WI: The first black president was a Republican?

Republicans (sometimes justifiably) often accuse Democrats of playing the "race card" when they defend Obama. If Obama, or any other black dude in the WH, were a Republican, would the more PC-oriented Democrats be able to say the same things to the Republicans?

EDIT: Does this belong in Chat? I think this is kind of on the borderline...
 
Could Colin Powell win enough Independents and Democrats to overcome all the social conservative Republicans he would drive off. wWould he have the political skills? wWhile Eisenhower did well, I don't think the military is good training for politics.
 

DTanza

Banned
Could Colin Powell win enough Independents and Democrats to overcome all the social conservative Republicans he would drive off. wWould he have the political skills? wWhile Eisenhower did well, I don't think the military is good training for politics.

While Powell would have been a fantastic candidate IMO, he has never had major political ambitions.
 
Colin Powell is definitely the easiest option to work with, given he was constantly considered, and would have a significant base of support to work from.

Edward Brooke is the next closest you can come in the modern era, but that would require the Rockefeller wing of the Republican Party remaining an influential faction; that or Nixon drops Agnew for him in '72, but I don't see that happening considering he would be looking for a Conservative, not a Liberal.


 
Agreed. Powell would probably work best as the first black President (If you want a Republican).

Now, does anyone know what party MLK belonged to?
 

Cook

Banned
Could Colin Powell win enough Independents and Democrats to overcome all the social conservative Republicans he would drive off.

I don’t think he would have driven off social conservatives, he was a solid family man with middle class family values. He would have lost the lunatic fringe but they aren’t of great value or numbers anyway.

While Powell would have been a fantastic candidate IMO, he has never had major political ambitions.
He was asked to run against Clinton and considered it, apparently his wife didn’t want him to, terrified he’d be assassinated.

A Clinton v Powell election race in ’96 would have been interesting.
 

Japhy

Banned
Agreed. Powell would probably work best as the first black President (If you want a Republican).

Now, does anyone know what party MLK belonged to?

Without Goldwater in 1964 there's an argument that King could have worked with Republicans, but like Brooke it really requires the Dewey-Rockefeller wing to be in ascendancy.

Thurgood Marshall could be a possible too in the 1970s in that kind of situation.

Besides that, a 19th Century POD in the right circumstances allows for several other possibilities.
 
Republicans (sometimes justifiably) often accuse Democrats of playing the "race card" when they defend Obama. If Obama, or any other black dude in the WH, were a Republican, would the more PC-oriented Democrats be able to say the same things to the Republicans?

EDIT: Does this belong in Chat? I think this is kind of on the borderline...

The Democrats kind of already do this (again, sometimes justifiably) with popular non-white Republicans like Marco Rubio.

Now, does anyone know what party MLK belonged to?

He never endorsed any party but he always voted for Democrats. At least that's what Wikipedia says. Many conservative groups claim he was a Republican, but I can't find any evidence for that.
 
Powell would win and would have everyone behind him without a peep, but he wouldn't run. He didn't want to. It's popularly said his wife refused to let him, but that's not the reason.

Anyone before that would have to be in the past. The modern Republican party is not a party helpful or dedicated or whatever to black Americans, and a black Republican is like a gay Republican both in similar prospect of being a minority in the party as well as the party not paying attention to their interests and often going against their group's interests.
In the past, when there were Liberal and Moderate Republicans, and not just as some minority but as a dominating force, that was certainly not the case; there were many black Republicans. The Democrats may have had Roosevelt, but the Republicans were still the party of Lincoln. There was all the more reason since the people around them that abused them were Dixiecrats if they were Southern; the Conservative faction of the Democratic party which later broke away and joined the Republican party and became it's base*. This was an era when Martin Luther King was a Republican (he left it because Goldwater won the nomination. King was a Liberal Republican, despite what the modern universally Conservative Republican party may try to claim.) and you had elected black politicians like Edward Brooke.

