ON THIRD THOUGHT: IF THE REPUBLICANS HAD BEEN SMART...Had they o...

ON THIRD THOUGHT: IF THE REPUBLICANS HAD BEEN SMART...



Had they o...: IF THE REPUBLICANS HAD BEEN SMART... Had they only not underestimated "The Donald" and (even more foolishly! ) overe...

IF THE REPUBLICANS HAD BEEN SMART...

Had they only not underestimated "The Donald" and (even more foolishly!) overestimated their field of dreams candidates - Bush, Rubio, Carson, Cruz (who can remember the rest?) And if (and this is the big one) if they could have gotten past their racism (Carson doesn't count) and if they had figured out that the far right has now gone as far as it can go. It has been squeezed into a box labeled: "not for national consumption." That ship, brought into port by Ronald Reagan, has sailed. It has also limited them to victories in all but a few statewide elections, and as the population gets younger and darker skinned, they will be electing fewer governors and senators in the future. 

If the Republicans could have accepted this reality and made an honest assessment of their enemy - not just Hillary but a white woman candidate. They would have rolled out "The General" - Colin Powell, whose cred also includes Secretary of State. Powell would have been a far more appropriate response to Clinton. Powell is the GOP's own weapon of mass destruction: "an acceptable Black man." 

My graduate thesis in media studies at the New School for Social Research focused on the portrayals of Black males in television dramas during the 1960s and 1970s. My research revealed something very interesting: Americans are more comfortable with, and more favorably view, Black men when they were portrayed as "protectors or defenders of the American way of life." In other words cops, spies and members of the military.

Just think about these television shows from the 60s and 70s:

"I Spy" - featured Bill Cosby as an American secret agent during the Cold War, who had equal standing with his white partner, played by Robert Culp 

"Mission Impossible" - featured Barney, played by Greg Morris, another Cold War spy character. Not only was Barney black, he was the first techie/computer geek in a regular TV series

"N.Y.P.D." - featured Robert Hooks as a lead detective in a Manhattan detective squad 

"Mod Squad" - featured Clarence Williams III as part of an off beat team of hippies, militants etc., recruited by LAPD for undercover work.

"The Rookies"  - featured Georg Standford Brown as one of the fledgling cops.

The trend continues today. In recent years we've had Dennis Haybert  leading an elite army team in "The Unit,"  Shemar Moore as an FBI agent on "Criminal Minds," as well as Jesse L. Greene as one of the lead detectives on "Law & Order."

So when the Democrats handed the ball to Hillary, a white woman, (although many Bernie supporters tried to slap it out of her hands) the Republicans should have countered with Powell. Leaving many African-Americans with a dilemma: Should I continue to follow the Democrats and the legacy of Obama while breaking new ground again, this time with a woman president? Or keep the groove going and vote in another brother? 

African-Americans (especially Boomers and their parents) have strong ties to military service. Many have served and we all share in that rich history that stretches from the beginnings of this nation through the Civil War, the heroic 369th Harlem Hellfighters in World War I, through the Tuskegee airmen and Buffalo Soldiers of World War II and every other war and military conflict including those still simmering today. And despite the years of segregation and other denials or rights in civilian life, the military has served as a launching pad for education, employment and other opportunities for African-Americans. In fact, President Truman issued Executive Order 9981, integrating the military in 1948 - long before Brown v. Board of Education (1954) or the Civil Rights Act of 1964.   

The late David Garth, the first of the modern day political campaign strategists and political "king makers" (he got John Lindsay, Ed Koch and Rudy Guiliani elected mayor of New York.) said that he never liked putting his candidates in suits or sitting in offices behind big desks. That, he said, "I want to get away from the image of them seeming powerful and unapproachable. I wanted them to be relatable to New York's working class." Garth put the WASPY looking Lindsay, in a decidedly ethnic New York City, in photos walking down streets of working class and barrio neighborhoods in his shirtsleeves rolled up, tie loosened. 

Garth deterred from that one time - when he ran the campaign for Tom Bradley for mayor of Los Angeles. The reason? "I photographed and filmed him in his office in a suit. I wanted people to feel that a Black man could be that official looking. Sometimes I used a photo of him in uniform when he was an LAPD Captain."

It worked. Tom Bradley became the first Black mayor of Los Angeles.

Now take a look at Colin Powell and how good he looks in both suit and uniform! Think that beats a pantsuit?

And what a bind this would put outgoing POTUS Barack Obama in. General/Secretary Powell broke ranks with the Republicans to support him - twice!

I started writing this before the latest dilemma that the GOP is facing with its candidate for president. But the Republicans' problems started long before that. It started with believing they could lie, cheat, connive their way back into the White House with an unprecedented campaign of deceit. And that they could ignore that the numbers in a changing demographic that will not support their policies much longer. That they will continue to lose women voters, and that more of those eligible to vote will not be angry white men. That more will realize (thanks in some part to technology) that "Black Lives Matter"(which has taken a permanent foothold across many racial, gender and age lines)  is emerging as the most powerful movement in decades.  

Eight years the Republicans have fought, battered and attempted to block President Obama at every turn.  Eight years! And in all that time and with all that money spent attacking him, the party chiefs were not developing a new message and cultivating new candidates, with a new agenda for a changing America. So now they become a joke and give "Saturday Night Live," and an ongoing punchline.   

I am very glad that the Republicans, and by that I mean the vile ones who control the party's major decisions, are not that smart. Not smart enough to do whatever it takes, to put forth a candidate with some level of of integrity. Colin Powell is not without his his faults. Just Google his presentation to United Nations covering George Bush's ass about the yet to be found "weapons of mass destruction" which led us into a war without end and destabilization of the entire region. 

Hillary is not without her faults either. She was a far weaker candidate than the Democrats could have imagined. If it had been a boxing match she would have beaten Bernie Sanders by points - no knockdown, no TKO. And yet a total blabbering jerk who will not go away, makes it thisclose less than a month from November 8. Fingers crossed nothing else about Hillary comes out.

Not in recent memory has a campaign with the opponents so wide apart on issues have the water cooler, locker room, bar discussions of which candidate do you like better, drifted into: "Why are these the candidates for president and how did we let this happen?"