This April, all the major Democratic Presidential candidates appeared at Al Sharpton's National Action Network. Al Sharpton's Web site has pictures of Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, and John Edwards posing with Sharpton, and all three candidates endorsed and praised Sharpton. This will not affect the Democratic primaries, but it could have major ramifications in the November election.
Next year's Democratic nominee will not be running against "W," or even anyone closely associated with "W." It looks like John McCain is pretty much out of the running, while Mitt Romney and Rudy Giuliani have few ties to the Bush Administration. As matters stand now, however, the Republican can effectively run against Al Sharpton. Sharpton's history could easily make him an albatross (Sharptontross?) around the Democratic candidate's neck, and drag him or her down to defeat.
Republicans (and some independent commentators) allege that bigotry, especially but not limited to anti-Semitism, is permeating the Democratic Party. Steve Sheffey: "Surfin' the Net" at the National Jewish Democratic Council's blog says,
Whether it is because they have too much time to surf the net or whether it is because they are still chagrined that Al Gore claimed he invented it, some Republicans are now blaming Democrats for anti-Semitic postings on certain web sites.
This includes, of course, Bill O'Reilly's accusations against the Daily Kos, and last year's controversy over hate speech at MoveOn.org's Action Forum. The major issue in the latter controversy was whether MoveOn exercised editorial control over the forum content, i.e. deleting or censoring material with which it disagreed while letting the hate speech stand. It is very difficult for Mr. Sheffey to mitigate the damage from these allegations when MoveOn.org itself posted a photomanipulation of the Pope waving a gavel in front of the Supreme Court (it can't hold anonymous trolls accountable for that), or when the leading Democratic candidates consort openly with a well-known racist and anti-Semite.
It is pretty obvious what would (and should) happen to any Republican who posed with and praised a Ku Klux Klansman at a Klan rally. In practice, of course, few if any Republicans will acknowledge David Duke as a member of their party, even though he ran for office as a Republican. Republicans can, however, make a case that Al Sharpton is a Black version of David Duke and disgraced Durham prosecutor Mike Nifong put together. This could easily turn off so many voters that they will not even listen to the Democratic nominee on the actual issues.
In 1988, Al Sharpton attempted to "Nifong" innocent people in Wappingers Falls, NY, by falsely accusing them of raping Tawana Brawley. Although Sharpton was discredited, and the two attorneys who worked with him were (like Mike Nifong) eventually disbarred for various acts of misconduct, one of the defamation victims (police officer Harry Crist Jr.) committed suicide. In a later civil trial, Sharpton and his associates were found liable for knowingly and willfully leveling false accusations of rape.
In 1992, Sharpton's anti-Semitic rhetoric played a role in the Crown Heights riots, in which a mob murdered a Jew named Yankel Rosenbaum. As reported by the Larry Elder show,
Sharpton said, "...Talk about how Oppenheimer in South Africa sends diamonds straight to Tel Aviv and deals with the diamond merchants right here in Crown Heights ...Later Sharpton said, "If the Jews want to get it on, tell them to pin their yarmulkes back and come over to my house."
In 1995, Sharpton and the National Action Network, the same organization at which the leading Democrats appeared, shouted racial and anti-Semitic epithets, and arson threats, at a Jewish store owner in Harlem. The arson threat was put into effect, and seven people died in the fire. Fred Siegel elaborated on the hate speech in a Wall Street Journal opinion piece:
...Picketers from Mr. Sharpton's National Action Network, sometimes joined by "the Rev." himself, marched daily outside the store, screaming about "bloodsucking Jews" and "Jew bastards" and threatening to burn the building down.
After weeks of increasingly violent rhetoric, one of the protesters, Roland Smith, took Mr. Sharpton's words about ousting the "white interloper" to heart.
Smith then set the fire that killed seven store employees, including an African-American whom Sharpton's entourage had called a "cracker lover." This is exactly equivalent to the white supremacist term "Negro lover," although "Negro" is not exactly the word the sheet and hood people use. Kathryn Lopez adds at the Jewish World Review,
Sharpton held protests against [the owner of Freddy's Fashion Mart], and announced... "we will not stand by and allow them to move this brother so that some white interloper can expand his business." A Sharpton deputy [Morris Powell] announced: "We're going to see that this cracker suffers. Rev. Sharpton is on it."
