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Virginia businesswoman Sheila Johnson made a winning bet by supporting a Republican. Are you taking notes?
Conventional wisdom has it that some of the president’s 2008 campaign luster has worn off with Independent voters—thus the GOP sweep that took place yesterday in New Jersey, Virginia and almost in New York’s 23rd district. I’m not sure that I agree with that assessment, as Tuesday’s election results should not be confused with the fact that the president’s approval ratings in Virginia, New Jersey and nationally are still quite high (over 54 percent).
As I see it, the real story is that black voters, once again, sat out an important “off-year” election. Whenever that happens, Republicans win. This is something more black voters must remember, particularly as the color and complexion of the national electorate gets browner. Republicans tend to do well when they build coalitions of loyal conservative voters and can peel off conservative Democrats and Independents as they did last night, again making us irrelevant. Republicans have learned to win without our votes. And they do it time and time again.
This year in Virginia, only 16 percent of blacks showed up at the polls to vote (versus 20 percent in 2008), and in New Jersey, exit polls show that black voters in urban areas like Newark and Camden did not come out in the large numbers usually required for Democrats to win statewide. As talk show host Roland Martin observed last night on CNN, “It is no longer enough for the Democrats to rely on getting Pookie off the couch to vote on Election Day for Democrats to win.” I agree.
What concerns me about Tuesday’s results is that Independent voters have seemingly turned away from the president in two states where he won handily. Still, given his approval ratings, I suspect that both elections have more to do with how voters feel about local issues in their states more than how they feel about the president.
The question for black voters as we head into the 2010 elections is once again how will we wield our political power? One example of a black woman who played her cards right in this year’s election is former BET billionaire Sheila Johnson. Johnson crossed party lines as a lifelong Democrat and became an early supporter of Bob McDonnell in Virginia—even running ads for him against Democrat Creigh Deeds. She read the tea leaves early and realized that the state was going to move back to the Republicans. Having an important hotel and inn project pending in the very Republican Loudoun County, Va., Johnson knew she had to hedge her bets. This is the kind of critical and strategic partnering that I wish more of us would engage in—she aligned herself with the winner in order to keep her business goals moving forward.
The takeaway: Black political power goes far beyond the vote. It’s about how we organize and lobby for issues important to the greater black community. (See Jeff Johnson’s piece on CNN.com about black political power in the age of Obama.) But black voters must realize that when we do not vote, or when we vote for one party (the Democrats) as we usually do, we diminish our importance in the electorate. When that happens, it cuts off access to Republican governors and legislators. They won’t care about our issues. I know this sounds cold, but this is politics. Politicians respond to two things: money and votes. When they win, they empower those that helped to get them elected—usually not us. Sheila Johnson understands this. It’s time for the rest of us to wise up, too.
Sophia A. Nelson is a regular contributor to The Root.
Comments
I live in Chicago, a reliable Democratic area, so I can vote for Mickey Mouse and feel ok. The GOP has already been marginalized as a regional white party. The problem is getting the Dems to behave in a progressive manner, what's the point of electing them if they behave like Repubs? I think if we do vote for third party candidates they will get the picture especially with this country's changing demographics. The Repubs know this which is why you see assaults on ACORN and the abuse of the justice department by the Bush administration. I'm not worried about the GOP as they are self destructing so just sit back and watch. I'm surprised someone as smart as Sophie is suggesting getting on a sinking ship. In closing I would say check out the Green party as they are actually getting more of their candidates elected. I'm thinking about running for elected office myself on the Green ticket and you should consider the same. The more we challenge the Dems, even in safe districts, the more they have to respond to our demands. Get involved, while you may not win the first go around you can bring up ideas usually glanced over in debates and media coverage.
I think everyone has correctly seen this article for what it is - one of the most blatant examples of pushing a republican ideology - vote for your own financial self interest and ignore everything else. Clearly, most of us disagree. In fact, I think we need to do the exact opposite.
