Herman Cain is going to need a bigger shovel for this hole he's in.
Look, I know Republicans have a pretty terrible opinion of African-American voters, but it's just another thing entirely to see African-American Republicans with terrible opinions of African-American voters.
The one African-American running for the GOP presidential nomination said Wednesday the black community was 'brainwashed' for traditionally siding with liberal politicians.
"African-Americans have been brainwashed into not being open minded, not even considering a conservative point of view," Cain said on CNN's "The Situation Room" in an interview airing Wednesday between 5-7 p.m. ET. "I have received some of that same vitriol simply because I am running for the Republican nomination as a conservative. So it's just brainwashing and people not being open minded, pure and simple."
Ho boy. Yeah, see...some free political campaign advice there, Herman. When you're trying to convince a voting bloc to back you, it's best not to insult them as "brain-washed" and "not open minded". In fact, I believe that's the chief complaint I hear from the Tea Party about how liberals supposedly feel about them. Given this evidence, I'm going to say that particular complaint is projection, plain and simple.
Cain went on to explain that his interactions with African Americans led him to be optimistic about his own chances with the demographic.
"This whole notion that all African-Americans are not going to vote for Obama is not necessarily true," Cain said.
He continued, "I believe a third [of African-Americans] would vote for me, based on my own anecdotal feedback. Not vote for me because I'm black but because of my policies."
So now African-American voters have to prove they're not racist bigots at the ballot box by voting for the party accusing them of being racist bigots at the ballot box. In the immortal words of Dr. Peter Venkman, "That was your whole plan, huh?" Wow.
Look, I understand the concept that calling the Tea Party names and insulting voters in 2010 didn't exactly make them want to vote for the Dems last year. But it's kind of odd to see Herman Cain, a successful, intelligent African-American, to base his entire campaign off the notion that black voters are dumber than a boxcar-sized block of tofu, and the only possible reason they could vote for Democrats is that we're too stupid to know any better because we just haven't looked at how great Republican policies are for us.
Well, let's see, African-American unemployment was over 20% under Reagan, fell, shot up to 15% under Bush 41, dropped steadily under Clinton, shot back up again after Bush's financial crisis to 15% again, (after the banks collapsed the economy based on selling crappy subprime loans to minority homeowners.) Yeah, Republican policies really, really were great for black people. Let's have more of those.
Also, the Republicans making assumptions that we're all welfare-taking affirmative action sad sacks that are just parasites on the awesome white people's country. Cause our ancestors originally came here for the free room and board and quaint cuisine. Yeesh.
I ask if they think we're really this stupid, but the answer is so obvious it's depressing.
