Why I Can't Stand This Macaca

Senate candidates for the state of Maryland former Baltimore Mayor, Ben Cardin and Lt. Governor Michael Steele have been adamant at refusing to acknowledge the large and awkward racial elephant in the room. In fact, Mike Steele has ignored the biggest elephant of all: that is in fact, a Republican.

Now how anyone can consider themselves a Republican after the abysmal four years they have had under the leadership of President George "El Diablo" Bush is beyond me. When Clinton got his dick sucked, the Republicans got into a furor over morality and its lack in the Oval Office. But all-in-all the Republicans remain complicit in the immoralities of the Bush Administration with their silence about the insanity with which he has run the country. For some reason, its especially odious when a minority, especially a black man, is a Republican. Why? Because the Republican Party, as Kanye so eloquently put it, "does not care about black people." Their policies are at best insensitive to race and at worst are down-right racist. (What was so hard about extending the Voters Rights Act?) This is why when any minority joins the Republican Party they lose all credibility in my eyes. The Democrats are not perfect, however. They absolutely need to include more color in the folks they put up for political office. But rather than abandon them, as Republicans suggest, maybe we should kindly remind them who has traditionally supported them and to not take our vote for granted.

And despite the fact that no where on his website, political signs or commercials does Lt. Governor Steele admit to being a Republican, Ben Cardin does a GREAT job in pointing out how close Steele is to the current White House in this commercial. What Cardin will NOT do, and probably to his benefit, is discuss the Republican strategy in using Steele as their token black man. In recent years, the Republicans have learned that there are minorities willing to sell out for the same reasons that there are modern-day Republicans in the first place: either they are the rich corporate types that want to stay rich or they are right-wing religious nuts. To their credit, they have placed more minorities in leadership positions than the Democrats have. (Hellou!: Condoleeza Rice is third in line for the White House should Bush, Cheney and Hastert die in some tragic accident.) In doing so, they appear to be much more racially inclusive than the Democrats, whom blacks have traditionally voted for.

This strategy worked for Maryland Governor Ehrlich and Steele when they ran against incumbent Katherine Kennedy Townsend in 2002. I remember the Republican ads on the "black" stations like WPGC suggesting that blacks vote Republican to elect Maryland's first black Lieutenant Governor. And it worked. The Republicans realized that race loyalty is a very powerful election tool. Unfortunately, thanks to having a Republican governor, our BGE energy bills have sky-rocketed by 72% because in traditional Republican fashion, Ehrlich cares more about special interests and the rich than he does about the middle and lower class.

If Ben Cardin wishes to maintain the black vote, he needs to make it clear that it is better to have a white man in the U.S. Senate that will be a champion for minority issues than it is to have a black man that will be another rubber-stamp for the Bush Administration for the next two years. He is currenty leading in the polls so I hope people are getting that message.