Don’t sleep on Tim Scott is a word of advice for Republicans
Resurrecting the March on Washington Coalition in Wrightsville, Georgia: A Political Strategist and Politics Expert for a House of Blue-Collar Workers
The race for an important Senate seat was well underway by mid-July, but there were few Herschel Walker campaign signs in Wrightsville.
There were planted in front of big homes with big yards in a downtown storefront window near the sidewalk. There were two on the corner by the Johnson County Courthouse, near a Confederate memorial.
There was support that appeared randomly scattered. Wrightsville has a racial divide that has shaped it for generations, and now is shaping a political race with national implications.
“All that campaign materials were in the white community, so I was very surprised,” said Mr Walker’s football coach, who is black and also a Republican. “The only other house that has a Herschel Walker poster is his family.”
Economics were a safer bet. Blue-collar workers of all races, Mr. Obama and Mr. Fisher wrote, “understood in concrete ways the fact that America’s individualist mythology covers up a game that is fixed against them.” But this pragmatic streak also could also be a trap for reformers hoping to bridge the racial divide. Mr. Obama and Mr. Fisher claimed that the working class whites who were most vociferous in their opposition to affirmative action were the most likely to lose in redistributionist games.
The pieces that fit together are the electoral strategy designed to make the Democrats the party of working people, a policy agenda oriented around comprehensive economic reform and a faith that American democracy could deliver real change. By mixing political calculation with moral vision, Democrats could resurrect the March on Washington coalition and — finally — transform politics.
Editor’s Note: Fredrick Hicks is a political strategist and campaign expert. He and Raphael were a debate preparation partner in 2020. He was not employed by the campaign in 2 years. He is the owner of his own consulting firm, HEG. The views expressed by him are his own. More opinions on CNN can be found here.
After a bruising, long and historically expensive campaign season in Georgia, Sen. Raphael Warnock won reelection as one of Georgia’s two Democratic US Senators. He became the first African American to be elected to a US Senator from Georgia, but needed to complete the term for a Republican who died.
In so doing, Warnock is now the leader of a new generation of Democratic leaders, including the likes of House Minority Leader-elect Hakeem Jeffries, Sen. Tammy Duckworth of Illinois and Gov. Gretchen Whitmer of Michigan, who are younger and more diverse than their predecessors.
Context is everything, including in politics. Democrats did not fare as badly as expected nationally. However, in the southeast, the red wave swept over every state, washing away many powerful Democrats in the region – from Virginia down to Florida.
African American candidates need to address the issue of raising money and winning White voters because of their ability to win five wins. While holding down two important jobs, and being a father to two young children, he has run positive campaigns with strategic attacks against his opponents, even though he is not the best candidate for President because a core group of Republican voters are not supportive.
After the counting is finished, he will have raised more than $300 million for his candidacy, putting him one of the most prolific non-presidential fundraiser in recent memory. In a game where votes and money are the barometers of success and viability, Warnock has more of both than anyone – something his ancestors never could have imagined.
Towards a New Presidential Nominating Calendar. The Case For a Democratic Candidate Who Is Not a Black Man
This could be the perfect time to push a center-leadership agenda for the country. With large states like California, Illinois and New York safely in the Democratic ledger, if the nominee can compete and win in southern states, then it will be nearly impossible for any Republican to win the presidency for the foreseeable future.
The founding director of the Center for the Study of Race and Democracy is a professor at the University of Texas at Austin. Peniel E. Joseph is Barbara Jordan chair in ethics and political values. He is the author of ” The Third Reconstruction: America’s Struggle for Racial Justice in the Twenty-First Century”. His own views are expressed here. View more opinion on CNN.
Walker possessed absolutely no credentials to become the Republican Party’s Senate nominee, other than being a famous former athlete friendly with Trump.
Walker was the only form of racial progress that many white voters found acceptable and it wasn’t defeated at the polls the way Trump was. For too many of these voters, only a Black man who knows his “place”— as a figurehead for a Republican Party openly pursuing a policy agenda of voter suppression, educational censorship and reproductive injustice — is worthy of the support of many parts of Georgia’s electorate, a mere two years after George Floyd’s murder sent the entire nation (and parts of the world) into a period of public rebellion and private introspection.
And that is reason enough to fully acknowledge the pain left behind by Walker’s candidacy, and even more reason to celebrate Warnock’s win as more than a partisan victory for the Democratic Party. It is a much-needed step toward realizing the dream of multiracial democracy.
Editor’s Note: Eric Adams is the mayor of New York City and a former New York state senator. The views expressed in this commentary are his own. CNN has more opinion.
This move must be more than symbolic. It is time for a new push that addresses the concerns of all people of color and working class people who feel the party has misrepresented their beliefs. In short, this is a pivotal opportunity to reprioritize our party’s primary policies as well.
The plan to change the Democratic National Committee’s presidential nominating calendar was approved by the rules and byelaws committee. The proposal needs to be approved at a full DNC meeting, set for early next year.
The Failures of the Republican Party in 2024: Losing a Black Population for the Good, the Bad, and the Ugly
This bold move feels like faith being rewarded in a party that many lower-income, Black people feel has taken our communities for granted. And as the leader of the largest city in the United States, with a Black population of about 2 million people, I am thrilled that we are making this statement.
