A New Coalition: Independents & Moderate Republicans?
By HHR | May 7th, 2009 | Category: Featured, Politics | 4 commentsBy Richard Ivory
Change came to Northern Virginia yesterday with the electoral victories of two little known candidates. The first was Alicia R. Hughes, a black female candidate running as an Independent and Frank Fannon who ran as a moderate Republican. Both ran as a team seeking to wrestle power from the do-nothing powerful Democrat controlled Alexandria City Council. What makes this story even more interesting is that both candidates were backed by the local Republican Party, in what appears to be a new strategy being adopted by Republican candidates in urban/cosmopolitan areas.
In the past local Republican Party leaders rarely backed Independent candidates but given the party’s losses it is now strongly reconsidering this. A pursuit of party purity has allowed the Democrat party to take over keys sectors of urban and urban American often without much of a fight. But this strategy of using a moderate Republican and embracing fiscally responsible Independents might be a nightmare scenario for Democrats.
Republican candidates running on a moderate platform of change alongside an Independent could push many moderate Democrats and Independents into there camp. This strategy could be useful also in urban communities where the Independent Party is stronger. One example for instance can be found in New York City where the Mayor, Mike Bloomberg’s first political power grab while running as a Republican was to embrace the NY Independence Party. The Independence Party which has chapters all over the nation often butt head with Democrats. Because the GOP is rarely involved there real arch nemesis is the Democrats. So, in New York City as in other places around the nation, getting this key endorsement can be a key to any potential GOP urban victory.
It could also help improve the GOP’s image with minorities since many of these Independent candidates are minorities. To have the GOP back such candidates both financially and with votes could be huge. By getting millions of these independent voters alongside urban Republican who often number in the thousands will make Democrats spend more money and fight harder in communities they take for granted. Even in more rural areas such a campaign could work. The Senate race coming up with United States Senator Arlen Specter could be one test to watch for. Also who can forget Sen. Joe Lieberman’s re-election bid in 2006, in which he lost the Democrat Primary, but won re-election in the general election as a third party candidates is proof of how such tactics if used wisely could work.
The New Majority has a rundown on the new strategy being embraced by conservative Sen. John Coryn regarding the Republican Party’s new strategy in the coming years. What makes this strategy more unique than others in the past is the party’s embrace of moderate Republicans. According to the political website Politico: “[T]he GOP is quietly pursuing a 2010 strategy that relies heavily on candidates nearly identical to Specter. The party’s road to winning back a Senate majority, it seems, is paved with moderates whose records are sure to make conservatives blanch. For the National Republican Senatorial Committee’s recruitment list for 2010 reads like a roster of some of the party’s best-known RINOs (Republicans In Name Only) and squishes – the derisive terms applied to centrists by movement conservatives.” MORE
Also yesterday the moderate strategy got support when Republican Frank Fannon IV won a city council seat in liberal Alexandria, Virginia. The New Majority notes also that Alicia Hughes, an African American independent candidate supported by the local GOP, won a seat as well on the six member council.
Together, these two have broken the Democrats’ stranglehold on the city. … While it might not garner the national interest of New York’s special congressional election, these victories are important in their own right for the GOP….. MORE
HHR NOTE: If you want to know why moderate Republicans win in Democrat areas check out this video by Sen. Susan Collins. The video is all about issues and what she has been doing in her district no negative attacks just a simple message.
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Seems to me like Representative Gary L. Ackerman (D-NY) has some
explaining to do.
Records – reported on http://www.r8ny.com , a New
York City political Web site – show Ackerman (D-Jamaica Estates) accepted a
“personal loan” last year for as much as $100,000 from Selig Zises, a large
investor in a California-based company that Ackerman called Xenonics
Options. However, Ackerman, who denies any improprieties, said the alleged
loan was actually a sale of stock that he accidentally misreported.
“I no longer have it,” Ackerman said yesterday. “I sold it off a
couple weeks back.”
On March 9, 2002, Ackerman, a senior member on the International
Relations Committee, purchased between $1,001 to $15,000 of stock in
Xenonics, which is today valued at between $100,000 and $250,000, according
to financial records.
The 12th-term lawmaker said he decided to invest in Xenonics – a
name he said he doesn’t even know how to pronounce – after a suggestion from
Zises, whom he described as a friend.
