only black people vote in this line up

[Lincoln Republican]

The Democrats have been taking the African American vote for granted for generations, offering lip service in return.

African Americans have as much equality under a Republican administration as under a Democratic administration.

Robert Byrd?  Who outside of West Virginia would vote for that senile old goat?

Rice wins.     

[Lincoln Republican]

Oh, and this klan issue is such a red herring (remember Strom Thurmond?)
Truman was also a member...
Why not have a poll between Truman and Alan Keyes?
Or Strom Thurmond and JC Watts?

Are you saying Strom Thurmond and Harry Truman were members of the KKK? 

Please provide documentation to that effect. 

[Lincoln Republican]

Milk and Cereal: has it ever occured to you that it's in the economic interest of *most* Blacks to vote Democratic? And IIRC the 90% figures only started after a certain race baiting advert in 1988...

The "Willie Horton" ad in 1988 was not a "Race Baiting" ad at all.

It was made to demonstrate the very lenient approach that then Governor and Presidential candidate Michael Dukakis took as far as the prison system and the parole system went. 

Willie Horton was a violent, first-degree, convicted murderer.  Dukakis believed it was "rehabilitative" for prisoners to be allowed to roam the streets unsupervised in what was known as the Prison Furlough Program.

That practice was outlawed by state legislators on Apr 28, 1988.

On Jun 6, 1986, Horton was released from the Northeastern Correctional Center in Concord.  Under state law, he had become eligible for an unguarded, 48 hour furlough.  He never came back.

Horton showed up in Oxon Hill, MD, Apr 3, 1987, brutally beating, almost killing, a 28 year old man, then savagely raping a woman.  Horton stole a car, and was later chased by police and captured.

On Oct 20, 1987, Horton was sentenced in Maryland to two consecutive life terms plus 85 years.  The sentencing judge refused to return Horton to Massachusetts, saying, "I'm not prepared to take the chance that Mr. Horton might again be furloughed or otherwise released.  This man should never draw a breath of free air again."

This furlough program began in 1972, but in 1976, Governor Dukakis vetoed a bill to ban furloughs for first degree murderers.  It would, he said, "Cut the heart out of inmate rehabilitation."

On Apr 28, 1988, under increasing pressure, even from his own administration, Governor Dukakis signed a bill ending the program, for fear it would hurt his presidential campaign, which it did, and for good reason.

Horton was not a black victim in this add, he was a cold blooded killer.

The ad was not "Race Baiting". 

It demonstrated clearly that Dukakis was not fit to be President.

 

[Lincoln Republican]

Oh, and this klan issue is such a red herring (remember Strom Thurmond?)
Truman was also a member...
Why not have a poll between Truman and Alan Keyes?
Or Strom Thurmond and JC Watts?

Are you saying Strom Thurmond and Harry Truman were members of the KKK? 

Please provide documentation to that effect. 

It's pretty much a known fact that Truman was a KKK member, I'm fairly certain he admitted it.
As for Strom I don't recall him being a KKK member but he did father the child of an unmarried teenage black girl so it makes precious little difference...

I do not see these statements as any documentation or any proof whatsoever that Truman or Thurmond were members of the Klan, or that they were Klan sympathizers.

Are there any reliable sources on the life of Truman where he admitted to being a Klan member?     

Just because a white man is the father of the child of a teenage black girl does not make him a Klan member, nor is it the same thing as being a Klan member or supporter.  Without a doubt, a grown man having this type of a relationship with any teenage girl, black or white, is totally wrong and completely inappropriate.  It does not, however, make this man a Klan member or a Klan supporter.  It could be put down to the lustful behavior of this man, for example.  That in no way makes it right, but it still does not make him a Klan sympathizer.

I believe accusing someone of being a member of the Klan or a supporter of the Klan is a serious allegation, and should not be thrown around loosely without proper proof or documentation.

The Klan is a truly dispicable organization, to say the least, and I do not believe anyone with any sense of decency wants their name associated at all with the Klan.   

Therefore, one should be very careful about making unsubstantiated statements linking somebody with the Klan, without the proper documentation to prove these allegations. 

[Lincoln Republican]

Oh, and this klan issue is such a red herring (remember Strom Thurmond?)
Truman was also a member...
Why not have a poll between Truman and Alan Keyes?
Or Strom Thurmond and JC Watts?

