It has been a rough year for Democratic front-runner, Hillary Rodham Clinton. The former first lady and secretary of state has faced one scandal after another in her bid for the White House, undoubtedly making her bid more arduous than she imagined.
Despite her challenges, it seems white progressives are willing to ignore those scandals and support their candidate, but there is no guarantee that black voters are just as eager.
It is unlikely that she will be able to see the same record turnout with black voters as President Obama. “Make no mistake, there will be some drop-off,” said Rep. Emanuel Cleaver, a Missouri Democrat and former chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus.
In a video released in August, Mrs. Clinton had an intense run-in with Black Lives Matter activists. The activists associated with the movement met with the former first lady after a campaign event in New Hampshire. They challenged Mrs. Clinton on issues ranging from race to her husband’s 1994 crime bill, which increased black male incarceration by 50 percent. As the first lady, Mrs. Clinton strongly supported and campaigned for the legislation in speeches and interviews across the country.
When pressed by Black Lives Matter activists on her family’s role in promoting what they called “white supremacist violence against communities of color,” Mrs. Clinton acknowledged that there were flaws in the laws put into place by former President Bill Clinton and that those very same laws did not work out as planned.
“I do think that there was a different set of concerns back in the ’80s and the early ’90s. And now I believe that we have to look at the world as it is today and try and figure out what will work now,” she admitted. “And that’s what I’m trying to figure out, and that’s what I intend to do as president.”
Conveniently enough, a day after her encounter with Black Lives Matter activists, Mrs. Clinton made prison reform a part of her talking points, mentioning the topic while attending a town hall in a predominantly black community in North, Las Vegas.
When asked what she would do about prison reform, Mrs. Clinton answered, “I think that a lot was done that went further than it needed to go, and so now we’re facing problems with mass incarceration.”
Mrs. Clinton further acknowledged the issues plaguing the criminal justice system while speaking on the Rev. Al Sharpton’s radio show. “There is a bias in favor of white men who are arrested or charged with the very same offenses as African-American men,” Mrs. Clinton conceded. This data has been known for many years and despite this fact, Mrs. Clinton was completely silent on this issue as a U.S. senator representing New York, which, by the way, is 15.9 percent African-American.
However, Mrs. Clinton’s relationship with the prison industry does not end with her absolute silence — it goes further. Lobbyists working on behalf of two of the largest prison corporations in the country raised hundreds of thousands of dollars on Mrs. Clinton’s behalf.
The Corrections Corporations of America and The Geo Group both had lobbyist who were “bundlers” for Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.
Now, to give you a little history on these conglomerates. The Corrections Corporations of America runs the most extensive for-profit prison firm in the United States. The Nashville-based corporation, which also operates the largest immigrant detention center, was sued by the ACLU and inmates for its mistreatment in 2009. Another partner was The Geo Group Inc., which according to their website, “is the world’s leading provider of correctional and detention facilities with locations in the United States, United Kingdom, Australia and Africa.”
Altogether, it is reported that over $300,000 was raised on Mrs. Clinton’s behalf. In late October, her campaign released a statement saying they, ” … will donate any previous direct contributions to charity.” However, without transparency, there is no way for voters to know what charity benefited from the money or that the money was even donated at all.
Facing many challenges that will likely resurface in 2016, Mrs. Clinton has attempted to quietly end her relationship with the private prison industry to shore up black voters. Since her encounter with Black Lives Matter activists, prison reform has become more of a focus for the Democratic front-runner. Her campaign is even expected to release a “comprehensive” policy agenda to woo black voters.
What’s not clear, however, is why Mrs. Clinton continued to accept money from private prisons until October. This was ignored by the mainstream press and for good reasons. If black voters knew that Mrs. Clinton was touting the end of private prisons while quietly accepting money from them, it would have made her seem like a hypocrite. Undoubtedly, this would have caused problems for her relationship with African-American voters.
For Mrs. Clinton, this has the potential to become one of her biggest hurdles for a very crucial voting bloc. To win in the general, she has to get a significant amount of support from African-Americans. If Republicans were smart and focused on this, they could raise questions about her being honest and trustworthy, which are questions not currently being asked by black voters.
If Republicans were to run ads in black markets attacking Mrs. Clinton on this, it is unseen if that would translate to African-American voters crossing over and Republican. However, a Quinnipiac University national poll has Dr. Ben Carson getting 19% of the black vote; beating Mrs. Clinton, and though this number is unlikely to be seen with any other candidate, focusing on this could cause many African-American voters to stay home which would be a good thing for Republicans.
Half [or 50 percent] of Americans view Mrs. Clinton unfavorably according to a CNN/ORC poll released in June. When asked about her character, 57 percent said she is not honest or trustworthy and a majority — 52 percent — said “cares about people like you” does not apply to her. However, as I alluded two paragraphs above, African-American voters don’t view Mrs. Clinton in a negative light, impart because of her husband, but that could easily change.
In 2010, Judith Trent, a professor at the University of Cincinnati led new research that focused on, ” … the key characteristics that voters consider when they are choosing their candidates for president.” Not surprising, the top pick was honesty. “Honesty has always ranked very high in this longitudinal study …,” wrote the authors. For Mrs. Clinton, honesty and trustworthiness have been her biggest obstacles; to put it simply, most Americans believe she lacks both. But what is different about her relationship with the black community is that many African-Americans have not been presented with a reason to view Mrs. Clinton negatively.
Going into the new year, Mrs. Clinton will have to secure herself with black voters. As of now, it appears that she is working hard to just that. However, her past relationship with private prisons may come back to haunt her and could be the ammunition Republicans need to create apprehension and raise questions about Mrs. Clinton with African-American voters. In doing so, this could cause one of the most important Democratic voting blocs not to turn out in significant numbers which would be detrimental to Mrs. Clinton’s campaign.
• Shermichael Singleton is a Republican political consultant and co-founder of the Morehouse College Republican chapter.
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