Right Minded Online

Robert Parham had a column in the “Tennessee Voices” section of Saturday’s Tennessean making the accusation that Tennessee voters (white Tennessee voters, that is) are racist for not electing Harold Ford, Jr. to the U.S. Senate. Parham cynically asserts that “Republicans did what Republicans always do in the South. They played their Southern strategy of slinging racial mud.”

This is in line with a news story the Tennessean ran last Sunday which opened with the line “Come Tuesday, Tennessee voters may learn more than who their next U.S. senator will be: They may find out whether their state is ready to send a black man to the U.S. Senate.” I argued then and I argue now that it’s not about race with us. We conservatives saw the campaign on ideological terms. Liberals saw it on racial terms. Yet Republicans are the ones who are considered racist.

Likewise, columnist Dwight Lewis concluded his op/ed last Thursday declaring “I’ll go to my grave believing that Tuesday’s election between Harold Ford and Bob Corker shows we still have a long way to go to achieve social justice and equality.” Of course, Mr. Lewis gives the appearance of being racially biased himself, and can’t see through to the ideological differences between Corker and Ford that actually determined the outcome of this election.

Corker beat Ford 51-48% here in Tennessee. In the race for governor of Pennsylvania, a blue state, Ed Rendell, a white Democrat, beat Lynn Swann, a black Republican, 60-40%. In the race for U.S. Senate in Maryland, another blue state, Ben Cardin, a white Democrat, beat Michael Steele, a black Republican, 54-44%.

In other words, Harold Ford, Jr. came closer to winning a statewide race here in Tennessee than black Republicans did in two blue states, but we in Tennessee are the racists. Indeed, I have yet to hear one liberal accuse Pennsylvania or Maryland voters of racism (although Howard Dean has chastised the Maryland Democratic Party for being too white — a problem they need to rectify in order to avoid “another Michael Steele problem.”)

Ironically, Dwight Lewis flashes back to “the failed attempt of former Atlanta Mayor Andrew Young to win Georgia’s gubernatorial race in 1990 and black Charlotte, N.C., architect Harvey Gantt’s bid to win North Carolina’s senate race in 1994.” (Actually, Gantt’s defeats occurred in 1990 and 1996.) But he doesn’t mention the two aforementioned elections involving black candidates that happened just last week. Why the discrepancy? Andrew Young and Harvey Gantt, of course, are Democrats, and liberals only see racism if they can portray one of their own as the victim. Pennsylvania and Maryland voters aren’t similarly considered racist because defeated candidates Lynn Swann and Michael Steele aren’t Democrats.

Perhaps Lewis is right. Perhaps we do still have a long way to go to achieve “social justice” and “equality.”