While I intellectually like a lot of what the Green party stands for, I can't bring myself to vote for them because most races are so close that taking votes away from the democrats can result in letting the republicans win, and I think that is too much to risk.
In my opinion, the best way for us to foster change in this country is to get more people out to vote, particularly black people. Presidential politics in this country has unfortunately come down to a small number of swing states. In most of these states, the black vote can play a huge rule in pushing the state one way or another. That is what we saw in the last election - not just because of the black vote of course - but it definitely had a lot of power.
Contrary to what Sophia encourages, most black people get it, and they vote democratic. If we could just get the percentage of eligible people voting up, way up, we could start to force republicans to take the issues that effect the black community seriously.
At the end of the day I think it can be boiled down to something relatively simple. As of right now, republicans can get elected without catering to the black vote. If that were to change, they would have to change. The only way they are going to change is to start losing race after race after race while seeing the number of black people voting going up and up and all those votes doing democratic. Once there were some solid numbers like that, which repeated themselves in multiple elections, we'd start to see a shift. At first it might be mainly lip service, but if the voters wait for real action, we could start to actually change the game.
Of course, coming up with that idea isn't anything new. The trick is getting more black people to vote. I don't know how we go about doing that. Truth is, Obama being black was a huge motivator, and black people voted in large numbers, but honestly - I had hoped for even more. And we now have to worry about the next election - where people are going to be less excited then they were the first time around - and see if we can get him back in office.
All this to say - the democrats have a lot of problems themselves. But for now we are choosing between 2 evils, and one is much worse than the other. As far as democrats go I think we could try to focus on primaries - supporting the best of the bunch and hoping that pushes them in the right direction.
But after seeing the blatant racism that republicans have been encouraging and using to fight Obama we should all be deeply offended and should be all the more enthusiastic about voting against them for the next couple of cycles. The hard part is getting everyone else to do the same. People like Sophia may help to motivate us to vote against her ilk...but I'm afraid that isn't enough.
Another attempt to solicit more vote for Republicans? I thought you quit that party? Anyway, the two statewide elections were not about the president no matter how conservatives try to spin things as they always do. In VA the Dem lost by not running as a Dem and the GOP candidate ran as a moderate even though he is not. VA will find out how conservative McDonnell is and reject him in the future, he is a Regent University graduate who thinks women should not be in the workplace. Sheila Johnson is no model to follow she is a business woman with billions just like her husband, I suspect none us us posters here are billionares with hotel deals pending but if you are congrats. Thing is if one just follows trends these results are not surprising, both NJ and VA seem to always elect a governor of the opposite party of the president. Also both state assemblies are controlled by Dems so most voters saw these elections as no consequence. We should also recognize the GOP is 0-5 on congressional seats this year, that should be of more concern to the GOP than two governor seats. Nice try Ms. Nelson. I agree that we should not hitch our political fortunes to one party but voting for a party that is hostile to our community does not make much sense either. I personally vote for the Green party but that's another story for another day.
The title of this article is ridiculous. BET has done more damaged to the Black community than good. BET... Black Exploitation Television.
I have very little respect for Ms. Johnson. Oprah would never do such a thing. Don't let money cause you to lose your soul.
I'm resolved to the idea that Sophia is who she is and we're just going to have to suffer through it. It's unfortunate that someone who's made it (at least when compared to much of the black community) can turn their back on their people in pursuit of what I assume is financial gain and perhaps some fleeting celebrity. I can only imagine how much more constructive Sophia could be had she been putting the interests of black people before the GOP for the last 20 years instead of the other way around. But, I'd bet she doesn't feel much responsibility to the black community. I doubt she has much to do with it on a daily basis. And I'm starting to wonder if she doesn't wish she were able to just be what she wants to be without being called out for it - and I'll just put it out there - as far as I can tell she wants to be a rich, white, republican. She's done about as much as she can to get there - the only solace I have is that we all know that sooner or later she'll be reminded by those very people she supports what they really think of her.
Yes, I just submitted a comment with tons of typos. I do know the difference between "right" and "write" - I'll take the easy route and blame the predictive text on the phone I'm using. And my own laziness for not reading before clicking comment. But...I think my points remain...
