B2
Worst Week inWashington
The Fix’s By Chris Cillizza P
hone calls late at night or early in the morning almost never bring good news. That’s definitely true when it comes to a call placed earlier this
month by Ginni Thomas, the wife of Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thom- as, to Anita Hill, the woman who two decades ago alleged that he had sex- ually harassed her at work. The call — as intriguing as it is inexplicable — went unanswered, as Hill
wasn’t in her Brandeis University office at 7:31 a.m. on a Saturday morning. (Shocking!) But that didn’t stop Ginni Thomas, who left a message asking Hill to consider apologizing for the allegations she made during Clarence Thomas’s Supreme Court confirmation hearings in 1991. After the call was made public last week, Hill described it as “inappropri- ate” and said she has no intention of apologizing for her testimony. The inevitable result of the back and forth? Scads of stories and columns
dredging up the tawdry details of Hill’s allegations against the soon-to-be- justice — Coke can, anyone? — and re-raising questions that Justice Thomas almost certainly would prefer to leave in the past. In the wake of the controversy, Ginni Thomas canceled a series of media appearances to promote her newly minted conservative organization, Liber- ty Central.
Her husband had the even tougher task — stew in silence and hope the media world moved on as quickly as possible. (And thanks to Juan Williams and NPR, it did.) Clarence Thomas, for watching as an old controversy once again became national news, you had the Worst Week in Washington. Congrats, or some- thing.
Have a candidate for the Worst Week in Washington? E-mail
chris.cillizza@
wpost.com with your nominees.
B
KLMNO
SUNDAY, OCTOBER 24, 2010
GEORGE BUSH PRESIDENTIAL LIBRARY
Condoleezza Rice and her father, John Wesley Rice, with President George H.W. Bush and first lady Barbara Bush in 1992. She served in Bush’s White House on the National Security Council staff.
From Deep South to White House rice from B1
in Denver complicates what many think they know about one of the most promi- nent women in recent history and pro- vides a compelling portrait of the life of a middle-class Southern black family during these transitional decades. Angelena Ray Rice and John Wesley
Rice were the dominant forces in the life of their only child, Condoleezza. Her name reflects her mother’s Italian heri- tage and love of music. Both parents were teachers; they were given to “edu- cational evangelism” focused not only on their daughter but on young people in their community. Like many contem- poraries, her parents viewed education, Rice writes, as “a kind of armor shield- ing me against everything — even the deep racism in Birmingham and across America.” They introduced her to their passions early on: She began taking pia- no lessons at age 3 and as a preschooler accompanied her father to high school football games. Her parents didn’t buy a house until Rice was in college because, as her father told a colleague, “Condo- leezza is our house.” Rice’s world was rocked by the vio- lence and terror that plagued Birming- ham and the rest of the South as the civ-
AFP/GETTY IMAGES
il rights movement approached its greatest victories. Denise McNair, the youngest victim in the Sixteenth Street Church bombing, had been a playmate. Her parents did not join the ranks of nonviolent protest; her father, she writes, “didn’t believe in being nonvio- lent in the face of violence.” Instead, he helped organize a neighborhood watch and would sit with a gun on their front porch during the night. The assassina- tion of President John F. Kennedy just months after he introduced civil rights legislation felt “personally threaten- ing,” Rice recalls. The passage of the Civil Rights Act the following summer brought liberating changes for her fam- ily “almost immediately.” Once legal barriers fell, Rice’s parents moved across racial boundaries in their church activities, educational work and social life and exposed their daughter to new opportunities and experiences. She was the first black student to attend the music conservatory at Birmingham- Southern College. After her father be- came an assistant dean of the nearly all- white University of Denver, he worked to integrate university life. He initiated efforts to recruit black students and fac- ulty, developed plans for a black studies program and brought a remarkable
range of speakers to campus, including Fannie Lou Hamer, Charles Rangel, Dick Gregory and Stokely Carmichael, who became a family friend. Reflecting on what attracted her father, a regis- tered Republican and a conservative, to militants such as Carmichael, she writes that he “admired the willingness of radicals to confront American racism with strength and pride.” Having been adept at “navigating and charting a course for success in the white man’s world,” she adds, “there was . . . a deep reservoir of anger in him regarding the circumstances of being a black man in America.” Circumstances for Rice would be different, as she discovered her future in an international politics class taught by Josef Korbel, father of Madeleine Albright. In “Extraordinary, Ordinary People,”
Rice offers a memoir of the two individ- uals most responsible for her ascent to the pinnacle of success and power. Her life has been shaped by possibilities that did not exist for her parents. One is left wondering about the ideas, ambi- tions and realities that informed Rice’s pivotal role in the Bush administration — the stuff, hopefully, of a second vol- ume.
