July 23, 2004
Bush: Dems Take Blacks For Granted
Here's an article describing how Bush says that Democrats take the "black vote" for granted.Leaving the question of racism aside, I've seen this attitude before and it has always struck me as being completely stupid. I'm echoing something that Josh Marshall over at Talking Points Memo has talked about before. It's not as if blacks support Democrats just randomly - there's a reason why they support Democrats. It's akin to Democrats saying that the Republicans take the fundamentalist Christian vote for granted. But really, if I go up to a fundamentalist Christian and say, "Bush is taking your vote for granted", are they really any more likely to say, "Gosh, you're right, I'll vote for Kerry"? Again, who's his audience? Is his argument tailored to actually convince black voters that have a history of overwhelmingly supporting Democrats? For all of Karl Rove's alleged genius, they sure pull a lot of incompetent stunts like this. This doesn't seem to be tailored to any audience except for the snickering talking-points crowd who don't understand blacks (and don't advocate the right policies) any more than Bush does.
The best they can hope for here is to reduce turnout - it's a twist on trying to drive up your opponent's negatives. It drives yours up too, but hopefully it drives your opponent's up more. Horrible way to run.