Tuesday’s primary elections in our bellwether state are of great social significance because what happens in Florida may begin to trend throughout the country. And the black vote will be central to the outcome.
“All politics is local.” What an apt adage, especially for black voters in Broward County, where the politics of containment are attempting to oust three of only five sitting black judges out of a total of 90 judges.
Broward County is a leader in the incarceration of black people. There exists no equity under the law for people of African descent.
If black people do not vote in record numbers on Tuesday, they will wake up the next day to three less black judges. White nationalists are betting on a low black voter turnout based on black primary election voting trends. For God’s sake, black folks, please vote. And vote for the interests of black people.
Kendrick Meek is betting that black people have forgiven former President Bill Clinton for letting the race genie out of the bottle during his wife Hillary Clinton’s fierce presidential campaign against now President Barack Obama. Apparently Meek is also hoping that black voters have forgotten that he supported Hillary Clinton while they overwhelmingly voted for Obama (the accountability factor).
So “Slick Willie” comes to Florida to boost Meek’s sagging senatorial campaign against Democratic frontrunner billionaire Jeff Greene. If Meek wins, Independent Charlie Crist could lose to far-right Republican Marco Rubio in the November general election because Meek would pull black votes from Crist, who is the best candidate.
Actually, Meek wants to be a wealthy Washington lobbyist with big-time Florida accounts. Meek lives in the Washington Beltway where his children go to school and where his wife is a judge. Oh, yeah, Meek is black.
But who the heck is Greene? The Florida U. S. Senate race could morph into a debacle for blacks.
Alex Sink, the projected winner of the Democratic nomination for Florida governor, may sneak into the governor’s mansion by default in November. Unless something miraculous occurs, Bill McCollum, heir apparent to the Republican nomination for governor, will lose the Republican primary to multimillionaire newcomer Rick Scott by an embarrassingly wide margin.
McCollum’s brain trust did the math and opted to “diss” the more than 63,000 registered black Republicans in Florida. They decided to engage in no outreach and indicated that the campaign will talk to blacks after the primary win. Ha!
A deeper probe however, brings clearly into focus the full panoply of white nationalism. White conservative Republicans fear losing white votes from conservatives, various Tea Party types, Reagan and “Blue Dog” Democrats and white nationalist independents by courting any and all black voters. Democrats do the same thing. Why do you think Alex Sink is so low key with black voters?
Whatever you think and whatever you do, black folks, don’t forget that all politics is indeed local. Take care of business. Make sure that you and everybody that you know who is an eligible voter goes to the polls or votes via absentee ballot. And be sure to vote for the interests of black people.
Al Calloway may be reached at Al_Calloway@Verizon.net.
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