‘Party of racism’

Racial gaffes by Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton’s presidential campaign, the meteoric rise of Sen. Barack Obama and the pivotal role of the South Carolina primary on Saturday have intensified the issue of race in the Democratic Party, which makes Bruce Bartlett seem like a prophet of sorts.

In his new book, “Wrong on Race: The Democratic Party’s Buried Past,” Mr. Bartlett chronicles the party’s history from slavery to the civil rights era and beyond, providing a look at such figures as South Carolina’s “Pitchfork Ben” Tillman and other racist Democrats.

“At least on a historical level, the Democratic Party has always been the party of racism,” Mr. Bartlett said in a telephone interview with The Washington Times.

A former Reagan administration official whose previous book “Impostor” criticized President Bush for straying from conservative policies, Mr. Bartlett said the purpose of his latest book is to challenge Democrats’ “party of inclusion” mantra and to encourage black voters to dutifully consider the merits of both major parties.

“One purpose of the book was to give Republicans a kind of story to tell, if they decide to go into the black community and talk to black leaders,” he said. “I think at an abstract level there are a lot of blacks who recognize that being almost totally part of one political party and not being involved with the other is not good for them.”

Mr. Bartlett said the black community would increase its political clout by putting its 40 million or so votes into play for each party to court, rather than aligning more than 90 percent of those votes with the Democratic Party. This is similar to the way Hispanics have shifted parties on the immigration issue.

“Rightly or wrongly, [Republican candidates] have adopted the anti-illegal-immigrant position,” Mr. Bartlett said.

If Democratic candidates win big in the November elections, “Hispanics are going to do better. It’s a bigger community, a much faster-growing community … and some black leaders are going to come to the realization that they do not have the same leverage within the Democrat coalition,” he said.

Such calculations might be necessary, Mr. Bartlett said, but the rhetoric among presidential candidates has made race an indelibly touchy topic for both major parties, and missteps could prove costly to either side.

He noted the uproar over a comment by Mrs. Clinton this month that seemed to diminish the accomplishments of Martin Luther King in the civil rights movement.

“Dr. King’s dream began to be realized when President Lyndon Johnson passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It took a president to get it done,” Mrs. Clinton said Jan. 7 in New Hampshire.

“It’s a revealing comment,” Mr. Bartlett said, “exactly the sort of thing that, if a Republican said it, would be viewed as racist.”

Mr. Bartlett said such incidents give Republicans an opportunity to find common ground with black Americans and fight for their vote.

“Republicans have to make a major effort to reach out to the black community. They have a responsibility to, even if the payoff is low, because if you’re going to be a national party you have to represent everybody in the country,” he said.

The rise of Mr. Obama as a challenger to Mrs. Clinton indicates the urgency for Republicans to establish their appeal to black voters.

“If [Republicans] start to talk now about the Democratic Party’s racist past, then they’ll help prepare themselves for dealing with the possibility of running against a black candidate and being able to frame some of their criticism of him, that they undoubtedly will have, in terms that will not be viewed as potentially racist,” he said. “It’s going to be a difficult balancing act.”