2006: YEAR OF THE BLACK REPUBLICAN

The thunderous boos of New England Patriots fans in Boston Stadium during the performance of black racist singer Kanye West during the NFL Kickoff Show September 8th are only the start of a massive backlash.

West’s earlier claim – at a fundraising telethon for Katrina victims – that “George Bush doesn’t care about black people” was appropriately condemned by First Lady Laura Bush as “disgusting.” That’s going to be the view of more and more Americans towards the left’s deranged politicalization of Katrina.

The Left Stream Media’s warnings of how Bush’s alleged “failures” regarding Katrina are going to hurt Republican candidates in 2006 is just wishful thinking. One reason is that 2006 is shaping up to be The Year of the Black Republican.

This coming revolution in US politics will take place in a huge swath of America, from Chesapeake Bay to Lake Superior, and it has the potential to gut the Democrat Party.

Let’s start with that entrenched Democrat bastion enveloping Chesapeake Bay, Maryland. A Republican, Robert Erlich, managed to get elected governor in 2002, and chose the chairman of the Maryland Republican Party to be his running mate.

This is now-Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele, son of a widowed launderess who preferred a minimum wage job to the dole. “My mama raised me well,” he says. “She provided me with a sense of an individual working hard and being responsible for his actions.” That’s why he became a Reagan Republican.

He’s a graduate of Johns Hopkins University in international relations, and of the Georgetown University Law School. You may recall him giving one of the most electrifying speeches at the 2004 Republican National Convention, where he explained:

“What truly defines the civil rights challenge today isn’t whether you can get a seat at the lunch counter, it’s whether you can own that lunch counter to create legacy wealth for your children.”

Amen, brother.

Everyone from Karl Rove and Republican National Committee chairman Ken Mehlman on down are pressing him to run next year for the Senate. The seat is vacant with Paul Sarbanes stepping aside. He’ll likely be up against Democrat Congressman Ben Cardin or former head of the NAACP Kweisi Mfume (real name: Frizzell Gray). If he runs, he’ll clean their either of their clocks.

Let’s now move north of Maryland to Pennsylvania, home of an entrenched Democrat machine in Philadelphia – and of the Pittsburgh Steelers. The machine is run by a very savvy old time politico, Ed Rendell, who was elected governor in 2002.

Challenging him next year is a hero to every Steeler fan and most Pennsylvanians, NFL Hall of Famer Lynn Swann, who helped the Steelers win four Super Bowls and was MVP of Super Bowl X in 1976. A charismatic conservative, he advocates “spending less and taxing less, so that government can get out of the way of business and individuals, allowing you to keep more of what you make to invest how you see fit.”

He also believes that Pennsylvania “has an obligation to protect its citizens, and that includes the most innocent among us, the unborn.” He is unabashedly pro-capitalist and pro-life.

In Rendell, Swann is taking on an Democrat incumbent who is quite skilled at stuffing ballot boxes in South Philly, so has a steeper hill to climb than Steele. Still, well before the race really begins next spring, a Rasmussen poll this July showed the race Rendell 46%-Swann 41%, so Swann has a solid chance.

We’ll cross the Ohio River to that place its inhabitants call O-hah, wherein dwell the wimpiest Republicans west of Vermont, weenie RINOs like George Voinovich and Bobby Taft – with one glaring exception: Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.

Blackwell has publicly denounced fellow Republican Governor Bob Taft’s tax increases and Senator Voinovich’s opposition to a state constitutional amendment to ban same-sex marriage. He’s a “solid gold” Reagan Republican with charisma and charm the equal of Swann’s and Steele’s.

If he can avoid a nasty primary fight with state auditor Betty Montgomery and state attorney general Jim Petro, he’ll defeat Democrat Congressman Ted Strickland in the general and be Ohio’s next governor (Taft is term-limited). Blackwell is so good you’re already hearing talk about his governorship being a springboard for a run at the White House.

North of Ohio lies another Democrat bastion, Michigan, and America’s most dysfunctional major city, Detroit. It also has one of the most ineffectual and unintelligent Senators on Capitol Hill (yes, I know that’s saying a lot), first-termer Debbie Stabenow.

In 2000, Stabenow eked out a whisker-victory over unpopular incumbent Spencer Abraham by less than 1% of the vote while Al Gore cruised to a 5% margin over GW in the state. Now it’s her turn to be unpopular for being so stridently left-wing and pro-abortion, but also for being so plain witless.

As charismatic as Steele, Swann, and Blackwell are, they are all outshone by Keith Butler. A former member of the Detroit City Council, he’s the Reverend of the 21,000-member Word of Faith International Christian Center Church in the Detroit suburb of Southfield. He reprimanded RNC Chairman Ken Mehlman for apologizing at this summer’s NAACP convention for past Republican “failures” with regard to blacks.

“It’s the Democrats who should be apologizing,” Butler told him. “They are the ones who imposed Jim Crow laws on blacks in the South and voted against so many civil rights issues.”

It’s the heavyweight national support Butler is getting for his run at Stabenow’s seat that makes him so interesting – from J.C.Watts and Jack Kemp to business magnates like Domino’s Pizza CEO Tom Monaghan and Amway’s Rich DeVos, plus all-out help from the RNC. The most well-respected political handicappers in Washington like Charlie Cook are now giving Butler a very good chance to knock off frumpy Debbie.

What makes all four of these soon-to-be Republican stars is that they are Martin Luther King Republicans. That is, they are outstanding candidates and outstanding individuals, smart, articulate, courageous, proud to be American with rock-solid moral values. Period. Irregardless of their race. They epitomize MLK’s dream of people being judged by the content of their character rather than their color.

Mehlman and Rove and the national Republican Party are going to make every effort to elect these four, and it will change the entire national political dynamics of our country. For if American Blacks no longer vote monolithically for the Democrats, the future of the Democrat Party is shattered.

One last thing. Someone needs to send a memo to freshman Illinois Senator Barack Obama, reading: Say goodnight, Barack – you’re about to be eclipsed four times over. Oh – and professional race hustlers like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton? Passé City.