Jack Kemp and African American Outreach

Joh Nichols over at The Nation   ( http://www.thenation.com/doc/20090518/nichols2?rel=hp_currently   )   has a worthy and mostly fair appreciation of Jack Kemp's attempt to increase Republican support within the African American community.  With Jack Kemp gone, perhaps it is time to talk about what was right and what was wrong with Jack Kemp's attempt to sell Republican conservatism to the African American community.

There was much to like about Jack Kemp's strategy.  Kemp was persistent in the face of his own party's indifference to his efforts and the depth of the black community's distrust for conservative Republicans.  His approach was optimistic, policy oriented and interested in getting real life results.  He was honest about what conservatives had done that have alienated African Americans.  Kemp's  approach was by far the best African American outreach strategy the Republicans had in the 1990s.

But that is damning with the faintest praise.  For early 90s Republicans, there was a latent suburban/rural Republican majority that was only awaiting the right strategy to be mobilized - as it was in 1994.  Kemp's strategy of aggressive African American outreach would have used up resources (especially the candidate's time) in return for questionable results.  It must have seemed like a better idea to spend that time in the suburbs with voters who were less suspicious of white conservatives.  The result was that conservative Republicans are almost as alienated from the African American community now as in 1964 when the chief political spokesman for conservatism had just voted against the Civil rights Act of 1964. 

But there were also problems with Kemp's approach.  The policy basis of Kemp's appeal to the African American community was too narrow.  Enterprise zones and public housing vouchers ar fine ideas in themselves, but they are not the kind of things of which party switches are built.  There was in fact something a little otherwordly about Kemp's approach.  Where neighborhoods were swamped with violence, an approach that led with (rather than incorporated) tax and regulatory breaks seemed delusional.  To the African American middle class that had left those neighborhoods, those policies had limited application.  The enterprise zones would be someplace else.

A conservative politics that seeks to make real gains among African Americans is going to have to be a broad politics.  It should incorporate the best of Kemp's supply side ideas.  It should take on failing schools.  It should include appeals on health care reform.  It should also include appeals on the social issues especially on issues like partial birth abortion .  It should should always emphasize real results and real principles.  It should explain how health insurance premiums will come down, how students will have more oppurtunities as adults, how late term abortion stops a functioning heart and destroys a brain that can feel pain.  And it should do so in ads on African American oriented media and in appearances in areas with large African American populations and do it year after year after year. 

It will also have to be tougher that Kemp was willing to be.  Any real attempt to win over large numbers of African Americans will result in blistering and often unfair counterattacks.  The Democratic party is very attached to its 5-to-1 (and more) margins among African Americans. Any real outreach attempts will be met with cries of racism and personal attacks on those who make them.  There will be attempts to change the subject to Willie Horton and welfare queens.  The 2000 James Byrd ad is one example of what we might see.

Republicans will have to hit back hard on the issues.  Positive appeals will have to be matched with negative appeals.  Republicans will have to explain how Democratic policies mean bills piling up on the table, viable kicking fetuses aborted, wondering if a a change in jobs will cause a break in coverage in which any medical emergency will financially cripple your family and schools where your kids get less than the preparation they need to compete for the jobs that you know are within their potential.  The Democrats will try to paint Republicans  as the party of racism.  Okay, politics is tough.  Then again, that is what they are already doing.  Republicans must paint Democrats as the party of self-serving and destructive interests and of comfortable social radicals.  This will be playing the game rougher than Kemp ever wanted to, but it will have to be part of any effective strategy.

The Republicans would have been better off following Kemp's outreach strategy in the 1990s.  At the very worst, they would be where they are now.  They would probably be at least a little better off.  But to make real gains, Republicans must come up with an agenda as broad as real politics, and fight for African American voters like they are a costituency worth the fighting for.