Ohio, Florida -- Race, Voting and the 2008 Elections

Barack Obama's victory in Iowa yesterday is heartening and historic. Can't say that a tear didn't spark in even this bitter, cynical old eye of mine listening to his speech. Still, my other eye is turned to the future while reveling in the exciting present.

I've been wondering to myself the past few weeks, now if I was an unemployed Karl Rove twiddling my thumbs at home, what would I be doing? Well, I'd probably be taking a look at the electoral voting map of the U.S. and wondering where I can sow the seeds of another surprise GOP victory in 2008.

Now the numbers appear very much stacked against a Republican victory in 2008 and Democrats would appear to be poised to scoop up many races including president, house, senate and governor. Still it's at least still possible yet that we may end up with another close race where votes counted on a razor's edge can tip the balance of electoral votes and the race for president in one jackpot key state alone.

Rove and the RNC masterminded dirty tricks to make voting difficult for African-Americans and/or make sure their votes wouldn't be counted in Florida in 2000 and in Ohio in 2004. This strategy has been successful -- why wouldn't the Republicans try it again in 2008 to game the odds a little more in their favor?

Here's what those 2 purple states have in common -- they have large African-American populations (12% or higher) that have little political power or capital in their home states and they each carried 20 or more electoral votes. Ohio has 20 votes and Florida, 27.

Let's take a look at the jackpot states with 20 or more electoral votes at stake:

CA: 55
TX: 34
NY: 31
FL: 27
PA: 21
IL: 21
OH: 20

Texas is a reliably red state and a Bush stronghold. Yet it is also just over 12% African-American according to the 2005 Census and Obama has just proven that even in the one of the whitest of states, he can generate new voters and create crossover voters from Republican to Democrat. If I was a GOP leader, I'd start getting concerned about what a truly energized black vote in TX might look like combined with the crossover and new voter effects. Could a red state be at risk of turning blue?

The minority political power in TX is focused more on the latino community (which is multiracial). Hispanics of any race make up 35% of the population in TX. The GOP seems less likely to mess with them.

The African-Americans, as in FL and OH, are conveniently segregated in East Texas where the cotton plantations used to be along with strong numbers in Dallas and Houston. Blacks probably have a little too much political power in NY, IL and PA to rip off with impunity and they are too dispersed in the big blue state of CA. And folks are on their guard in FL and OH this go-round.

So, my current guess doing the math is that if we are going to see voting disenfranchisement, dirty tricks, weirdness and assorted hijinks, Texas might be the mark in 2008. That's my forecast for the broken machines, folks incorrectly stricken from voter files, closed polling stations, confusing robo-calls, harassment and all the other ways in which voting was disrupted in 2000 and 2004 for African-Americans. Think it's not possible? Then let me point you to one of America's supposedly greatest conspiracies of all time which was the successful plot to keep the slaves in Texas from knowing that the Emancipation Proclamation had been issued during the Civil War until 1865.

A Brief History:

What is Juneteenth? Juneteenth is the oldest known celebration of the ending of slavery. Dating back to 1865, it was on June 19th that the Union soldiers, led by Major General Gordon Granger, landed at Galveston, Texas with news that the war had ended and that all slaves were now free. Note that this was two and a half years after President Lincoln's Emancipation Proclamation - which had become official January 1, 1863.

Here's General Order No. 3, interesting unto itself:

The people of Texas are informed that, in accordance with a proclamation from the Executive of the United States, all slaves are free. This involves an absolute equality of personal rights and rights of property between former masters and slaves, and the connection heretofore existing between them becomes that between employer and hired labor. The freedmen are advised to remain quietly at their present homes and work for wages. They are informed that they will not be allowed to collect at military posts and that they will not be supported in idleness either there or elsewhere.

2 and a half years. There have been a lot of attempted explanations as to why the slaves in Texas were in the dark about the Emancipation Proclamation, news of which in other Confederate-controlled areas caused economic and military impacts as 200,000 blacks, mostly freedmen, swelled the ranks of the Union forces. None of those reasons are entirely convincing alone and some historians (and many black people) have suspected a well-organized, carefully networked effort among the state's leaders to keep the news of the emancipation as quiet as possible for as long as possible in Texas.

I realize that other ethnic groups such as Native Americans and Latinos have also been targeted and in order to save seats in the House and Senate, I wonder if the forecast won't show an increase in micro-disruption for voting as well this year. But maybe I'm totally off-base here. I've only been to Texas a few times and I know not to mess with TX. If you are from TX or one of the other high count electoral vote states, holler and let me know what you think.

Documenting Republican Racism

With much love to Talib Kweli's new cut Listen (from the album Eardrum):

Ladies and gentleman, get ready here it come.
[Jill Tubman] and I’m bangin’ on your eardrum.
Get up, get into, and get involved.
(Listen)
There’s a little somethin’ that I wanna spit for y’all.
(I wanna know!)
Now let me get up in it.
...
You love the sounds coming out your speaker
I spit rounds like a nine millimeter
The youth today, they frown at the teachers
They ain't down with no leaders

Hmmm...when you know the demographics in your country are shifting, does it make sense to completely ignore the people in a growing demographic in favor of an ignorant, fearful and shrinking one? What's always fascinated me about American racism is just how twisted, awkward, self-destructive and irrational it always is. Here's a video documenting the current slate of Republican presidential candidates' consistent avoidance of speaking to people of color. It's enough to almost make a young person cynical. Or get up into making change happen.