bookworld@washpost.com
Myths about young voters
5 by Heather Smith
n 2008, young voters swept President Obama and a Democratic majority into office. He spoke to them, texted them, involved them — and they showed up. Now, with the midterms approaching, the president is again trying to energize these voters. At an event last month at the University of Wisconsin at Madison, he told the crowd, “We can’t sit this one out.” ¶ That’s the worry among Democrats and a constant refrain from both sides: Young voters are fickle and will stay home. It’s just one of the myths being peddled about young voters and what it will take to get them to the polls next week.
I
Democrats need young voters to show up Nov. 2. Too bad they won’t.
to vote. In a recent Rock the Vote poll, we found that they are paying attention to the election but that most don’t relate to the political parties or their bickering. They do, however, relate to individual candidates who address issues they care about, such as jobs, the economy, keeping college affordable, energy independence and same-sex marriage. This generation of young voters — the 22.5 million 18-to-29-year-olds who voted in 2008 — has momentum in its favor. Youth participation at the
1
Both parties should be worried about youth turnout, but not because young people don’t want
ballot box has been steadily increasing in both midterm and presidential elections. In the 2006 midterms, the turnout rate among young voters increased to 25 percent, from 22 percent in 2002, according to census data.
With a few notable exceptions, candidates from both parties this year have done a bad job connecting with young people. They’re not on campuses, at concerts or at football games when organizations such as mine are out registering voters or figuring out how to get them to the polls.
At Rock the Vote, we’re confident
that the turnout among young voters will climb again this year in the places where office-seekers have made the effort. We just wonder why more candidates haven’t taken a cue from
the last election cycle and included young people in their outreach.
With Facebook and text messages, there’s no need to knock on doors anymore.
text message blast does not replace personal outreach. I’ve seen this firsthand with Rock
2
the Vote, the example I know best. We’ve registered more than 280,000 voters this year through a combination of in-person and online efforts. We’ve been on the ground in Florida, Ohio, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Colorado, and our digital strategy includes outreach to all 50 states. In the final days, we’re sticking with
this two-pronged approach. We have a multimedia campaign called “Vote Fearlessly” that includes Facebook, Twitter, text message and e-mail reminders about Election Day. We’ll also be calling people on the phone and knocking on their doors. I will be donning a costume and joining thousands of other volunteers for our “Trick or Vote” canvassing in key markets over Halloween weekend. After all, there are still many Americans who don’t have access to the latest technology, and our visits might be the only connection they have to the political process. Of course, digital outreach and organizing have made a big difference. As a point of comparison, in 2006, we registered about 50,000 young people, and we know that digital organizing has been a big factor in the growth of our numbers since then. But it’s about much more than clicks and downloads. We’ve talked to people at thousands of events from Passion Pit concerts to high school assemblies this year. That’s how we cultivated the kind of highly motivated volunteers who typically turn out (and bring their friends) in greater numbers on Election Day.
After ’08, everyone learned how to energize new voters.
