Thomas Edsall from the Huffington Post came out with an article last week that slams the GOP for supposedly playing racial politics – casting the debate over heath care as a battle between white taxpayers vs. minority welfare queens. Edsall’s theory goes that Republicans couldn’t effectively shape policy in their minority position, so they have attempted to sway ignorant, racist independents and moderate Democrats by playing them against the black President and his anti-white economic policies. He even has all sorts of impressive polling to back it up, showing Obama’s support among poor and middle-class whites falling, while his support among minorities remains incredibly high.

What the GOP is Really Up To

The only problem is that there is no evidence in the piece of intent. Sure, independents and moderate Dems are turning away from the President’s policies – but is that because the GOP race-baited or because they just aren’t any good?

Republican officials have repeatedly slammed the major initiatives of the young Obama Administration, but the complaints have been surprisingly cautious in nature. They have been based on prospective job losses for low-income workers, instead of a continuation of the 2008 campaign attack line, that Obama was ‘spreading the wealth around.’ The natural move for the GOP would have been to accuse the President of conducting class warfare on the economy, but they have stayed on strictly technocratic and moral grounds. The fact that everyone but the President’s most ardent supporters, and even many of them, are abondoning the false hope they held in The One is an indictment of his Administration, not the opposing party.

To sloppily write off half the country as racists is either disturbingly partisan (I know, what a shock coming from the Huffington Post…) or the absolute laziest form of journalism. And to do so in a way that’s clearly devoid of discretion, as if the writer is utterly unconcerned with the effects that such a damning accusation has on its recipient. Edsall ought to be ashamed. The problem is that this is not an isolated incident in partisan politics.

In Michigan

Here in Michigan, the Democratic Party recently unveiled a series of ballot proposals that they will be pushing for the 2010 election. Party Chairman Mark Brewer, a lawyer who once defended the KKK, has sought to pass a $10 minimum wage, a moratorium on foreclosures, utility rate cuts, a health insurance mandate and more. The consensus seems to be that the proposals are not entirely serious, but merely a vehicle to push voter turnout in urban areas to tip the balance in the race for Governor. Now who’s race-baiting?

A peek at federal labor statistics shows that while white residents make $12.54/hr on average, black residents make just $11.20. Both of those are over 10/hr, obviously, but 36% of black residents are under the $10 threshold, while just 29% of white residents make that little. Raising the minimum wage, even to a level that would further cripple the business climate in this state, would be large, short-term gain to more than a third of the state’s African-American voters. As recently as 2001, the black average was below $10/hr, making it even more attractive.

White workers are 15% more likely to be salaried, too, and thus less dependent on minimum wage hikes than even the aforementioned stats show. The proposal, taken in kind with foreclosure moratoriums, et al, are aimed directly at the heart-strings of the state’s poorest: the urban voters. The wage hike will not really help them – it will just drive more businesses out of a state that has so few left – but this textbook case of pandering dangles a pretty attractive carrot.

On the National Level

President Obama operates in the same way, promising the uninsured that he will get them covered, even though his plan includes all sorts of things that the rest of the public can’t stand. It doesn’t matter to him – he’s just interested in keeping enough voters in enough matching groups (environmentalists, statists, non-Cuban Hispanics, African-Americans, etc) in his camp to reach 51% in November of 2012.

The GOP healthcare plan gets many of the nation’s uninsured covered, as Obamacare promises, but without the mandates, abortion funding and heavy-handed bureaucratic rationing of care. Republican legislators have put together a plan that accomplishes its goals and does so without the gross, condescending deceit of their Democratic counterparts.

They have done their job, working to advance good, sound policy, instead of working to advance their own electoral careers. As the wreckage of the public option in HR 3200 burns around us, we have gotten a large lesson in designing sound policy and in playing politics.

The GOP legislators involved in the discussion put forth a good plan and did what they could in committee to shape the bill that would emerge. Democratic leaders played pandering, identity politics in the most sloppy fashion and lost big time. Let’s hope that the GOP stays out of this muck once the August recess is over, so that we at least have someone in Washington working to pass real reform and not play games.  I’m losing hope that we’ll get it from the other side.

Last 5 posts by Gideon D'Assandro

• Thank God Obama's President - August 3rd, 2009
• Health Care Coverup - July 23rd, 2009
• The Suppressed EPA Report’s Effect on Healthcare - July 12th, 2009
• Social Conservatism Going Forward - July 5th, 2009
• GOP Finally Pushing Cohesive Message - June 28th, 2009