Republican Candidates Give Black and Brown the Finger, Other Republicans Concerned

The fact that leading Republicans like Ken Mehlman, New Gingrich and Jack Kemp are speaking publicly in the Washington Post about major Republican candidates refusing to show up for debates that made news for Democratic candidates speaks volumes. Newt, to his credit, makes it plain:

"For Republicans to consistently refuse to engage in front of an African American or Latino audience is an enormous error," said former House speaker Newt Gingrich (Ga.), who has not yet ruled out a White House run himself. "I hope they will reverse their decision and change their schedules. I see no excuse -- this thing has been planned for months, these candidates have known about it for months. It's just fundamentally wrong. Any of them who give you that scheduling-conflict answer are disingenuous. That's baloney."

Black people have always known where modern Republicans stand. Their history of supporting segregation and their race-baiting messaging during elections combined with their consistent support of legislation hostile to the average black person's interests is something we have generations now of experience with.

We know they are not on our side. Latinos in America are starting to get a clue and overall leaned Democratic in the last elections. The problem for Republicans is that except among a sub-section of their base comprised of ignorant, misguided mouthbreathers, open racism is not cool anymore. Even if blacks and brown aren't swayed by the fake sincerity of candidates coming to speak to us on our issues, many whites are. Post-Martin Luther King, most Americans hold at least an ideal of racial harmony in America in their hearts as a core value. Republican candidates are in danger of sacrificing the suburban white soccer mom vote with this behavior. Their failure to show up at the CNN/YouTube debate for their party shows they are afraid of answering middle class white America's questions on issues like Iraq, national security, climate change, tax cuts and healthcare too, though. I agree with Tavis Smiley on this and probably so do a lot of white Republicans:

"When you reject every black invitation and every brown invitation you receive, is that a scheduling issue or is it a pattern?" he asked. "I don't believe anybody should be elected president of the United States if they think along the way they can ignore people of color. That's just not the America we live in."

Hip Hop Money and the 2008 Elections

Forbes has released a list of top hip hop moguls. These are businessmen (all men so far). Only two, Russell Simmons and his meetings with John Edwards and candid comments on Barack Obama along with P.Diddy and his Vote or Die 2004 GOTV initiative have thrown real weight into politics.

Wouldn't it have been interesting if P.Diddy or Russell Simmons had been invited to keynote at the YearlyKos Convention? Or maybe even Common, Mos Def, Ludacris, Dead Prez, Kanye West or some of the other enlightened artists. Crazy idea? Maybe, but these are real people with real dollars, some of whom have shown real interest in progressive causes. Hip hop reaches millions (black, white -- all colors) with its messages. Yes, some of the messages coming out of hip hop are toxic -- sex, drugs and rock and roll sells. Let's not point fingers at hip hop without also looking at the wider and whiter history of popular music in the modern era.

Like the majority of African-Americans, chances are, at least a few of these influential artists have strong feelings about the Iraq war, healthcare, the environment and other issues impacting our nation. Could they be further tapped as contributors, strategists and spokesmen that appeal to a younger generation? Say what you want about Vote or Die, but the fact is that (for a lot of reasons) 2004 featured one of the highest participation rates for voters under 25 in history. Youth voting surged by 11 percentage points in 2004.

Should African-Americans consider asking more of these leaders (for better or worse) that have risen from our communities than just blingin and singin?

[...snip from Forbes: Hip Hop's Cash Kings]Jay-Z also owns the 40/40 Club sports bar franchise, with locations in New York and Atlanta, and a small stake in the NBA's New Jersey Nets. (He's often photographed in courtside seats alongside his girlfriend, pop superstar Beyoncé.) Plus the native New Yorker (from Brooklyn's hardscrabble Marcy Projects) collects income from blue-chip endorsement deals with Budweiser, Hewlett-Packard (nyse: HPQ - news - people ), and General Motors (nyse: GM - news - people ). All told, Jay-Z banked an estimated $34 million in 2006, earning him the top spot on Forbes' first-ever list of hip-hop Cash Kings.

Unlike traditional music genres like pop, rock and country, whose artists generally make the bulk of their money selling albums and touring, hip-hop has spawned an impressive cadre of musicians-cum-entrepreneurs who have parlayed their fame into lucrative entertainment empires. Curtis "50 Cent" Jackson, who nabbed the No. 2 spot on the list, presides over G-Unit, a diverse portfolio of businesses that includes apparel, ringtones, video games and even a line of fiction. All told, "Fiddy" as he is known to fans, made an estimated $32 million last year. "I'm creating a foundation that will be around for a long time, because fame can come and go or get lost in the lifestyle and the splurging," he told Forbes last year. "I never got into it for the music. I got into it for the business."

At No. 3 is impresario Sean "Diddy" Combs, formerly known as "Puff Daddy," who lords over Bad Boy Worldwide Entertainment Group. That enterprise is responsible for TV series like MTV's Making the Band franchise, the Sean John clothing line, the bestselling Unforgivable cologne and a pair of restaurants called Justin's, named after one of his sons. The Bad Boy Records label, backed by Warner Music Group (nyse: WMG - news - people ), released albums last year by Danity Kane, Cassie and Yung Joc. Last year, Diddy himself released his first album in four years; Press Play debuted at the top of the U.S. pop and rap charts. All told, Combs made an estimated $28 million last year. (Representatives for Diddy, ever the showman, insist that figure is much higher.)

Generally, the most successful "hip-hopreneurs" run their own labels, taking a cut from the artists they sign. Both Eminem ($18 million) and Dr. Dre ($20 million) boast Interscope-backed imprints; both helped produce and release 50 Cent's