you just got to sit it out, boys. Sit it out.
Gregory Kane is a columnist who has been writing about Baltimore and Maryland for more than 15 years. Look for his columns in the editorial section every Thursday and Sunday. Reach him at [email protected].