The National Action Network's conduct was identical to that of the Ku Klux Klan, which would often intimidate Black store owners and homeowners in the "wrong" (white) neighborhoods with racist hate speech, violent threats, and sometimes violence that included firebombing.
More recently, Al Sharpton demanded the firing of talk radio personality Don Imus for racist comments about "nappy headed hos." Someone should have said something about Imus' disgusting statement, but Al Sharpton was not the right person to say it. As reported by Jay Nordlinger,
In the spring of 1989, the Central Park "wilding" occurred. That was the monstrous rape and beating of a young white woman, known to most of the world as "the jogger." The hatred heaped on her by Sharpton and his claque is almost impossible to fathom, and wrenching to review. ...Outside the courthouse, they [Sharpton and his entourage] chanted, "The boyfriend did it! The boyfriend did it!" They denounced the victim as "Whore!"
A strong argument can therefore be made, and the Republicans will doubtlessly make it, that Al Sharpton is the Black counterpart of David Duke and Mike Nifong combined: a racist and anti-Semite who levies false accusations of rape for personal political gain. When Democratic Presidential candidates pose with and endorse this individual and his organization, a strong argument can be made that they are affirming and endorsing the kind of hate that has no place whatsoever in American society.
While this will obviously turn off white people and especially Jews, it will also alienate the vast majority of African-Americans. The reason is simple. Hate mongers, racists, and so on appeal universally to the lowest elements of the groups they claim to represent. The people who wear sheets while burning crosses are not exactly the upper strata of white society, nor are they even the middle strata. Similarly, Black people who rampage through Crown Heights while yelling "Kill the Jew" (which they did), or shout racial and anti-Semitic hate speech outside a Jewish-owned store, are the lowest class of African-Americans. Posing with Al Sharpton to appeal to them is hardly complimentary to self-respecting Black people, just as posing with David Duke would be insulting to all decent white people.
We are not sure what Clinton, Obama, Edwards (and the others who attended the National Action Network event) can do at this point to rectify the enormous vulnerability they have created for themselves. Perhaps the best thing would be for other Democrats (e.g. Pennsylvania's Ed Rendell, with a good record for improving public access to health care, and Connecticut's Joe Lieberman, who is known for his strength on national security) should get into the race to provide viable alternatives. There must be other Democratic governors who have not had any contact with Sharpton, and who can appeal to a wide spectrum of voters, who also would qualify.*
Otherwise, 2008 is likely to be a reptition of 2004. Had the Democrats put up a decent human being with a body temperature of roughly 98.6 F, they would have won in 2004. Instead, they nominated a self-proclaimed war criminal who said for free what John McCain was tortured for not saying. This was not according to the Swift Boat veterans, it was according to John Kerry's own testimony during the Viet Nam war. (He said that he and his fellow servicemen committed atrocities and behaved like Genghis Khan.) By posing with and endorsing a professional bigot like Al Sharpton, Democrats invite voters to ignore issues like the economy, health care, education, and so on, and allow revulsion and disgust to guide their hands to the R lever.
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- Governors tend to do better than Senators because of their executive management experience; that is, they manage on a state level what the President must manage on a national level. Giuliani can claim that New York City is as big and complex as many states, and Mitt Romeny is of course a governor. This could give them an edge over Clinton, Obama, Edwards, and Lieberman. Ed Rendell, the governor of a big state, would not suffer from this disadvantage. Some history:
- Carter (Governor) defeated Ford (former House member)
- Reagan (Governor) defeated Carter
- Reagan (Governor) defeated Mondale (former Senator)
- Bush defeated Dukakis (Governor), an anomaly noting that Bush never served in an executive capacity himself
- Clinton (Governor) defeated Bush
- Clinton (Governor) defeated Dole (Senator)
- W (Governor) defeated Gore (Senator)
- W (Governor) defeated Kerry (Senator)
In summary, Senators do not tend to do well against Governors, probably because Governors have executive experience they can take to the White House. This is why Ed Rendell or another Governor run better than Joe Lieberman, but the bottom line is that the party needs to find someone without the "Sharptontross" problem.