Are you saying Strom Thurmond and Harry Truman were members of the KKK? 

Please provide documentation to that effect. 

It's pretty much a known fact that Truman was a KKK member, I'm fairly certain he admitted it.
As for Strom I don't recall him being a KKK member but he did father the child of an unmarried teenage black girl so it makes precious little difference...

I do not see these statements as any documentation or any proof whatsoever that Truman or Thurmond were members of the Klan, or that they were Klan sympathizers.

Are there any reliable sources on the life of Truman where he admitted to being a Klan member?     

Just because a white man is the father of the child of a teenage black girl does not make him a Klan member, nor is it the same thing as being a Klan member or supporter.  Without a doubt, a grown man having this type of a relationship with any teenage girl, black or white, is totally wrong and completely inappropriate.  It does not, however, make this man a Klan member or a Klan supporter.  It could be put down to the lustful behavior of this man, for example.  That in no way makes it right, but it still does not make him a Klan sympathizer.

I believe accusing someone of being a member of the Klan or a supporter of the Klan is a serious allegation, and should not be thrown around loosely without proper proof or documentation.

The Klan is a truly dispicable organization, to say the least, and I do not believe anyone with any sense of decency wants their name associated at all with the Klan.   

Therefore, one should be very careful about making unsubstantiated statements linking somebody with the Klan, without the proper documentation to prove these allegations. 

Actually, I found a reference to Harry Truman and the Ku Klux Klan in the Wikipedia article on Truman.

Quote

In 1924, at the urging of his friend Edgar Hinde, who said that it would be "good politics" Truman gave Hinde the $10 membership fee to join the Ku Klux Klan.  The complicated evidence about, background for, and interpretation of this episode are discussed in detail in the article Notable Ku Klux Klan members in national politics.  As a result of the intricate tactical twists and turns of machine politics, Truman emerged from this period decisively opposed to and opposed by the Klan.  The Klan's enmity for him was increased even more during Truman's presidency, which marked the first significant improvement in the federal government's record on civil rights since the nadir of American race relations during the Wilson administration.  In a similar paradox, Truman, who sometimes expressed negative views of Jews in his diaries, and referred to New York as "kike-town," also had a Jewish friend and business partner, (Eddie Jacobson), and later became one of the moving forces behind the creation of the state of Israel.

Unquote   

[Lincoln Republican]

The racism in that ad may have been subtle, but it was definately there.

It was actually a REPUBLICAN Governor that started the furlough program. Dukakis ended it.

Lest anyone think Dukakis signed the bill ending this monstrosity of a program and this gross miscarriage of justice, otherwise known as the Massachusetts Furlough Program, willingly, a few facts are in order.

It's true the program was begun during the term of liberal Republican Governor Francis Sargent in 1972.

In 1976, however, Governor Dukakis vetoed a bill to ban furloughs for first-degree murderers.  It would, said Dukakis, "Cut the heart out of inmate rehabilitation."

The program, in essence, released killers on an "honor system" to see if they would stay out of trouble.  On the average, convicts who had been sentenced to "life without parole" spent fewer than 19 years in prison.  By March, 1987, Dukakis had commuted the sentences of 28 first-degree murderers.

Of over 80 Massachusetts convicts listed as escaped and still at large, as of 1988, only four had acutally "escaped."  The rest simply walked away from furloughs, prerelease centers and other minimum-security programs.  These convicts included murderers, rapists, armed robbers and drug dealers.

When citizens began to protest, Dukakis and his aides defended the program relentlessly.  One commissioner stated that furloughs were a "management tool" to help the prisons.  Unless a convict had hope of parole, he argued, "we would have a very dangerous population in an already dangerous system."  But, critics wondered, if armed guards can't control dangerous killers inside locked cells, how are unarmed citizens supposed to deal with them?

It was through the efforts of a grassroots organization, Citizens Against Unsafe Society, that the issue was finally brought before the people.  With mounting pressure from his own aides to sign a bill ending the program - for fear that it would hurt his presidential campaign - Dukakis signed the ligislation in April of 1988.

This program, defended by Dukakis until the bitter end, who only signed the bill ending the program fearing it would hurt his presidential ambitions, was one of the many Dukakis policies showing he was woefully unfit to be President.

The Willie Horton ad was not race baiting at all.  It simply pointed out a policy that Dukakis held near and dear to his heart, coddling criminals.