should <\/em>be, eventually, amenable to a message that reflects that.\u00a0<\/li>\n<\/ul>\nBelow is the outline of a speech that I’d love to see a (presumably white)\u00a0Republican (although the candidacy of Abdimalik Askar against Phyllis Kahn is a hopeful sign)\u00a0give to an African-American audience in the 4th or 5th CD.\u00a0 The candidate won’t be me, natch – there’s no way I’m ever running for office.\u00a0 I’ve given oppo researchers almost 15 years of smear-fodder.\u00a0 It’s just not gonna happen.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But for someone else – someone who actually belongs running for office?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here’s an idea.<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n
Hi.\u00a0 I’m [NAME].\u00a0\u00a0 And I’m a conservative.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And so should you be.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Now, I’m a conservative in a room full of people who, if the statistics are right – and they are –\u00a0nine out of ten of whom voted for the Democrats in the last election.\u00a0 And the one before that.\u00a0 And the several elections before that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And so I know I’m running uphill, here.\u00a0 And it might seem a little hopeless and arrogant to “ask you for your vote”, right out of the gate.\u00a0 So let me put it this way; I’m going to ask you to think about some of your assumptions.\u00a0 And maybe we can talk about it?<\/p>\n
Because there are three reasons you should be voting conservative.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not “Republican”, necessarily – but we’ll come back to that.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But those reasons are Education, Crime, and your Paycheck.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Let’s start with education.\u00a0 I know\u00a0 many of you are parents, out there.\u00a0 So am I.\u00a0 And I had an awful time with the Saint Paul Public Schools.\u00a0 I had both my kids in there.\u00a0 And it was terrible.\u00a0 And so I pulled my kids out, and put ’em in a charter school.\u00a0 And I found out something that surprised me; most of the other parents in the charter school were black, Latino and Asian!\u00a0 And they were there for the same reason I was…<\/p>\n
…only moreso.\u00a0 The achievement gap in\u00a0Minneapolis and Saint Paul is up there with the highest in the country.\u00a0 And the school districts knew it – did you see the story about how the Minneapolis Public Schools sent all their worst teachers to the North Side?\u00a0 And those other parents I met in the charter school system\u00a0knew it – and they were trying to find something better for their kids.\u00a0<\/p>\n
And I’m not blaming the people who run the schools, or the union, or especially teachers – my dad, my little sister and two of my grandparents have been teachers, so that’d be pretty stupid.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Fact is, there are lots of things that need to change in the schools.\u00a0 And any of them is going to take years, probably decades, to fix.\u00a0 And you, me, none of us have decades – we’ve got our kids for maybe 18 years!\u00a0 12 of them in school!\u00a0 We need results now<\/em>!\u00a0<\/p>\nAnd so I, and those other parents, and I suspect a fair number of you, pulled your kids out of the public school system and put them in charter schools, or enrolled them out in the ‘burbs, or maybe worked two jobs and put ’em in a church school.\u00a0 Eight out of ten charter school families in Minneapolis and Saint Paul are black, or Latino, or Asian, or immigrants.\u00a0 You did it – we<\/em> did it – because we needed results now<\/em>, for our kids<\/em>, the ones we actually have<\/em>.\u00a0<\/p>\nWhat were our options?\u00a0 Work for 20-30, maybe 40 years to change the system?\u00a0 Maybe for our grandkids?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Another option might have been to pray for a miracle, like the whole system gets blown away in one big storm?\u00a0 That actually happened in New Orleans.\u00a0 Hurricane Katrina destroyed most of the New Orleans schools.\u00a0 When they tried to re-open, there weren’t enough people and enough money to do it – so they went to charter schools.\u00a0 Oh, yeah – and they worked; New Orleans closed its last district school.\u00a0 They’re all charter now.\u00a0 And the achievement gap between black and white kids is a lot <\/em>less than it is in the Twin Cities, and it’s getting better<\/em>!<\/p>\nBut we don’t have hurricanes.\u00a0 Thank God!\u00a0 But we do have a school system that fails families like yours.\u00a0 Like ours<\/em>.\u00a0 And so many black parents, like my own family, left.\u00a0<\/p>\nNow, here’s something not everyone knows about the public school system; the public schools get paid money for every day your kid is in attendance.\u00a0 That’s why they send the County Attorney after kids who skip school – they need the money!\u00a0<\/p>\n
