Cheney: The GOP’s better off with Rush Limbaugh than Colin Powell

“baldilocks on May 10, 2009 at 9:45 PM”

Alan Keyes made a very similar statement back in the 2000 primaries, and I think there’s a point to it. The problem Keyes and now Watts are hilighting is not how these issues should be addressed, but that they should be addressed.

Keyes’ statement was: “If Republicans want to attract black voters, maybe once in a while they should talk about issues that interest black voters.”

Watts did not say, or even imply, that he thought that Obama had the right solutions to these issues, but he did point out that issues like “urban policy” are far too often glossed over by Republicans, with statements like Rush Limbaugh makes, such as “they’ve had Democrat mayors and city councils for 50 years, and they’re still failing!” rather than addressing problems and solutions like no one on the Republican side since the late Jack Kemp did.

It’s an only semi-valid criticism. When conservatives, or Republicans, make concrete proposals, they are ignored, dismissed, or ridiculed by the press and the “urban leadership,” so it’s a difficult battle to take on. But it’s one that can’t be ignored, nonetheless.

notropis on May 10, 2009 at 10:17 PM

“Did he give an example of an issue that would be of interest to black voters exclusively–something which, in being addressed, wouldn’t dilute the philosophy of conservatism?”

As you might expect from Keyes, yes, several (although you’ve added the adverb “exclusively.”) He mentioned a stronger emphasis on school choice, promoting fatherhood education and, I believe, education on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome — although we’re going back most of a decade, here, so I’m much vaguer than Keyes was.

“I’m not seeing how Jack Kemp was different than any other conservative in this respect.”

You might want to review his initiatives while at HUD. He introduced and almost single-handedly championed urban enterprise zones and other tax-based initiatives to improve legal entrepreneurism in the inner cities, worked with charter and magnet schools — two ideas brand-new at the time, tightening absentee-landlord responsibilities for those landlords who received section 8 financing — many other issues now often considered mainstream conservative, but mostly ignored before Kemp.

“Urban policy,” is policy that addresses primarily urban concerns, just as “agricultural policy” addresses agricultural concerns. While many of these things, in a truly limited-government world, might not be Federal concerns, the fact is that they now are, and have been for most of a century, and are likely to continue to be for some long time into the future. So we need to identify with specific policy issues, perhaps going back to Gingrich’s “block grant” idea of devolving Federal Authority before de-funding it (“You folks know what’s best for your community far better than Washington does” sells as well in Compton, CA as it does in Crookston, MN.,” especially if we tailor it with specific urban f’rinstances.)

I think it’s a matter of being willing and able to address specifics, without pandering to a laundry list of “needs.”

Honestly, I don’t really know. But the fact is, whatever we’re doing now, ain’t working very well, and there’s no good reason why we shouldn’t be able to find approaches that do work.

notropis on May 10, 2009 at 10:51 PM

“Local governments are still responsible for developing plans to utilize the monies from Washington “

Precisely, and this is why Gingrich’s policies of devolvement are superior to Bush’s policies of Federal accountability. The Feds will never be able to fix things, but as long as local politicians can hide behind Federal bureaucrats, there will be no local accountability.

When the Federal government can say, simply, “Here is exactly how much we gave your city. If you want to know what they did with it, ask them,” it’s much harder for the local authorities to pass the buck. This, at least, is the theory behind “new federalism.”

notropis on May 10, 2009 at 11:11 PM

“all conservatives should call for the dismantling of the department of education in Washington.”

Yes, eventually. But remember that the Department was less than 4 years old, and still fairly small and innocuous, when Reagan promised, as one of his top priorities, to dismantle it, and see how far that went. How much more difficult now, after 25 more years and hundreds of billions more in financing, and the whole “NCLB” thing.

When you had a supposedly conservative president demanding national testing and accountability, and being cheered by his party, it’s gone way too far. Although solutions seem simple when we’re posting on a blog, the implementation won’t be — and the selling will be harder still.

notropis on May 10, 2009 at 11:19 PM

Oh, baldilocks:

If you’re still hanging around. Here’s a book you should think about getting. I have to admit, I haven’t read it, but it comes highly recommended, and I know the author. He reminds me a bit of your Ted Hayes:

Liberal Racism Creates the Black Conservative:
Issues and New Perspectives
by Lucky Rosenbloom

I’ll probably e-mail it to you, as well. From my experience, Lucky thinks better than he speaks, and speaks better than he writes, so I’m not sure how the book will come off, but a good friend of mine who’s a conservative political science professor says it’s good, so I don’t mind pushing it, sight unseen.

notropis on May 10, 2009 at 11:29 PM

(And we really didn’t need to add the Franken/Coleman election to our object lesson; we’d already done enough….)

notropis on May 10, 2009 at 11:40 PM

“shick on May 11, 2009 at 12:50 AM”

To our Children’s Children’s Children.

notropis on May 11, 2009 at 1:47 AM