Issac J. Bailey | Open Letter To GOP Candidates

Open letter to current and former GOP candidates:

Welcome to the great state of South Carolina, the place I was born and have lived most of my life.

Have a glass of sweet tea and a few boiled peanuts.

Smell the Spanish moss.

Take a gander at the roads in Conway that have been gerrymandered to help majestic live oaks survive.

Visit one of the plantations that made this area maybe the wealthiest place on earth during the early 19th century.

South Carolina is truly a one-of-a-kind place.

I’m writing because you guys seemed to have been trying to send a message my way, what with all the talk about black people and government dependence. Your timing is impeccable, given that you are coming to the Deep South to debate on Martin Luther King Jr. Day.

Yes, Democrats too often pull out the race card and unfairly paint those who disagree as heartless racists. That’s ugly and has to stop.

But it is your party that has so frequently said talk about race should cease. And it is your party that created the Southern Strategy that alienated many black voters, making your use of race more fraught with potential peril.

I’m part of the cohort your party will have to convince to give you a second chance if you are to remain a serious player in national politics, given the ongoing demographic shift. By 2016 and beyond, and maybe even this November, a voter base that is more than 90 percent white – like it was for your 2008 presidential nominee – won’t be sufficient.

I’m a black voter who has pulled the lever for Republicans, including for George W. Bush, Lindsey Graham and Mark Sanford.

I’m not a big fan of race-based affirmative action.

I don’t despise those who revere the Confederate flag.

I believe inequalities and injustice in the school and justice systems are major problems, but that widespread racism is not the primary impediment to success for most black Americans.

I believe this country has made enough progress that hard work and wise-decision-making puts the American Dream in reach of most of us.

In theory, that makes my vote getable.

I must say, though, that I initially took offense at your comments, but have since decided to believe that you guys simply want to see this country be strengthened and weren’t slyly harkening back to the days of dog whistle, race-based politics.

That’s why I’m going to assume the best in you.

I assume that Newt Gingrich was coming from a good place when he said he wanted to go to the NAACP and tell black people they should demand paychecks instead of food stamps, and that poor black kids don’t know anything about hard work because it hasn’t been modeled for them.

I assume that when Michele Bachmann came to Myrtle Beach and pointed out the high unemployment rate among blacks, it was not a dig at the first black president, but that she had finally realized after all of those years of black unemployment consistently being twice the national average – through Democratic and Republican administrations – that something needed to be specifically done about it.

I assume that Herman Cain was just joshing when he said two-thirds of black voters are brainwashed, echoing the claim frequently made by black conservatives that blacks who vote for Democrats are stuck on a theoretical plantation.

I assume that Rick Santorum’s recent “I don’t want to make black people’s lives better by giving them somebody else’s money” was little more than an accident of the tongue, as he claimed, and not a cynical ploy to use race to attract the votes of working-class whites leery of affirmative action.

I assume that when Mitt Romney said President Obama wanted the government to support people from the cradle to the grave, it was neither a naked attempt to distort the president’s intentions nor a veiled racial dig – sans the explicit talk about blacks or food stamps – and that he just wanted to emphasize his fear of out-of-control entitlements, a feeling I share.

I am assuming each of you is crying out for an improve country, a message I can support.

I just want to tell you a little about me.

I grew up poor, in a single-wide mobile, tin can of a home.

I received free lunches at school.

I was ashamed of having to pull out the coupon book of green and brown food stamps at the counter of the St. Stephen IGA to pay for groceries.

I loved government cheese – but not the powered milk.

But I also remember the backbreaking 12-hour shifts my mother and stepfather performed as forklifts drivers at the Georgia Pacific wood plant in Russellville.

I remember that in between food stamp-financed trips to the store, I spent countless hours picking tobacco and cucumbers in 95-degree heat to earn money that helped supplement my parents’ and provided me a little spending money.

I remember going to school, then directly to football practice, then directly to work as a cook at McDonald’s – staying well past midnight – then returning home to study in the wee hours of the morning to maintain grades that landed me on the National Honor Society and in the top 4 of my high school graduating class.

You see, none of the public assistance programs my family relied upon convinced me to be dependent on the government.

That’s why my kids no nothing of food stamps, or government cheese, or the WIC program, or welfare checks.

Those government programs helped make it possible for me to grow into an adult who now helps others.

That’s why I’m no longer ashamed that my family needed them to make ends meet.

And that’s why I’ve been dismayed by your comments.

To these ears, they seemed an intentional attempt to demean families like the ones in which I grew up.

To these ears, those comments sounded ugly and paternalistic, no matter the intent.

I don’t want people to abuse the system or have billions in government aid wasted on those who don’t need it.

I don’t want people to be forever dependent upon the government, which is why my wife and I have committed to helping poor young people become better educated and make wise choices that will brighten their futures.

I suspect you want that as much as we do.

And yes, I believe that’s precisely what President Obama wants as well.

So, I beg of you, please, pipe down on the rhetoric that demeans the poor.

It’s unnecessary and one of the primary reasons it will be hard for me to replicate my previous voting record.

Let me make this final point. GOP candidates came to Myrtle Beach four years ago to debate. Afterwards, I walked around the spin room speaking with representatives of many candidates, asking how they were planning on attracting more black voters.

They essentially told me that they were in the middle of a nomination process and would concern themselves with that later.

They never got back to me.

Either they didn’t want a voter like me or had forgotten that there was a time in this country when blacks routinely voted for Republicans.

I hope you don’t make the same mistake.

If you want me to consider pulling the lever for Republicans up and down the ticket again, you’ll seriously consider what I’ve written.

I pray that you do.

Oh, good luck at the convention center. I hope this isn’t your last trip to Myrtle Beach.

We’d love to have you back.