The failures of the last decade resulted in much of the anger from lower-income and working-class Americans. Feeling betrayed, many of them have left the Democratic Party, with support from White working-class voters declining in recent years.
Republicans have been ruthless in exploiting the cultural differences of working-class people of color. The share of black voters who backed the Republicans in the last elections increased by 4%, according to exit polling. Latino support for Republicans went up by 10 points and Asian voters support for Republicans went up by 17 points.
Lower turnout of Black and Latino voters, as well as a Republican resurgence with moderate Latinos and Asian voters in key states and congressional districts, depressed the vote in New York, California and Florida.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/13/opinions/democrats-2024-primary-calendar-black-voters-adams/index.html
Why do Americans feel like they are helping? The case for radically practical measures to tackle problems that children and families face in government and society, and why they shouldn’t
First, in my experience, they don’t want “help.” They feel that they have earned what they have. They work hard and should not have to worry about crime, schools, child care, health care or housing. This is not a socialist dream. The jobs that keep our country running are the basics that they paid for.
That means our platform must include radically practical approaches to complicated challenges. For instance, the federal government must get back in the business of funding affordable housing.
Millions of Americans could be free of poverty as a result of federal investment in housing. Similarly, a further expansion of funding for child care would reduce a major household expense while giving children a stronger start in life and freeing up mothers to work and advance in their careers.
To help people manage their finances, and protect them from debt, there are other measures such as an earned income tax credit and child care credit.
These are not handouts. These are not risky investments. Those policies are in the platform but they are not our main message and they are not our brand.
Source: https://www.cnn.com/2022/12/13/opinions/democrats-2024-primary-calendar-black-voters-adams/index.html
How Do We Live and Work in the Context of a First Presidency? A Call to Reconcile History and Politics
There is a myth that working people are not able to devote sufficient time to a culture war. They’re not on Twitter; they’re working. Let’s not bother with that group at all. We need to acknowledge the inequalities they are suffering, and then show how we are going to correct them. Outrage doesn’t have a plan.
I have never been to a meeting in a neighborhood where people ask for less police. immigrants and first generation Americans are the most pro-business people I know. I cringe when I hear people in my party vote against practical public safety and opportunity for economic growth.
The next presidential election will be a big moment for Democrats. After years of fighting for the soul of our country against an existential threat led by former President Donald Trump, we may finally be able to win by being who we are, not who we are not.
There is no more effective – and more credible – way to do that than to make the practical agenda of working people our primary platform as we aim to make historically Black South Carolina our first primary state.
Tim Scott’s Story: Towards a Possible Presidential Campaign for the U.S. Senate Against Trump’s Corrupt Practices
Editor’s Note: John Avlon is a CNN senior political analyst and anchor. He is the author of Lincoln and the Fight for Peace. His views are not shared in this commentary. CNN has more opinion.
This week, the South Carolina Republican Senator embarked on an Iowa listening tour that precedes a possible presidential campaign. He gave a well-scripted speech in Des Des and then hosted a dinner where he tested the themes that could define a candidacy.
If you glanced at the headlines, you might think that he was selling a warmed over form of Trump’s “combative vision,” served with a side order of DeSantis’ bitter culture war assaults.
That would be a mistake. You would hear a vastly different pitch if you actually listened to the speeches. Scott believes that for the United States to be at its best, they need to work together. We must come together on a basis of common sense.
But trying to slap a cynical Trump-derivative bumper sticker on Tim Scott does him a disservice. Because Scott’s optimistic pitch for possible presidential campaign is evidence that there is a lane outside of Trump, Trump Lite and Never Trump. It’s evidence that evolution extends beyond an obsession with identity politics. And that’s good for the future of Republican Party and good for the republic.
He is not fanning the flames of fear about “American carnage.” He doesn’t use the American flag to hit people who look different than him. Amid a wave of strategically induced CRT panic, he is also not trying to whitewash American history to pretend it is an unadulterated story of perfection.
At the Lincoln Day dinner he told a story about how his grandfather was taught not to make eye contact after being born in 1921 and how he was taught to step aside on the sidewalk. This was deep in the Jim Crow South. “So when I talk about our history, I’m not whitewashing it,” Scott said. But he added that his grandfather told him “you can be bitter – or you can be better. I chose better.”
As the only Black Republican Senator, Scott sees his remarkable rise as evidence of American exceptionalism and our success in forming a more perfect union. Scott’s story is not something that can simply be dismissed out of hand. But he is ready to have his patriotism attacked.
If you are on the left, you can call me a prop, you can call me a token, you can question my blackness, and you can even call me Uncle Tim. Just understand: Your words are no match for my evidence. You can’t tell the truth of my life.
That’s a good line. He has a hard truth that stems from his personal experience. And he is unsparing in his belief that activists try to use our nation’s historic mistakes as a wedge to “bring more power and more resources to their progressive agenda.”
To be sure, he is still trying to appeal to a party that fell under Trump’s spell – and Scott does go too far with the play-to-the-base red meat for my taste at times.
For example, his talk of how left-wing Democrats are deliberately trying to “destroy America” fundamentally undercuts his overall rhetoric about the need to unite America. And he is part of the conservative crew that is dancing around the outright denunciation of Donald Trump’s attempt to overturn an election on the basis of a lie – a stance that will look as cowardly in the future as it may look pragmatic now, from the perspective of someone running for president as a Republican.