3
Though the Obama campaign executed an incredibly effective youth-voter strategy in 2008,
the country’s major political parties and midterm candidates do not have a strong relationship with young people
There’s nothing more powerful than a friend talking to a friend. A Facebook account or a
today. Many congressional incumbents who are now struggling won their seats on the swell of young-voter turnout in the last election, so you’d think they would have spent time engaging these same voters to win again. They didn’t. Instead, it has seemed at times that
we’ve been heading backward. Young people don’t show up for midterms, many campaigns seemed to assume, so the key fight is for older voters. Convince established voters to change their lifelong habits (get a Democrat to vote Republican or vice versa, or convince a lapsed voter to show up), and you could win. But the 2008 election showed that persuading people to change their minds isn’t the only strategy: It is possible to expand the electorate if you can excite young people. This time around, no one is really seeking to foster that excitement. Look no further than a college campus. In 2008 you couldn’t walk five feet without running into a clipboard-toting campaign staffer, and bumper stickers were everywhere. True, that was a presidential election, and these are midterms. But Rock the Vote’s coordinators in Ohio, Florida, Colorado and other states with high-profile races say it’s very quiet on campus. If it weren’t for the student groups and youth organizations that are active, it would be tough to even realize that the election is days away. Too many campaigns have left students alone.
There is a huge enthusiasm gap between the mostly Democratic new voters from ’08 and the tea party movement.
our poll, 77 percent of them indicated that they are very likely or somewhat likely to vote, and almost two-thirds said they are paying close attention to the elections. The tea party just doesn’t resonate for many young people. So they’re not focused on, or energized by, the movement that seems to be sucking up most of the airtime this election cycle. But young people are still packing stadiums for events with the president in Wisconsin and Ohio, and tuning into MTV for Obama’s town hall meeting.
4
Simply put, young people do not lack enthusiasm for the political process right now. In
While young voters say the past two years have been frustrating, that stems largely from the slow pace of change and the sense that their concerns are trumped by corporate and special interests. There is a strong desire among young people for current political leaders, including Obama — whom they supported two-to-one in 2008 — to deliver on the “change” promise. Favorability ratings from our poll indicate that Obama (56 percent) and the Democratic Party (46 percent) still receive the highest marks, with the Republican Party (36 percent) trailing. Sarah Palin (28 percent) and the tea party (26 percent) receive lower favorability ratings
Obama has rekindled his campaign magic with big rallies in battleground states.
5
In the final weeks before the midterms, Obama has been out on the campaign trail, saying
that new voters and young people will make the difference in close races. Yet, while it helps Democrats to have the president reconnecting with the young people who elected him, on Nov. 2 we — young voters and everyone else — will be casting our votes for state Senate and county sheriff, not for president. Both parties got a late start in
targeting young voters, and an energetic speech by the president isn’t going to make up all that lost ground. In our poll, we found that about 60 percent of young people said they felt more cynical now about politics than they did two years ago. That doesn’t mean they should be ignored or written off. Eighty-three percent of them also said they still believe their generation has the power to change the world. They care enough to go see the president speak. They are paying attention. Hundreds of thousands of new voters have been registered this year. Candidates still need to put young voters on their call lists, address the relevant issues and ask for their votes. The 22.5 million young voters who headed to the polls in 2008 want to show up again for something — they just need a candidate to give them something to show up for.
Heather Smith is the president of Rock the Vote, a nonpartisan organization dedicated to youth voter outreach.
Outlook’s editors welcome comments and suggestions. Write to us at
outlook@washpost.com.
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140 |
Page 141 |
Page 142 |
Page 143 |
Page 144 |
Page 145 |
Page 146 |
Page 147 |
Page 148 |
Page 149 |
Page 150 |
Page 151 |
Page 152 |
Page 153 |
Page 154 |
Page 155 |
Page 156 |
Page 157 |
Page 158 |
Page 159 |
Page 160 |
Page 161 |
Page 162 |
Page 163 |
Page 164