The U.S. Army awarded the company a $2.98 million contract a year
later to manufacture night-vision equipment. Ackerman said he played no role
in steering federal dollars to Xenonics.
Within two years of his initial investment, Ackerman’s stake in
Xenonics Options had ballooned to as much as $1 million.
Why Xenonics? The answer can probably be found in Ackerman’s close
ties to the Zises family, one of New York ‘s uber-Likudniks. Since 1990, the
Zises family Bernard, Seymour, Selig & Jay, contributed at least $30,000
of Unifund CCR Partner proceeds (a vicious collection agency that will sue
160,000 Americans for Credit Card Default this year) to Ackerman’s campaign
coffers.
How close are Ackerman and the Zises? Close enough apparently for
Ackerman to have made a statement on the House floor last year in
celebration of patriarch Bernard Zises’s 90th birthday, and another upon the
death of the Zises family matriarch, Ruth Zises . That’s right: a statement
on the House floor.
[quote]It could also help improve the GOP’s image with minorities since many of these Independent candidates are minorities. To have the GOP back such candidates both financially and with votes could be huge. By getting millions of these independent voters alongside urban Republican who often number in the thousands will make Democrats spend more money and fight harder in communities they take for granted[/quote]
Mr Ivory:
You are reporting from the perspective of the Republican Party. I am not taking anything away from you for doing this.
I am suggesting, however, that you target your message from the perspective of “WITHIN THE BLACK COMMUNITY” in order to gain the traction that you seek.
You see, among our people the logic holds that “We do not like the policies of the Republican Party. They don’t have the best interests of Black people in mind. Thus NO REPUBLICAN IS GOING TO BE ELECTED TO RUN OUR BLACK INSTITUTIONS UNTIL THEY CHANGE”.
Upon hearing this Black Republicans (and I am a Black Conservative Independent) focus on what our people dislike about the Republicans and then go after the party to seek CHANGE in it.
What is needed is a new strategy. The person making the argument above is also admitting that NO REPUBLICANS PRESENTLY RUN THE BLACK INSTITUTIONS. The next question is to ask them “Are YOU satisfied with the institutions in your community as they are presently run?”. The answer is most likely “No” in the majority of the areas where our people live in our highest concentrations.
The key is to get our people struggling to have our PERMANENT INTERESTS delivered rather than to strengthen the Democratic Party so that one day they will come through on this delivery. Sadly the fact that the Black Activists and Black Media are 99% Democratic sympathizers – the individuals who are in power often escape accountability.
Instead they always “Expand The Police Tape”. The problems of the local school system or local crime is the fault of the state failing to provide funding or the “White conservatives failing to pass gun control that will KEEP GUNS OUT OF THE HANDS OF BLACK MALES so they’ll stop killing each other”. Few people will ask these same people who sought to take control of the political seats why they did not have a financial plan in order that adequate funding of our schools and other institutions might be had. They also won’t note that these killings are coming from our own and thus some valuable lessons about the respect for life were not taught while the “hand was rocking the cradle”.
I am at a disadvantage because my goal is not to make the Republican Party stronger. My goal is to push the Democratic Party out of the nucleus of our racial consciousness. It needs to be pushed out to the periphery and be made to compete based on the results that it delivers toward our permanent interests. Increased “Black head count” as Democrats into elected seats is not evidence of Black Progress. Improved test scores, reduced violence and increased economic productivity is.
Ironically, Mr Ivory – the challenge then is not to get Black folks to start liking Republicans. The bigger task is to get Black folks to return to the pursuit of our PERMANENT INTERESTS, riding upon the vehicle that takes us there via the most sound methodology.
I do see your point with regards putting ones hope in a political institution. I agree with you that the true work must come from within the community’s themselves. As a Republican, I am interested in growing the party and like you believe that the only way to grow the party and provide help and empowerment to urban areas is via competition. Only then can a way of thinking be “pushed out to the periphery made to compete”. The challenge for the Republican Party is to be present, be prepared to listen and then put forth an urban agenda that rivals the agenda set forth by the party in power.
I was in Alexandria a week before Easter, I figured it was Democrat-controlled. This is good news to my eyes, it seems the GOP in Virginia realizes it needs moderates to a state that has turned blue recently.
Good news to hear, I hope this works out.