January 27, 2006
Blackwell Profile
Just read this terrific piece by City Journal's Steve Malanga on the man likely to be the next Governor of Ohio. And who knows what after that? I'm excerpting, but it's well worth reading in full.
Right now, Ken Blackwell stands at a pivotal point in American politics. He’s taken an early lead in the race for governor of a state that was key to reelecting George W. Bush and that may well be even more crucial in picking the next American president. Moreover, Blackwell has built his early lead not by tacking toward the center of this swing state but by running on an uncompromisingly conservative platform that’s won him grassroots support from both Christian groups and taxpayer organizations—a novel coalition that makes the old-boy network in his own Ohio GOP as uneasy as it makes the state’s Democrats, who have begun a “stop Blackwell†campaign.Ken Blackwell has so many people worried because he represents a new political calculus with the power to shake up American politics. For Blackwell is a fiscal and cultural conservative, a true heir of the Reagan revolution, who happens to be black, with the proven power to attract votes from across a startlingly wide spectrum of the electorate. Born in the projects of Cincinnati to a meat-packer who preached the work ethic and a nurse who read to him from the Bible every evening, Blackwell has rejected the victimology of many black activists and opted for a different path, championing school choice, opposing abortion, and staunchly advocating low taxes as a road to prosperity. The 57-year-old is equally comfortable preaching that platform to the black urban voters of Cincinnati as to the white German Americans in Ohio’s rural counties or to the state’s business community...
...Blackwell is betting that many black Americans may be ready for a candidate, like him, who doesn’t preach victimology and doesn’t see the world almost entirely in racial terms. Blackwell is a post-racial, post-civil rights campaigner; race rarely enters into his speeches and is barely a part of his political platform. And even when Blackwell does address racial issues—the achievement gap between black and white students, for instance—it’s to tout free-market solutions like vouchers and charter schools. So far, this approach has resonated with black voters, attracting 40 to 50 percent of them in his statewide elections, even though he runs on the GOP line. And his strong support of Bush in 2004, analysts say, helped the president double his black vote in Ohio over the 2000 election. Bush won 17 percent of African-American votes in Ohio in 2004, compared with 11 percent nationally.
Yes, Ohio has been run miserably by Taft and the Republican leadership, which Malanga documents in depressing detail. But I don't believe electing a Democrat is the answer to Ohio's problems. I have supported Blackwell thus far because I like his proposals for limiting spending growth, his school choice advocacy, his technology background, his focus on a good business climate, and his undeniably impressive resume.
It's more than policy prescriptions though. Let's face it, the man's got the right stuff. Looks, brains, talent, experience, charisma. Weyrich called him an "extraordinary individual". That's the sense I get. A natural politician perhaps, if that is not a slur in this day and age. No, this is not a paid advertisement. It's more a drop of my own idealism in the bucket of my cynicism about politicians. I'm hoping he can live up to the billing. I live here.
