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Recreating History
Posted: Saturday, Jan 23, 2010 - 08:24:35 pm PST
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By THOM GEORGE
Special to The Press
In response to the My Turn column of Jan. 16 by Ruthie Johnson ("Don't let Democrats recreate history"), I would like to clarify some of the historical distortions created by Ms. Johnson's reprinting of largely discredited material that has been circulating on the Internet since 2006, material that she attributes to Frances Rice, leader of the National Black Republican Association.
Ms. Rice goes back in history citing examples of the racist past of Democrats without ever putting these examples into historical context. She paints the image of the Democratic Party as a monolithic and static organization the same today as it was 155 years ago, failing to acknowledge the reality that political parties are in fact made up of various and diverse factions that are dynamic and ever changing. Lincoln, the Republican, may have ended slavery, but it is the modern Democratic Party of the last 62 years that has led the fight for civil rights.
Beginning with Democrat FDR's New Deal policies, the Democratic Party began to shift toward economic intervention and support for civil rights and liberties. Democratic President Truman's 1948 Executive Order 9981 desegregated the United States military.The 1964 Civil Rights Act was introduced by Democratic President John F. Kennedy in a speech on June 11, 1963. After President Kennedy's assassination, Democratic President Johnson, in his first address to Congress, told the legislators, "No memorial oration or eulogy could more eloquently honor President Kennedy's memory than the earliest possible passage of the civil rights bill for which he fought so long.With the Senate leadership of Sen. Everett Dirksen (R-Ill.), the landmark legislation was passed. Upon signing the bill into law Johnson allegedly remarked, "We have lost the South for a generation," but Johnson also believed that it was the morally right thing to do and he recognized the political benefits of bringing blacks into the Democratic Party.
After the civil rights movement, southern Democratic politics began to change and many began defecting to the Republican Party, helping accelerate the transformation of the GOP into a more conservative party. Whether their defection was based upon racial motives or economic changes in the South is a subject of debate.
The 1968 presidential campaign of segregationist George Wallace of Alabama further split the Democratic Party. Wallace ran on the American Independent Party ticket where he swept the electoral votes of the Deep South.
Republican candidate Richard Nixon carried the remaining southern states (with the exception of Texas), in part employing what has come to be known as the 'Southern Strategy."*
In defining the "Southern Strategy," Bob Herbert, a New York Times columnist, wrote about a 1981 interview with Republican strategist Lee Atwater:
"Tired of losing elections, it (the GOP) saw an opportunity to renew itself by opening its arms wide to white voters who could never forgive the Democratic Party for its support of civil rights and voting rights for blacks."
In 2005, Mike Allen of the Washington Post wrote:
"Following the 2004 re-election of President George W. Bush, Ken Mehlman, Bush's campaign manager and Chairman of the RNC, apologized for his party's use of the Southern Strategy in the past. When asked about the strategy of using race as an issue to build GOP dominance in the once-Democratic South, Mehlman replied, 'Republican candidates often have prospered by ignoring black voters and even by exploiting racial tensions," and, "by the '70s and into the '80s and '90s, the Democratic Party solidified its gains in the African-American community, and we Republicans did not effectively reach out. Some Republicans gave up on winning the African-American vote, looking the other way or trying to benefit politically from racial polarization. I am here today as the Republican chairman to tell you we were wrong.'"1
I welcome Ruthie Johnson's interest in attracting all voters into the political arena and I would encourage her to become involved in opposing Gov. Otter's plan to eliminate funding for the Idaho Human Rights Commission, of which she is a member, and to become involved with the activities of the Human Rights Education Institute, right here in Kootenai County.
http://www.cdapress.com/articles/2010/01/24/editorials/letters/letter08.txt
Democrats saddened by death of former communications chief
Written by Julie Fanselow (Idaho Democrats)
The Idaho Democratic Party is saddened to learn of the death of Chuck Oxley, who served as party communications director from July 2005 through August 2008. Oxley died in a one-vehicle crash on U.S. Highway 26 in Eastern Idaho on Saturday afternoon, October 3, 2009.
Oxley played a key role in directing media for the record-setting 2008 Idaho Democratic presidential caucuses, including the Ada County caucuses that drew more than 8,000 voters to Qwest Arena. A former reporter for the Associated Press and editor at the Idaho Statesman, he had recently resumed his journalism career as managing editor of the Blackfoot Morning News.
R. Keith Roark, chairman of the Idaho Democratic Party, made this statement on learning of Oxley's death: "We lost Chuck Oxley this past Saturday. Chuck was the IDP’s first communications director and a Democrat to his very core. In my first few months as IDP Chairman, Chuck helped me get up to speed for a tumultuous year that included Barack Obama’s speech at Boise State University, our wildly successful caucuses, the Frank Church Banquet, Primary Election, State Party Convention and the National Convention in Denver. He had a great sense of humor and a great sense of just how important politics is to the quality of our lives."
"Our hearts go out to his precious daughter, whom he loved deeply," Roark added. "He lived his life fully and freely and he stood up for what he believed in – we will miss him."
Health Care Professionals Give Their Views on National Reform
CDA Press.com
Posted: Monday, Sep 14, 2009 - 11:56:13 pm PDT
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By RICK THOMAS
Staff writer
COEUR d'ALENE -- It was made clear from the beginning by Rep. George Sayler that Monday evening's forum on health care would be a polite and nonpartisan discussion.
"We have no agenda, we won't be discussing any specific proposals or bills in Congress," the Coeur d'Alene Democrat said, insisting there be no shouting or interruptions. "Health care is important, sometimes controversial."
About 120 turned out for the forum sponsored by the Kootenai County Democrats to hear from Sayler and several members of the health care community. And his request for civility was honored.
"It was a much more intelligent discussion at this meeting than some others I've been to," said Joseph Abate of Coeur d'Alene. "Nobody jumped up and shouted 'socialism,' and nobody else yelled 'death panel.' We need to be problem solving, not fear mongering."
Universal health care, though not necessarily a single-payer system or an employer-based plan, is necessary to prevent health care costs from spiraling out of control, said Dr. Don Chisholm, president of the North Idaho Health Network. And insurance companies need to change the way they do business and how they decide what claims to pay.
"We need better decision making," he said. "There needs to be some rationale."
Primary health care and preventive medicine rather than emergency room visits and flocks of medical specialists should be the goals of the country, Chisholm said. But Americans also need to take responsibility for their own health.
"We are a nation to a large extent obese," he said.
The United States is the opposite of the rest of the industrial nations in turning out only one third of its physicians in primary care.