Racist conservatives boycott Ben Carson

• Black physician’s campaign event overwhelmed by KKK hecklers
  
• Carson responds, tells the crowd he is going to “burn this !@#$% down!
• Area black residents told wrong place and time
  

  ---

Our apologies.  All to this point has been a poor imitation of The Onion.

The truth

Renowned pediatric neurosurgeon Ben Carson began the third official day of his campaign for the Republican nomination for president in Davenport yesterday before a packed room at Saint Ambrose University.  At least three-hundred people were in attendance to hear his 7:30 AM message. Media presence seemed mostly local.  Coffee was generally absent as there were some longing, even threatening glances at the large Casey’s cup of joe I paraded around and teased people with.

Although his was a very credible turn-out, at this stage of the Iowa process attendance at these events are less “support” and more investigation and curiosity. It is still “dangerous” as candidates can fall flat, come off as uninspired, fail to be engaging, . . . and then word gets around. We do not think Carson will have that problem.  His message was more generally inspirational than policy oriented. He did not get deep into any policy matters, perhaps mercifully so at that hour.  The deep part was the compelling G*d-fearing humility he presented as a physician in his opening remarks.

Still, he hit a number of political points that will resonate well with conservatives in addition to their important philosophical and cultural implications  – support for a flat tax so that everyone pays, including the poor, —  border security and a call for rebuilding the military — a balanced budget and a reference to the implications of our country’s debt now being as big as our GDP.

Carson went on to address education, appropriately, as key to solving many problems in the country.  He listed in descending order the record of general educational achievement for the following systems: first place going to the home-schooled, then private schools, charter schools and, at the bottom, public schools.  Carson said he would not end the federal Department of Education per se, but transform it to some sort of education technology help agency,  “to enable the best teachers to address not thirty but thirty thousand students.”

That part was not convincing to us and needs to be fleshed out in light of the performance ranking he acknowledges. Home-schooled kids do better and they have the most intimate relationship with the teacher and generally low reliance on technology (at least in the past). Private schooled kids do next best,  not because of being the next best in intimacy, as their class sizes, at least in typical Catholic parochial schools, may be larger than any other system, nor because of some emphasis on technology. We would suggest that an aura of increased discipline and we hope attention to basics is what makes the private schools effective.   Certainly there is lots of room for discussion and blending of what works best, but in any case we see no need for a federal role of any sort.

Having been to many such candidate visits we can say that few candidates have the time to present great detail on policy matters before they must be on to the next event of the campaign swing.  And frankly most of the items  we mentioned from his remarks don’t need elaboration although Carson did present them with a flow and a compelling “down home” line or two.

Perhaps some positions so precede the candidate,  or it was just too early in the morning, but we were surprised given that he is a preeminent physician, that health care policy – Obamacare — was not brought up. Maybe it was in the press interviews that are also part of these events . Dr Carson should have had more to say on the matter. I raised my hand to have him comment on Obamacare and conservative solutions to health care delivery, but was not called on by the particular moderator (nor likely to be) as many hands were up.  A combination of covering the basics and adroitly dealing with questions is what turns the merely curious into volunteers. He did spend some time glad handing but that does not provide the same availability for a useful comment.

Failed Outreach

One thing was obvious about the crowd.  It was overwhelmingly white.  I think I saw seven or eight Black Americans in the more than three hundred or so people present. Less than three percent. Of them maybe three or so were twenty-something.  The event was at St Ambrose University at Locust and Gaines, hardly even outside “the Davenport hood” as it were.  And if white middle class America retirees can make the same trip from the same enclaves that black middle class retirees and the like live in, well where were the black folks?

Certainly Dr Carson is not running as The Black Man’s Candidate. We appreciate that. But given his celebrity you would think that more both spontaneous and nurtured presence of area Black folks would have occurred.  The latter is a statement about the effectiveness two years later of  the Republican leadership ‘s outreach efforts to “minorities,”  so vaunted in the aftermath of the 2012 election. The program is largely a joke of course, written by the usual establishment suspects, a stilted analysis intended to implicate conservatives for causing the Romney campaign to go off the country-club reservation on some issues.

Ironically, we remember how our local Scott County leadership was mentioned as a model for such outreach efforts. We well appreciate that black voters need not be expected to attend an event by a candidate who is black, or just because he is black. So if the percentages are up for other Republican candidates at similar time and place we will acknowledge the same.

Disregarding the usefulness of superficial  “outreach” efforts we do believe and hope that more White and Black Americans should hear Dr. Carson’s inspiring and thoughtful message.

R Mall

0

0