ESPN's Stephen A. Smith: Vote GOP

[n david]

ESPN radio and TV commentator Stephen A. Smith is urging fellow African-Americans to vote for Republican candidates, arguing the Democratic Party has taken the black vote“for granted.”

“We’ve given one party our vote because they’ve successfully gone about the business of convincing (us) that the Republican Party is completely against the interest of the black community. We bought it hook, line and sinker.”

Smith said the combination of Democrats assuming they would get the African-American vote and Republicans essentially having stopped trying has left the black community under- represented.

I agree that the repeated bashing against the GOP by black political and religious leaders has seemed to cause the GOP leaders to give up and not really try to win their votes. Stephen Smith is right. The combination of Democrats taking the black vote for granted and Republicans giving up has caused the black community to be left out. No wonder unemployment for black workers is in the double digits -- rising higher since obama came into office.

Smith acknowledged that Kentucky GOP Sen. Rand Paul, a potential 2016 candidate, indeed appears to be asking for the black vote.

The Libertarian-minded Paul, in part, has pushed to reform federal mandatory minimum sentencing on drug convictions, which has disproportionately impacted African-American males.

Smith suggested to CNN that Paul could go beyond what he has already done by “surrounding himself" with African-Americans, Hispanics and other minorities and by “highlighting the inconsistencies” that the Democrats might be putting forth.

I've posted in the past about Sen. Paul's Q&A sessions at the historical black colleges of Howard University and Bowie State University, along with his discussions with black leaders in Ferguson and other cities. He's the only Republican I've seen/heard/read of doing this, and he should continue working the universities and inner cities.

He's set the groundwork with these talks, and with legislation he's sponsored or authored, such as the Justice Safety Valve Act of 2015 and the Civil Rights Voting Restoration Act of 2015. Unfortunately both have been sent to die in committee.

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