BaddaDanU does it again - s/he eloquently rebuts Sophia, and no surprise, she chooses not to respond. Have any noticed that on the issues themselves, she is silent, but she is happy to pop up to fake offense at comments and call other people names. Like so many Republicans - she refuses to engage on the issues. Many people have taken her to task in these comments for her actions and opinions and tried to start a dialogue with her about it - but for some reason she keeps resisting defending her beliefs. It's easy to right an article with all kinds of prescriptions for how black people should act without having those ideas challenged and put into context by people who are looking at the big picture.
I think Sophia's silence shows the weakness of her argument. She doesn't want to come on here having to defend her support for the GOP (which, I present is also against the black community), her ideas for voting for financial self-interest, and the idea that if what she is going is in fact bad for black people that yes, she is in fact a sell-out and should be regarded as such.
What I believe to be the case is that Sophia actually knows all of this to be true. She probably has some ways of trying to rationalize it, but at the end of the day I think she knows that she acts in a lot of ways against the interest of the black community, but decides to continue doing so because it is in her financial self interest and she does have a couple of side gigs that help people - so those probably help her sleep at night. I would contend that she has already done way more damage than good - helping Bush II get into office and appoint 2 supreme court justices is going to shape this country for a long long time - but unfortunately we can't even get any response from Sophia to know what she really thinks. The only time she does respond is to call people names while "defending" herself.
One last thing - the weird thing about the comments that were removed is that they weren't even the ones that used the "offensive" language Sophia calls out. The original comment was there - it was the responses to her supposed outrage that so perfectly rebutted all of what she said. But, who knows what happened, I doubt the editors at Root really want to waste there time mediating the comment boards so I don't totally blame them for the questionable editing.
What I would like to hear is some response on the issues from Sophia. One would think that she could ignore name calling and personal attacks and focus on the issues at hand - i.e. explain how she views the contradiction that many of us see as republican party and support for the black community; how voting in one's financial self interest is a good things, etc. etc. Can we get some actual content back?
I see you've complained that your critics haven't adequately read up on "your resume". I think I've done my due diligence in regards to what I've had to say. Can't do much better than "straight from the horse's mouth" can we?
Had you bothered to, as I advised you to in the now-deleted comments, picked up or clicked your way to a dictionary... you would have found that "whore" is also defined as "A person considered as having compromised principles for personal gain."
Um... you're a "writer", correct? Why is it necessary for a layman to have to inform you of this?
As for "appropriate commentary" I'd think the question would be better posed to the political veteran and staff writer who has, within the past week alone, referred to her critics - no matter how selective in their words - as "psycho", "stalker", "crazy", "nasty", "bitter", "clown", "creep", "disgrace", "the likes of you" and my personal favorite in one case... an "A-HOLE!".
Really, ma???
All of which you've defended at one time or another as standing up for yourself, but as I stated on another topic (which I'm sure you've read)... As a writer and a public speaker one would expect a command of the English language and social skills that are up to the task of defending from attacks without sinking to namecalling and visible hostility especially if that's the point they were trying to make in the first place! How does one stoop to the level that they speak out against AND CONTINUE to criticize that behavior in the process???
YOUR words criticize other people of color "because they are so nasty and evil toward other black folks who disagree with them"
YOUR words ask "can't we talk and disagree without making it personal"
So my question is... what makes you any better than those you see fit to criticize in this way? That's been my question all along. It remains unanswered. What of it Sophie?
And as for what rock I crawled out from under, I'm not sure what you mean. I've been walking, talking, living, breathing and engaging people in conversation for quite some time now. In the same way that you've never heard of me until recently I can say the same of you. I'm no bigwig political mover-and-shaker and I'm not up on anybody's TV set rubbing elbows with anchormen, but if you haven't noticed neither are the majority of the people who live, work, fight for, and love this country. So think again before you decide exactly who you've decided to cast as "rock crawlers". You're not some kind of elitist or something... are you?