Over the past several days many people have asked why would black democrats even consider supporting a right wing nut like Michael Steele over a true blue democrat like Cardin who has impeccable liberal credentials.
This column by Dan Rodericks, a liberal columnist in today's Baltimore Sun provides one answer.
Why would black democrats support Steele?
One of the black democrats to support Steele is a well liked, well known attorney in Baltimore, Billy Murphy.
Here's part of what I think is going on, based on a recent conversation with Murphy. He's disillusioned with the Democratic Party not because it has dissed him but because, somewhere back in the Clinton years, it pulled into the ideological middle by appropriating conservative ideas and refusing to fight important battles for fear of being labeled too liberal. The party, worried about being seen as soft on crime, also supported and even expanded the war on drugs, which has achieved little but increased incarceration of black men throughout the United States. This is a huge issue among black families.
Last month, I heard Murphy speak with passion about the need to make marijuana, cocaine and heroin legal, and to end a war on drugs established by Republicans (Reagan-First Bush era) but escalated by Democrats (Clinton era).
Murphy also thinks it's nuts that the police in Baltimore, under a Democratic mayor, have arrested and jailed thousands of citizens for minor offenses that, in a high percentage of cases, prosecutors dropped. (I don't know that a Republican mayor would have done anything differently, given the demand for action against crime that Martin O'Malley answered when he ran for that office in 1999.)
There are deeper, systemic problems, particularly in American cities: More than half of young, black men living there do not finish high school. According to a study published in The New York Times, nearly three-quarters of black male dropouts are unemployed, not looking for work or in jail. By their mid-30s, 60 percent of black men who drop out of high school have spent time in prison.
And Billy Murphy's saying American society doesn't seem inclined to do anything about this, and he might be right. But given all recent history, what would lead him to believe that a Republican, Michael Steele, would be any more inclined to do something about it than a Democrat, Ben Cardin?
Both parties have abided the "other America" while the nation prospered and the rich grew richer.
The consequences of this could effect the elections of two good Maryland democrats wanting to be Senator and Governor of Maryland. We don't know if it will just keep things close or really upset the apple cart. It is hard, if not impossible, to imagine Maryland with a Republican Senator.
Which explains, at least in part, why Murphy, a registered Democrat, endorsed Michael S. Steele for U.S. Senate the other day. He's a "Steele Democrat."
Steele, of course, loves this. He needs this. He is a Republican, and former chairman of the GOP in Maryland. President Bush and the GOP have raised hundreds of thousands of dollars for his campaign against Ben Cardin.
But Steele is running in a blue state, where Democrats outnumber Republicans by about 2-to-1 and where the GOP has lost ground in party registration since 2002.
In July, Steele told reporters that he considers being a Republican "an impediment, ... a hurdle I have to overcome. ... I've got an 'R' here, a scarlet letter."
A few days later, of course, Steele was calling George Bush "my homeboy."
He's working both sides.
So Steele loves it when a Democrat endorses him - particularly a well-known African-American Democrat from Baltimore like Billy Murphy.
Murphy is an ally of Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr., so for those familiar with that association, the attorney's endorsement of Steele the other day was not be a big surprise.
To others, it might have seemed almost shocking: Billy Murphy, the liberal lawyer who sees racism as the reason for almost every problem in our culture, endorsing a Republican?
"Like so many people who have come out today, I'm sick and tired of being taken for granted by the Democratic Party," Murphy said at a campaign appearance for Steele the other day. "I'm sick and tired of being relied upon for support but not respected as a leader," The Washington Times quoted Murphy as saying. "It pains me that I would stand here today in rejection of my party's refusal to embrace us in its leadership. But I am happy to be doing that for Michael Steele."
Another view from a conservative black columnist, also from the Baltimore Sun,
Kane gives the political history--most of it which is Baltimore-based.
What I hear African American leaders doing after the recent Maryland primary is challenging the Democratic Party to fight for their vote. It is not about the past anymore, it is really more about the future.
Thay are asking: What are you going to do for me now? Why should I believe you? Why should I vote for you?
And I think these are fair questions and maybe a little over due. The answers are as complicated as the problem.