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 “inner city” voter – better.  I’m not the only one to say this, of course – but so far, Dan Severson and his Minority Liberty Alliance have been the only real cow to go with the moo. 
• While black, Latino, Asian and immigrant voters tend to vote overwhelmingly Democrat (for reasons that are less related to patronage and force of habit than some would like to think), it remains a fact as well as a stereotype that Latinos are socially conservative, Asians do place a premium on education and initiative, and African-Americans are among the most passionate advocates of school choice, and they should be, eventually, amenable to a message that reflects that. 

Below is the outline of a speech that I’d love to see a (presumably white) Republican (although the candidacy of Abdimalik Askar against Phyllis Kahn is a hopeful sign) give to an African-American audience in the 4th or 5th CD.  The candidate won’t be me, natch – there’s no way I’m ever running for office.  I’ve given oppo researchers almost 15 years of smear-fodder.  It’s just not gonna happen. 

But for someone else – someone who actually belongs running for office? 

Here’s an idea.

Hi.  I’m [NAME].   And I’m a conservative. 

And so should you be. 

Now, I’m a conservative in a room full of people who, if the statistics are right – and they are – nine out of ten of whom voted for the Democrats in the last election.  And the one before that.  And the several elections before that. 

And so I know I’m running uphill, here.  And it might seem a little hopeless and arrogant to “ask you for your vote”, right out of the gate.  So let me put it this way; I’m going to ask you to think about some of your assumptions.  And maybe we can talk about it?

Because there are three reasons you should be voting conservative. 

Not “Republican”, necessarily – but we’ll come back to that. 

But those reasons are Education, Crime, and your Paycheck. 

Let’s start with education.  I know  many of you are parents, out there.  So am I.  And I had an awful time with the Saint Paul Public Schools.  I had both my kids in there.  And it was terrible.  And so I pulled my kids out, and put ’em in a charter school.  And I found out something that surprised me; most of the other parents in the charter school were black, Latino and Asian!  And they were there for the same reason I was…

…only moreso.  The achievement gap in Minneapolis and Saint Paul is up there with the highest in the country.  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?  And those other parents I met in the charter school system knew it – and they were trying to find something better for their kids. 

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. 

Fact is, there are lots of things that need to change in the schools.  And any of them is going to take years, probably decades, to fix.  And you, me, none of us have decades – we’ve got our kids for maybe 18 years!  12 of them in school!  We need results now! 

And 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.  Eight out of ten charter school families in Minneapolis and Saint Paul are black, or Latino, or Asian, or immigrants.  You did it – we did it – because we needed results now, for our kids, the ones we actually have. 

What were our options?  Work for 20-30, maybe 40 years to change the system?  Maybe for our grandkids? 

Another option might have been to pray for a miracle, like the whole system gets blown away in one big storm?  That actually happened in New Orleans.  Hurricane Katrina destroyed most of the New Orleans schools.  When they tried to re-open, there weren’t enough people and enough money to do it – so they went to charter schools.  Oh, yeah – and they worked; New Orleans closed its last district school.  They’re all charter now.  And the achievement gap between black and white kids is a lot less than it is in the Twin Cities, and it’s getting better!

But we don’t have hurricanes.  Thank God!  But we do have a school system that fails families like yours.  Like ours.  And so many black parents, like my own family, left. 

Now, 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.  That’s why they send the County Attorney after kids who skip school – they need the money! 

And all these people leaving the schools – that meant money was leaving, too.  And so in 2007, the Democrat party – including every single Senator from Minneapolis and Saint Paul – tried to stop licensing new charter schools,  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.  A lot of them can create junk bonds to build school buildings with.  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!

The school systems are like a ship that hits an iceberg.  And parents like you, and me, were like people trying to get onto the lifeboats.  And the Democrats are like taking shots at the boats, trying to sink them and force us back on the ship!

The Democrats message to you – to us, the parents – is “sit tight.  Keep giving us all the money we ask for, and we’ll fix it.  Eventually”.  They’re like the neighbor that borrows your tools and never brings ’em back. 

The conservatives – mostly the Republicans, these days – are the ones saying “You, the parents, know what’s best for your kids.  Our job – our only job – is to help you find it and afford it”.  Charter schools?  Vouchers, like in Milwaukee and Baltimore, so you can send your kids to any school you want, public or private?  They’re all on the table.  With us, the conservative Republicans.  Not with the Democrats. 

So that’s one reason. 

Here’s another one:  Crime. 

Remember up above where I said that you, me, none of us can fix all the problems with the school system in time for it to benefit our kids?   That’s even more true with crime.  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. 

And I see a lot of the same problems.  I live in the Midway.  Nice place, but there’s neighborhoods with problems on two sides.  Why?  I don’t know.  I’ve got no wisdom that everybody else in this room doesn’t have.

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, I can defend myself and my family.  And I know – because the numbers say it’s true! – that many of you can do the same thing. 

Just like the education problem – I as a parent, and even I as a politician if I am elected, can never solve the problem!  And either can any other politician, and if they say they can, they’re lying!  Not in two years, not in ten years, not even while your grandkids and mine are in school!  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. 

Here’s the problem;  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  get guns. 

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.  Law-abiding, hard-working black people, or criminals – it doesn’t matter to them. 

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 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…

…look, I get it.  Some of you aren’t into guns. That’s fine. I’m not going to make you get into them!  But look at the history of the Democratic party’s legislation on firearms.  Every bit of it – all of it – is aimed at keeping black people disarmed.  Helpless in the face of crime.  Because they know that behind most of Black America’s advances, there’s a black man with a gun.  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.  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.  Behind Malcolm X, for whom “any means necessary” meant “there’s iron in this fist”.  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.  Behind the black grandma in Detroit who chased the hoodlums out of her house and her neighborhood. 

All of those examples scare the bejeebers out of Democrats.  And some Republicans, to be honest.  I need support against both of them.  That’s where you come into the story – I hope.  Someday.

Now, you don’t need some guy in a suit to come here and tell you the black community suffers from poverty.  Or what the reasons are.  Racism, discrimination, bad education, redlining – and again, I learn more about all of these from listening than you will from me talking. 

But there are two facts that don’t get talked about much. 

The first is, the government started the “War on Poverty” fifty years ago this year.   And in that time, poverty has gone…

…up. 

Not down.  Up. 

We have spent a lot of money on poverty, of course.  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…

…and left poor people poor.  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.  The best rate of this in the world!  But that rate had dropped over the past few decades to among the lowest in the developed world.  Worse than Britain or Denmark or even France, for crying out loud.   Not only has our system not ended poverty, it’s made it more likely that the poor still stay poor!

So 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 getting ready to give amnesty to millions of people who are going to compete for jobs.  Not Wall Street jobs.  Not jobs with government.  Not jobs with big business.

Jobs that your kids and mind can do.  Jobs that someone just out of jail can at least think about building a straight life with.

The Democrats make a lot of noise about raising the minimum wage – but you’ve got to get a job before you can get paid!  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. 

Why do you suppose that is? 

Why would the Democrats make it harder for the poorest among us to get a job? 

You think they don’t know that they’re making it harder for poor people to find work?

What is the alternative? 

Conservatives – mostly Republicans – are the ones who oppose this.  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!