If a black Republican were elected in the era of the Rockefeller Republican, which is the last time such a thing could occur, it'd be a totally different animal. Dixiecrats would be repulsed, the Northern Democrats would have to contain the fanatic repulsion of the Dixiecrats (that should be fun), elements that had supported Goldwater (not all, but an amount of them) wouldn't like it and the Eastern Establishment Republicans would be perfectly fine with it since he's one of their numbers and ideologically they have no issue with him (as with the Northern Democrats). In short, the Liberal elements would be fine with it by and large and the Conservative elements by and large would not be, certainly not the Dixiecrats.

*I make special mention of that because I'm tired of hearing "Well Democrats [Insert Complaint]" when in actuality, those Democrats joined the Republicans and are often the forefather of the critic. And I'm also sick of hearing "Well the Republicans did [Insert Good Thing]" when the Republicans that did that thing left the Republicans and became Democrats. It's especially odd hearing Black Republicans say that about African Americans and their treatment by the Democrats and Republicans, because the people that did things positively for them are no longer in the party, nor are their beliefs part of the party, and the descendents of the faction that condemned them and did all sorts of horrid things are now their fellows in the party. It shows a total ignorance of history.
Past Black individuals who were Republicans were also not Conservative Republicans but Liberal or Moderate Republicans at total odds with what the Republican party is now, and who generally, if they lived to see the Republican party evolve into a totally Conservative party, left it. Such was the case with Martin Luther King, who was repulsed by Goldwater and his Conservatism and supported Lyndon Johnson in 1964. You can't just have a name on a thing totally different from its predecessor but with the same name and then act like it was the same thing whatsoever. It'd be liked the United States of America trying to claim the glory and achievements of the Roman Empire as something it did, and saying that Trajan was a great American patriot.
 
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Powell would win and would have everyone behind him without a peep, but he wouldn't run. He didn't want to. It's popularly said his wife refused to let him, but that's not the reason.

Anyone before that would have to be in the past. The modern Republican party is not a party helpful or dedicated or whatever to black Americans, and a black Republican is like a gay Republican both in similar prospect of being a minority in the party as well as the party not paying attention to their interests and often going against their group's interests.
In the past, when there were Liberal and Moderate Republicans, and not just as some minority but as a dominating force, that was certainly not the case; there were many black Republicans. The Democrats may have had Roosevelt, but the Republicans were still the party of Lincoln. There was all the more reason since the people around them that abused them were Dixiecrats if they were Southern; the Conservative faction of the Democratic party which later broke away and joined the Republican party and became it's base*. This was an era when Martin Luther King was a Republican (he left it because Goldwater won the nomination. King was a Liberal Republican, despite what the modern universally Conservative Republican party may try to claim.) and you had elected black politicians like Edward Brooke.

If a black Republican were elected in the era of the Rockefeller Republican, which is the last time such a thing could occur, it'd be a totally different animal. Dixiecrats would be repulsed, the Northern Democrats would have to contain the fanatic repulsion of the Dixiecrats (that should be fun), elements that had supported Goldwater (not all, but an amount of them) wouldn't like it and the Eastern Establishment Republicans would be perfectly fine with it since he's one of their numbers and ideologically they have no issue with him (as with the Northern Democrats). In short, the Liberal elements would be fine with it by and large and the Conservative elements by and large would not be, certainly not the Dixiecrats.

*I make special mention of that because I'm tired of hearing "Well Democrats [Insert Complaint]" when in actuality, those Democrats joined the Republicans and are often the forefather of the critic. And I'm also sick of hearing "Well the Republicans did [Insert Good Thing]" when the Republicans that did that thing left the Republicans and became Democrats. It's especially odd hearing Black Republicans say that about African Americans and their treatment by the Democrats and Republicans, because the people that did things positively for them are no longer in the party, nor are their beliefs part of the party, and the descendents of the faction that condemned them and did all sorts of horrid things are now their fellows in the party. It shows a total ignorance of history.
Past Black individuals who were Republicans were also not Conservative Republicans but Liberal or Moderate Republicans at total odds with what the Republican party is now, and who generally, if they lived to see the Republican party evolve into a totally Conservative party, left it. Such was the case with Martin Luther King, who was repulsed by Goldwater and his Conservatism and supported Lyndon Johnson in 1964. You can't just have a name on a thing totally different from its predecessor but with the same name and then act like it was the same thing whatsoever. It'd be liked the United States of America trying to claim the glory and achievements of the Roman Empire as something it did, and saying that Trajan was a great American patriot.
King had in effect left the Republican Party long before Goldwater's run in 1964. What had happened in 1964 was that the threat of Goldwater's presidency caused King to break from his policy of of favoring either of the two parties.

