I saw this post on National Review's 'The Corner' and it got me thinking about the claim that evil Republicans only use blacks as tokens, etc., etc.

One particular line that stood out was:

"Not only do Republicans not do that, but we demoralize and undermine what few black Republicans manage to get elected on their own! Like that J.C. Watts fellow. We use him to raise money, articulate our agenda, and undermine himself in the black community by attacking black leaders and running interference for Bob Barr and Trent Lott over that Council Of Conservative (Segregationist) Citizens scandal, and we repay him by refusing to even vote on his bills in committee and drawing him out of his district (but protecting all the white GOP incumbents though)."

That's patently untrue. J.C. Watts' district was redrawn by the Oklahoma Legislature. The Democrats have maintained control of BOTH houses of the Oklahoma Legislature for decades, and they have used that power to entrench their political positions and marginalize or eliminate political opponents on numerous occasions. This is part of the reason that Oklahom passed term limits in the early 1990s.

I can recall a particular Republican candidate who ran a very close second against a long-time Democrat incumbent back in 1990. The next year, the Democrats in the Legislature redrew the district lines. The Republican in question found the new district lines were drawn in such a manner that his home moved from the district in which he had competed to a new district. Not too unusual, but the fact his family farm was on the far end of a four mile long, 400' wide finger of his new district that was obviously designed solely to separate him from his political base was, quite frankly, pretty obnoxious. Legal, but obnoxious.

The same thing seems to have happened to J.C. Watts. Democrats in the legislature had two objectives. First, they wanted to eviscerate J.C. Watt's political base, so redrawing his district to include a number of new Democrat voters was a good way to do it. Second, as many Democrats in the 2000-2001 Legislature were running up against their term limits, they wanted to try to draw a nice seat for themselves in what had, until JC Watt's election, been a relatively safe Democrat congressional seat.

Of course, for some in the professional victimhood game, it's all a plot of the man.

It's sad. Most people in that mindset do more to harm themselves and others than "the Man" ever did.
- posted by MrSpkr @ 11:09