Last night’s multi-state primary race results converged into one surreal twist of intriguing contradictions. In the end, however, it all morphed into one pulsating ball of Blackness. Black voters and Black politicians dominated headlines, punch lines and fast-moving letters on cable news tickers in strange bends of fate unseen in recent electoral semi-finals where voter turnout is so low it’s often unreportable.
Something cut through the first days of summer, though, with some political fates sealed and some fortunes rising. Some dreams were deferred while the eulogies for others were stalled for the foreseeable. Ultimately, the night was filled with all sorts of ugly, almost fiction-like irony fit for political thrillers.
Each state holds large Black populations and active Black political strongholds. And those Black interests resonated as strongly in the red states as they did in the blue.
In one state, entrenched establishment White Republican incumbent keeps his seat by the skin of his teeth because Black voters answer his pleas for help. In another, entrenched establishment (and ethics-scarred) Black Democratic incumbent slaps off another challenge because white voters go with who they know.
Thus, it became the best of primary nights, the worst of primary nights. Where one brother becomes his state’s first Black Governor, another brother is denied the history of becoming his state’s first Black Senator.
Mississippi was the true nail biter. Senator Thad Cochran (R-MS) faced a political near-death experience when he was forced into a bitter, bloody-lip run-off against firebrand Tea Party-branded talk show host and state Sen. Chris McDaniel. What started off as a classic episode of young vs. old quickly disintegrated into a nasty no-rules battle royale highlighting divisions by class and race in the poorest state in the Union. But, more compelling was the irony: after rank-and-file Republican strategists spent so much political capital over the years actively legislating barriers to Black voting rights, they suddenly needed that same demographic to help their boy out. It was a rare leap of faith as Cochran swallowed Southern pride and reached out to largely Democratic African American voters in a bid to retake the GOP primary.
It apparently worked. Tea Party faithful were reeling from the sting of a humiliating defeat – at the hands of Black voters. Shady racial code words were suddenly lighting up Twitter feeds and election night statements. McDaniel accused Cochran of “abandoning the conservative movement” while like-minded others spat at “ghetto Democrats” playing “dirty” in a perfectly legal open primary. At this stage, Tea Party rebels – deeply steeped in an anti-government dip resembling the states’ rights segregationism of 50 years ago – would be wise to draw down on the suspicious rhetoric lest they validate the neo-Confederate image. What’s becoming clear in the wake of the Mississippi GOP primary is that African Americans don’t like Republicans – but, they absolutely loathe Tea Partisans.
Once the dust settles, questions abound: What will Cochran now owe his newfound Black support? He can’t simply go back to business as usual and hope for nostalgia in the next cycle. And will this particular play, in Mississippi of all places, trigger a sudden re-alignment of political interests? Will Republicans rethink how they step to Black voters, favoring strategic outreach over slick rigging of the process? To establishment Republicans, open primaries could look very attractive … for the moment.
Interestingly enough, Tea Party insurgents were bashing Black voters in Mississippi while fighting a proxy war through Black Republican state House Speaker T.W. Shannon’s bid for Senate in Oklahoma. In this case, Shannon didn’t deliver, losing to Rep. James Lankford (R-OK) despite close showings in pre-election polls.
Meanwhile, in Harlem, Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY) somehow managed to find his pot of Lucky Charms. A spirited challenge from local rival state Sen. Adriano Espaillat was beat back by a much older Rangel who seemed to revel in the multiple ironies of his predicament: it was 44 years ago that he waged political war against legendary Congressman Adam Clayton Powell, Jr. and won, sticking to a platform that charged the incumbent was too old to effectively serve the Harlem district.
Rangel is 84 – and visibly tired from an exhausting 2010 ethics probe and Congressional censure that stripped away his powerful Ways and Means chairmanship. He is of an old guard Black political elite enamored with their six-figure salaries and elegant yearly huddles. They are reluctant to pass torches and too stubborn to retire. And while he was repeatedly abandoned by the Democratic establishment and dismissed by President Obama, he managed to squeeze an endorsement out of Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) – an intriguing development that possibly says more about Obama’s waning clout than it did about Rangel’s chances.
In the end, Rangel was able to fill any deficits of Black voters with plenty of resigned White voters who simply went with the familiar. It was Rangel who gently oversaw their gradual gentrification of Harlem over the years, and it was Rangel who’d put on final touches till the end.
Least exciting, but no less significant was the expected win of Lt. Gov. Anthony Brown (D-MD) for the state of Maryland’s Democratic gubernatorial nomination. What started off as an exciting three-way race punctuated by occasional bouts of feistiness from Brown’s left and increasingly populist flank eventually deflated under the weight of the state’s notorious political machine. The outcome turned out flat with Democratic kingmakers moving pieces into place. With the crab cake state solidly blue, Brown will more than likely be Maryland’s first African American governor as his boss, current Gov. Martin O’Malley (D-MD), transitions out of Annapolis for a long-shot bid at the White House. Will Brown be able to deliver his state in 2016 when O’Malley needs it?
CHARLES D. ELLISON is a veteran political strategist and Chief Political Correspondent for Uptown Magazine who hosts #Uptownhall. He is also Washington Correspondent for the Philadelphia Tribune and a frequent contributor to The Root. He can be reached via Twitter @charlesdellison.