And all these people leaving the schools – that meant money was leaving, too.\u00a0 And so in 2007, the Democrat party – including every single Senator from Minneapolis and Saint Paul – tried to stop licensing new charter schools,\u00a0 And in 2011, Governor Dayton and the Democrats tried to cut the amount of money charter schools get to rent buildings – which isn’t so much of a problem for charter schools out in the suburbs.\u00a0 A lot of them can create junk bonds to build\u00a0school buildings with.\u00a0 But here in the city, where the parents can’t hold a fundraiser or issue bonds to finance buildings, it was almost as good as walking through the schools with a can of gasoline and matches!<\/p>\n
The school systems are like a ship that hits an iceberg.\u00a0 And parents like you, and me, were like people trying to get onto the lifeboats.\u00a0 And the Democrats are like taking shots at the boats, trying to sink them and force us<\/em> back on the ship!<\/p>\nThe Democrats message to you – to us, the parents – is “sit tight.\u00a0 Keep giving us all the money we ask for, and we’ll fix it.\u00a0 Eventually”.\u00a0 They’re like the neighbor that borrows your tools and never brings ’em back.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The conservatives – mostly the Republicans, these days – are the ones saying “You, the parents, know what’s best for your kids.\u00a0 Our job – our only job – is to help you find it and afford it”.\u00a0 Charter schools?\u00a0 Vouchers, like in Milwaukee and Baltimore, so you can send your kids to any school you want, public or private?\u00a0 They’re all on the table.\u00a0 With us, the conservative Republicans.\u00a0 Not with\u00a0the Democrats.\u00a0<\/p>\n
So that’s one reason.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Here’s another one:\u00a0 Crime.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Remember up above where I said that you, me, none of us can fix all <\/em>the problems with the school system in time for it to benefit our kids?\u00a0\u00a0 That’s even more true with crime.\u00a0 There’s a lot of crime out there, and there are root causes and arguments, and to be perfectly honest I learn a lot more about the subject by listening than I do by talking.\u00a0<\/p>\nAnd I see a lot of the same problems.\u00a0 I live in the Midway.\u00a0 Nice place, but there’s neighborhoods with problems on two sides.\u00a0 Why?\u00a0 I don’t know.\u00a0 I’ve got no wisdom that everybody else in this room doesn’t have.<\/p>\n
But I do have this; if someone decides to bust into my house and take what I worked for, or tries to car-jack me out on the street,\u00a0I can defend myself and my family.\u00a0 And I know – because the numbers say it’s true! – that many of you can do the same thing.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Just like the education problem – I as a parent, and even I as a politician if I am elected, can never solve the problem<\/em>!\u00a0 And either can any other politician, and if they say they can, they’re lying!\u00a0 Not in two years, not in ten years, not even while your grandkids and mine are in school!\u00a0 But just as I can help my kids by putting them in a school that works, I can defend my family and what’s mine.\u00a0<\/p>\nHere’s the problem;\u00a0 we have a Democrat party in power in Saint Paul that thinks the best way to solve the problem with crime is to make it harder for black people to\u00a0 get guns.\u00a0<\/p>\n
They call it “gun safety” and “Gun sense”, but they all mean the same thing as every single “gun control” proposal in Ameircan history has been aimed at; keeping guns out of the hands of black people.\u00a0 Law-abiding, hard-working black people, or criminals – it doesn’t matter to them.\u00a0<\/p>\n
From the laws that made it illegal to let slaves near guns before the Civil War, to the law in 1868 in Texas that tried to disarm freed slaves after a bunch of them who’d fought in the Union Army shot up a bunch of Klan night riders, to the “Gun Control Act” of 1968 that was a response to the riots of 1968 and the Black Panthers, to “gun show background checks” – which won’t keep guns out of the hands of criminals at all, but will <\/em>make guns more expensive than they already are, and make it illegal to lend your guns to your family or pass them down to your kids…<\/p>\n…look, I get it.\u00a0 Some of you aren’t into guns. That’s fine.\u00a0I’m not going to make you get into them! \u00a0But look at the history of the Democratic party’s legislation on firearms.\u00a0 Every bit of it – all of it – is aimed at keeping black people disarmed.\u00a0 Helpless in the face of crime.\u00a0 Because they know that behind most of Black America’s advances, there’s a black man with a gun.\u00a0 Behind the Union soldiers, and the black soldiers in World War 2, that showed the world that a black man could fight for freedom just as well as a white man.\u00a0 Behind the rural southern folks who walked with the civil rights workers, with their guns hidden away, in case some redneck tried to get pushy.\u00a0 Behind Malcolm X, for whom “any means necessary” meant “there’s iron in this fist”.\u00a0 Behind Martin Luther King, who got his carry permit – because while he had a dream, he knew that sometimes you’ve got to defend those dreams.\u00a0 Behind the black grandma in Detroit who chased the hoodlums out of her house and her neighborhood.\u00a0<\/p>\n
