Kathryn Jean Lopez Praises Kenneth Blackwell For Rejecting The “Victimology Of Many Black Activists�
Black Republicans are making a run for a number of big elections this year. In Maryland, Michael Steele wants retiring Democrat Paul Sarbanes's U.S. Senate seat. Keith Butler, a Detroit-area pastor, is also running for Senate, from Michigan. Lynn Swann, the former Pittsburgh Steelers star, wants to be governor of the Keystone State. Randy Daniels would like to be governor of New York. And gunning for governor in a key presidential electoral state there is the great black hope for the Republican party, Ohio Secretary of State Ken Blackwell.
The "great black hope" is probably the last phrase Blackwell would use to describe himself (I, myself, cringed while writing it). It actually both unnecessarily cheapens and ghettoizes; in truth, Ken Blackwell is a great hope for us all.
In a profile in the winter issue of City Journal, Steven Malanga calls Blackwell "Ronald Reagan's Unlikely Heir." Malanga writes, "Ken Blackwell has so many people worried because he represents a new political calculus with the power to shake up American politics."
Who can have a power like that, you ask? "For Blackwell is a fiscal and cultural conservative ... who happens to be black with the proven power to attract votes from across a startlingly wide spectrum of the electorate." Malanga continues, "Born in the projects of Cincinnati to a meat-packer who preached the work ethic and a nurse who read to him from the bible every evening, Blackwell has rejected the victimology of many black activists and opted for a different path, championing school choice, opposing abortion and advocating low taxes as a road to prosperity. The 57-year-old is equally comfortable preaching that platform to the black urban voters of Cincinnati as to the white German-Americans in Ohio's rural counties or to the state's business community."
And Blackwell could win — having taken an early pre-Republican primary lead and garnering the national attention needed to keep a campaign running.