date: December 2, 2021
By Lucius Gantt
African Americans in the Peach State are now celebrating because their political hero, Stacey Abrams, has stepped up to the political plate and announced her plan to run for Governor in the next gubernatorial election.
If you don’t know, Stacey Abrams has run for Governor before but was defeated by incumbent Governor Brian Kemp.
Of course, the loss was because of the usual excuses like Kemp cheated, Blacks didn’t turn out in very high percentages or not enough money was raised.
Let me tell you the main reasons Black candidates lose elections. African Americans are led to believe they can win elections in 2022 doing the same things they tried in 2002 or in 1962.
Today’s elections are very scientific and technological. Census data is being matched and merged to develop geodemographic voter targeting, social media has become the most accessible and influential type of political media and today’s campaign staffs are permeated with consultants that lose more elections than they win.
Candidates try to manage, or micromanage, their own campaigns and write campaign checks and Black candidates do what they are told to do by incompetent consultants that don’t have a clue what to do to win!
In the state of Georgia, in metropolitan Atlanta, where most votes are concentrated, the group of most utilized political professionals remind me of the “Our Gang” television show group of poor kids, also known as The Little Rascals.
The Black candidates like Stacey Abrams talk to each other and recommend political professionals to each other. The primary consultants, media consultants, printers, pollsters, direct mailers, strategizers and other high paying campaign jobs will always go to “Spanky” and “Alphafa”.
And, poor “Buckwheat” and “Darla” can also stand on corners and wave bad looking signs, put flyers on cars in church parking lots or call and beg friends and neighbors to give campaign contributions to increase payments to Becky and Bubba.
I know you don’t like for me to keep writing about stuff like this but can I prove it? Yes!
In the recent primary election to select a new Atlanta Mayor, 16 candidates campaigned for Atlanta’s millions of registered voters, advice from highly paid consultants turned out about 25% (the 75% of voters that didn’t vote basically said “F” all of them). Millions of dollars were spent in the primary and runoff elections and the new Mayor and his opponents still produced a dismal voter turnout.
Now, Stacey Abrams will get national financial support and will have the millions needed to hire anyone she wants to. Will Stacey interview and talk to people that look like her to gauge whether or not they can deliver votes or will she hire who she is told to hire?
My opinion is, if Stacey Abrams can’t tell the state and national Democratic Party officials, thank you for your contributions and staff suggestions but I want a diverse team that has some Black political professionals that can make decisions on million-dollar campaign expenditures, her candidacy might have problems.
Understand, most candidates involve “their kind” in their campaigns. White candidates hire whites, Jewish candidates hire Jews, Cuban candidates hire Cubans, women candidates hire women and so forth.
In the 2020 elections that ended with huge Democratic victories for the President and two U.S. Senators, don’t twist it, Black Georgia voters were not captivated by the Black and Jewish Senate seat winners, many Blacks voted to get rid of Donald Trump, not because they loved the Dixiecrats disguised as Democrats.
I have no problem with Stacey Abrams. In fact, I wish her well.
However, I didn’t like the old Little Rascals and I dislike the modern-day political rascals even more.
Atlanta, Georgia has been called The Black Man’s Paradise, the Black Mecca and The Harlem of the South. There are classes taught at the Atlanta University Center that include communications and media, political science, management, statistics, writing and government and don’t forget what is taught at Atlanta’s biggest Black school, Georgia State University.
If the Black candidates running for office in Georgia say they can’t find Black political companies in Georgia that have training, experience and a history of successfully winning elections, they are lying.
Perhaps the candidates that you love believe Black men and women are politically inferior, professionally incompetent and have no value, other than voting, in political elections.
If Stacey Abrams thinks closet klansmen and klan women can advise her on how to best turn out Black and diverse voters, good luck with that.
Whatever the Proud Boys and Girls advise, hopefully she won’t respond like Buckwheat and say, “Otay”!
Stacey is at the bat. Will she hit a game winning political home run or will she strike out?