All of those examples scare the bejeebers out of Democrats.\u00a0 And some Republicans, to be honest.\u00a0 I need support against both of them.\u00a0 That’s where you come into the story – I hope.\u00a0 Someday.<\/p>\n
Now, you don’t need some guy in a suit to come here and tell you the black community suffers from poverty.\u00a0 Or what the reasons are.\u00a0\u00a0Racism, discrimination, bad education, redlining – and again, I\u00a0learn more about all of these from listening than you will from me talking.\u00a0<\/p>\n
But there are two facts that don’t get talked about much.\u00a0<\/p>\n
The first is, the government started the “War on Poverty” fifty years ago this year.\u00a0\u00a0 And in that time, poverty has gone…<\/p>\n
…up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Not down.\u00a0 Up.\u00a0<\/p>\n
We have spent a lot of money on poverty, of course.\u00a0 And that money has built a lot of government buildings, paid a lot of government salaries and pensions to people who weren’t actually poor to begin with, given a lot of checks to a lot of consultants and non-profits…<\/p>\n
…and left poor people poor.\u00a0 In fact, worse – because it used to be in America, someone who was born in the lower 20% of incomes had at least an even chance of getting out of the bottom 20% in their lifetime, and having kids who grew up out of poverty.\u00a0 The best rate of this in the world!\u00a0 But that rate had dropped<\/em> over the past few decades to among the lowest in the developed world.\u00a0 Worse than Britain or Denmark or even France, for crying out loud.\u00a0\u00a0 Not only has our system not ended poverty, it’s made it more likely that the poor still stay poor!<\/p>\nSo while the system is imprisoning black men much faster than anyone else, and educating black kids worse, especially here in Minnesota, and leaving them all in a position to only get jobs that don’t pay very well, the Obama Administration is <\/em>getting ready to give amnesty to millions of people who are going to compete for jobs.\u00a0 Not Wall Street jobs.\u00a0 Not jobs with government.\u00a0 Not jobs with big business.<\/p>\nJobs that your kids and mind can do.\u00a0 Jobs that someone just out of jail can at least think about building a straight life with.<\/p>\n
The Democrats make a lot of noise about raising the minimum wage – but you’ve got to get <\/em>a job before you can get paid!\u00a0 And the Democrats look like they’re hell-bent on making it that much harder – a lot harder – for hard-working people to get the kinds of jobs they need to get out of poverty in the first place.\u00a0<\/p>\nWhy do you suppose that is?\u00a0<\/p>\n
Why would the Democrats make it harder for the poorest among us to get a job?\u00a0<\/p>\n
You think they don’t know <\/em>that they’re making it harder for poor people to find work?<\/p>\nWhat is <\/em>the alternative?\u00a0<\/p>\nConservatives – mostly Republicans – are the ones who oppose this.\u00a0 We want to make it easier for companies to hire people – and better yet, easier for people to start their own businesses and hire their own people and pay them what their work is worth!<\/p>\n
<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
For the better part of a decade, I’ve been saying two things: The GOP needs to engage the voters in the 4th and 5th CDs – including the dreaded\u00a0“inner city” voter –\u00a0better.\u00a0 I’m not the only one to say this, of course – but so far, Dan Severson and his Minority Liberty Alliance have been […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16,54,13],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-49106","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-conservatism","category-ebony-and-ivory","category-republicans"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49106","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=49106"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49106\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49158,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/49106\/revisions\/49158"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=49106"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=49106"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.shotinthedark.info\/wp\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=49106"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}