LibertyEsq
07-31-2014, 07:10 AM
Why is Rand Paul Reaching Out to Black Voters?
By Matt Bai
You've got to give this much to Rand Paul: Kentucky's junior senator is willing to do something almost unheard of in modern presidential politics, which is to make arguments that not everyone in his party already cares about. For this reason alone, Paul is probably the most interesting presidential hopeful out there, if not the most likely to succeed.
Paul's latest gambit, as you may have seen, involves an appeal to black voters, who generally have about as much attachment to the Republican Party as Donald Sterling has to his wife. This unusual courtship, which included a speech to the Urban League in which Paul actually quoted Malcolm X, led to a spate of media stories in the past week about a new contest between the parties to win over black voters in closely divided states.
All of which raises a couple of questions. First, do Democrats really have anything to worry about when it comes to the African-American vote? And second, is Paul really trying to steal those voters away?
The answers are yes and no, for more complex reasons than most of the analysis would have you believe.
Let's first consider this issue of whether Democrats could be considered vulnerable when it comes to the black vote. On the surface, the suggestion seems pretty absurd.
In any given election, after all, a Democrat can expect to corral something like 9 out of 10 votes cast by African-Americans. That's an outrageous percentage when you're talking about anything competitive in American life. I mean, if Apple had 90 percent of the phone or tablet market locked up, would anyone be jittery about the stock price?
The problem for Democrats is that their formula for success isn't like Apple's or any other company's, for that matter. It's more precarious than recent elections would suggest, and it relies on some highly unreliable trends.
http://news.yahoo.com/why-is-rand-paul-reaching-out-to-black-voters-082701361.html
By Matt Bai
You've got to give this much to Rand Paul: Kentucky's junior senator is willing to do something almost unheard of in modern presidential politics, which is to make arguments that not everyone in his party already cares about. For this reason alone, Paul is probably the most interesting presidential hopeful out there, if not the most likely to succeed.
Paul's latest gambit, as you may have seen, involves an appeal to black voters, who generally have about as much attachment to the Republican Party as Donald Sterling has to his wife. This unusual courtship, which included a speech to the Urban League in which Paul actually quoted Malcolm X, led to a spate of media stories in the past week about a new contest between the parties to win over black voters in closely divided states.
All of which raises a couple of questions. First, do Democrats really have anything to worry about when it comes to the African-American vote? And second, is Paul really trying to steal those voters away?
The answers are yes and no, for more complex reasons than most of the analysis would have you believe.
Let's first consider this issue of whether Democrats could be considered vulnerable when it comes to the black vote. On the surface, the suggestion seems pretty absurd.
In any given election, after all, a Democrat can expect to corral something like 9 out of 10 votes cast by African-Americans. That's an outrageous percentage when you're talking about anything competitive in American life. I mean, if Apple had 90 percent of the phone or tablet market locked up, would anyone be jittery about the stock price?
The problem for Democrats is that their formula for success isn't like Apple's or any other company's, for that matter. It's more precarious than recent elections would suggest, and it relies on some highly unreliable trends.
http://news.yahoo.com/why-is-rand-paul-reaching-out-to-black-voters-082701361.html