Powell and Rice

Cedric Muhammed's article , comprehensive as it may be, left two points which I would consider very enlightening namely; Powell was seriously considering taking on Bill Clinton in 1996 and polls, if they can be trusted, were showing him beating Clinton and, secondly, Condoleezza Rice's conversion to a Republican.

I was paying particular attention to the 1996 election because Powell had high prospects. What basically foundered his campaign long before it was official was the hue and cry from the Republican Party's base, conservative white southerners. They made it known to the GOP establishment that if Powell was to get the nomination, they would run away from the party like the devil runs away from holy water. Pat Buchanan and his sister Bay openly said so. For all the hate that these Buchanans have, you cannot help but respect their candor. The other slick southern conservatives embarked on a whisper campaign.

Much like Micheal Dukakis' Greek ancestry became an issue when Papa Bush was running for president in 1988, so was Powell's Jamaican ancestry. In other words, Powell, like Dukakis, was not American enough to be worthy of its highest office.

Whispers of his war efforts could be heard loudly on conservative talk-radio shows. They brought an issue regarding an incident during the Vietnam war and tried to impugne Powell's efforts. Although that tactic did not gather any momentum, it had shown how far the rightwingers could go, not to mention that it had sown enough doubt about Powell's war credentials in the minds of the gullible GOP base.

Even the well-orchestrated Gulf War in which Powell was the brains behind all the success --- remember Cheney, then Secretary of Defense, was a draft-dodger and had no war experience --- could not garner Powell enough support. I remember listening to a conservative radio station and the majority of the callers were saying if there is anyone who deserved more accolades for the Gulf War efforts it was General Schwarzkopf. These loonies did not realize that Schwarzkopf was taking his orders from his superior Powell.

Powell was not immune from the slanderous tongues of the Bible-thumpers either. The notorious duo of Pat Robertson and Jerry Falwell joined in the jihad against Powell. I would be the least surprised if these mullahs are chaffing and waxing now that Powell is the second man in line for the presidency after the draft-dodging Cheney. As an aside, remember Baby Bush is a draft-dodger too and for all the weeping and gnashing of teeth about Clinton's draft-dodging by the GOP, I find it quite ironical that they respond by giving America two of their own --- more on this later.

Now to Professor Rice's purported political epiphany. She yammered during the Philly GOP fiesta about how her father, a devout Democrat, was barred from voting by fellow white Democrats in Alabama. This was in the 1950s. Mark this date carefully. Southern Democrats then had not morphed into the FDR Democrats that we know now. These were the Democrats of yore and staunchly believed in the inequality of mankind. With FDR in power, he had slowly and irreversibly moved the Democratic Party to a party of compassion rather than hate. The Southern Democrats felt like a foster child not wanted on the table hence South Carolina's Strom Thurmond's 1948 attempt for the White House as a Dixiecrat or Southern Democrat with unwavering fealty to the old principles of the pre-FDR Democratic Party.

Strom Thurmond failed but that event marked the beginning of the demise of the Republican Party as it had been know since Abraham Lincoln. This party had slowly veered off the course set by Lincoln starting with Rutherford B. Hayes' compromise to end the federal initiatives that guaranteed unfettered freedom to southern blacks. The Republican Party was in the intensive care unit when it got a breath of life from crossover Southern Democrats. Strom Thurmond became a Republican so did Helms, Lott, Gramm et cetera. These are all Dixiecrats. Even the current "blue dog Democrats" are Dixiecrats and it is for this very reason that southern Democrats of today are more likely to vote with the Republican Party on a lot of social issues. A good example of that was Senator Shelby of Alabama before he crossed over to the GOP in 1994. Representative Gene Taylor of Mississippi, a Democrat voted to impeach Clinton. Baby Bush has been courting Senator John Breaux the Democrat from Louisiana.

What this says to me is simple: the Republican Party of Abe Lincoln died a long time ago and it was Nixon with his southern strategy that buried Lincoln's party. Ask any southern Republican about Lincoln and you will get a look that kills --- sempre tyrannus, they say. Which brings me back to Condoleezza Rice's statement as to why she became a Republican. Educated though she might be, it has escaped her that the same segregationist Democrats that barred her father from voting in the 1950 are the very same segregationist Republicans that kept votes from being counted in Florida just the other day. She has to be very naive not to be cognizant of such facts when a mafikezolo like me does.





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