In his personal politics, MLK was a democratic socialist, and a staunch admirer of fellow Christian socialist Norman Thomas, the six time Socialist Party presidential candidate, a man who King had described as "the bravest man I have ever met".
 
J.C. Watts, if he had a longer career. Have him run for Governor of Oklahoma or Senator and be a candidate in 2012 or 2016. (Heck, he wouldn't be too old in 2020)
 
Could Colin Powell win enough Independents and Democrats to overcome all the social conservative Republicans he would drive off. wWould he have the political skills? wWhile Eisenhower did well, I don't think the military is good training for politics.

I doubt he'd drive off very many Republican Party members. I mean, who else are they going to vote for? Clinton?

I can only imagine the Democratic Party's response to a Powell Presidency and who they would pick to run against him in the next election.
 
Perhaps if Booker T. Washington had groomed a direct successor that kept a large portion of the Tuskegee Machine an integral part of the Republican Party. This could have prevented the Southern Strategy employed by Nixon, and left the Republicans as the party of choice for those blacks struggling for economic equality. (The split between B.T. Washington and W.E.B. Du Bois is important here).

Someone like T.R.M. Howard could become the first black VP under a Republican in the mid-1960s with Medgar Evers becoming president in the 1970s or 80s.

The important issue I feel is for black civil rights leaders to side more heavily with Booker Washington to achieve economic parity with whites as a primary goal. It's easier to translate wealth into political power than it is to perform the inverse. And as Washington realized seeking economic prosperity was less confrontational while being better a undermining Jim Crow laws, many of which were not supported by business owners who lost revenues by the forced ill treatment of blacks. And the idea of "just tying to make a living and do better for my kids" is part of the larger American dream. This is something voters in America understand, especially in the immigrant heavy North. Work this angle until wealth is acquired and political power will follow. With this route a black Republican president is possible by the 1970s.

Benjamin
 
Republicans (sometimes justifiably) often accuse Democrats of playing the "race card" when they defend Obama. If Obama, or any other black dude in the WH, were a Republican, would the more PC-oriented Democrats be able to say the same things to the Republicans?

EDIT: Does this belong in Chat? I think this is kind of on the borderline...

There have been some fairly racist attacks on prominent black republicans in the past, ie Condelizza Rice and Colin Powell.

And while some Republicans have pointed out the racism, the Party as a whole did not IMO, "use the race card" as you are describing.
 

Cook

Banned
He never endorsed any party but he always voted for Democrats. At least that's what Wikipedia says. Many conservative groups claim he was a Republican, but I can't find any evidence for that.
If he didn’t endorse any party how would anyone know who he voted for? In MLK’s time the conservative vote, at least in the south, went Democrat; hence Johnson’s comment that he’d lost the south for a generation when he signed the civil rights acts.

The recordings of the telephone conversations between MLK and LBJ are well worth listening to BTW.

 
I doubt he'd drive off very many Republican Party members. I mean, who else are they going to vote for? Clinton?

I can only imagine the Democratic Party's response to a Powell Presidency and who they would pick to run against him in the next election.

Hmmm, perhaps a Jerry Brown/Jesse Jackson ticket? They would lose in a landslide most likely, but the left-wing populism of that ticket might be the only way of energizing the base to take on Powell, especially with the DLC somewhat discredited following Clinton's loss.
 
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