African American Conservatives & why Georgia Democratic Party needs more of them

Newsflash: All Black Democrats do not think alike. All are not liberal, all do not rely & live off the government & all do not play the victim card & do not march to the drumbeat of the likes of Al Sharpton & Jesse Jackson & other "so called" leaders of the Black Community.

I just wanted to make that known!

Now what I want to talk about is the outlook of the Ga Democratic Party. African Americans now dominate the party & it would be wise for the party to begin to court conservative or moderately conservative democrats into the party. I know the party, just like everywhere in the US need to court conservative whites who have deserted the party over a span of 30+ years in order to have a chance of winning elections, but in the meantime began courting black conservatives into the party.

One thing democrats have to realize & that is the black community is fairly conservative. Black conservatism emphasizes traditionalism, strong patriotism, capitalism, free markets, and opposition to abortion and gay marriage in the context of the black Church. Its hard for some to believe that since the black community has generally fallen to the left of the right-wing conservative movement, and has predominantly favored itself on the side of liberalism and civil rights progressives.

Right now, all of the black conservatives are in the Georgia GOP.

I have often wondered why the black conservative view has such poor resonance in the Black communities? But I believe that a black conservative democrat can win in Georgia & win in districts that are not gerrymandered, such as the case when Floyd Griffin, then a centrist be came the first African-American to win a majority white senate district since reconstruction back in 1992 or Michael Thurmond won his Athens based house district back in 1986 which was majority white.

Now say for example, Ross Tolleson runs for congress in 2012, you have a choice between a white progressive & a black conservative running in the democratic primary. Who would you support in that race, given the conservative nature of Tolleson's district which is conservative? You can make the same case for a white conservative democrat against a white progressive or a black progressive & a white conservative. It either case, Im siding with the conservative candidate. Why? Its all about who can appeal to the masses, & how their message & background best fits that district.

In the state, Black GOPers all have fared poorly when it time to cast ballots at the polls during the primary, for example, Melvin Everson who was by far the better candidate to Mark Butler, but only got 30% during the primary.

If I were in a positon of power with the State Dems, Id be going to some of these black republicans & persuade them to run as conservative democrats. Michael Murphy, moderate republican operative ran against David Scott as a conservative democrat for the 13th Congressional District back in 2008, you had another in Cory Ruth, who ran in the GOP primary in the 4th Congressional District also back in 2008.

There are also black democrats serving on the local level whether its County Manager, Commissioner, City Council, Law Enforcement, etc. With its base of support now consisting close to 60% African American, now is the time to change course & begin to scope out these individuals. That job will be left up to Miguel Camacho, Mike Berlon & RJ Hadley