(Washington, D.C. - Right Commentary) Last week, Sen. Obama gave a speech on race, his campaign for President, and his friendship with Rev. Wright. The speech was largely in response to Rev. Wright’s caustic statements and his participation on the campaign. Over four million people are thought to have watched Sen. Obama’s speech - which played on every cable news network - and in D.C. - on even some of the regular networks.

I think the speech was unique and amazing a lot of ways. As a piece of political oration - the speech has passages in it that are equal to those of Lincoln, Kennedy, FDR, and Reagan. It really was a good political speech - delivered forcefully and convincingly. Sen. Obama is clearly a thoughtful and intelligent man who has given considerable thought to the issue of Race in America, his experience as a black man, and how race relations have shaped our history. I don’t agree with Sen. Obama’s views - but I still think that was one heck of a speech.

One thing that upsets me, however, was that in the speech, and in political discourse on race in America in general, Republicans are “the bad guys.” We are perceived as being a racist political party. If there was a caricature of the Republican versus Democratic parties in today’s age on the issues of race - undoubtedly the figure that would be drawn would be that Republicans care only about the rich, wealthy, white people, while Democrats care about the poor (regardless of race or color) and minorities in the United States. While the Republican Party is far from perfect on race - particularly in how Republican Presidents in post 1970’s era governed and ignored racial inequality - much of the criticism laid at the feet of the Party - even by Republicans - distorts the image of the Party and marginalizes our impact by attempting to make us the party only of the “rich and white.”

What a shame that is - how embarrassing it is for the Republican Party - how angering it is to me is that - the party of Lincoln has become to be seen as the one who don’t care about minorities. This is a relatively new phenomenon - in my view - having developed only in the last 20 years.

In 1984, in Biloxi, Mississippi, then future Senate majority leader Trent Lott declared that “the spirit of Jefferson Davis” now lives in the Republican Party. It’s quite a mystery to me how the party of Abraham Lincoln, born in the moral outrage of the great northern abolitionists, could become in the minds of some of its most visible modern leaders the party of Davis, a Southern slaveholder, Democrat, and president of a Confederacy born in rebellion and secession. A man who was opposed completely to the founding father of the Republican Party - Abraham Lincoln. He was the one who now lives in the heart of the Republican Party?

Of course, later such sentiments would get Senator Lott into significant trouble - cause him to lose his Senate Majority Leader post - and almost end his political career. Lott said: “When Strom Thurmond ran for president, we voted for him. We’re proud of it. And if the rest of the country had followed our lead, we wouldn’t have had all these problems over the years, either.” I remember being absolutely STUNNED when Sen. Lott said that. America would have been better if Strom Thurmond was President? The voters in 1948 sure didn’t seem to think so. I supported the White House’s admonishment of Lott - who although he apologized - severely damaged the Party by his remarks. It was so stunning because - despite having changed parties and changed “views” - Strom Thurmond is easily recognizable as one of the most divisive figures in the post 1960’s civil rights history, along Gov. Wallace and Gov. Maddox.

Senator Thurmond, who said:

“I wanna tell you, ladies and gentlemen, that there’s not enough troops in the army to force the Southern people to break down segregation and admit the n—- race into our theaters, into our swimming pools, into our homes, and into our churches”

Senator Strom Thurmond - a man who voted against the Civil Rights Act of 1964, against the Voting Rights Act, against the Martin Luther King holiday, and opposed racial integration most of his time as a Democratic Senator from the State of South Carolina. It wasn’t until after Thurmond became a Republican in 1964 did soften on civil rights policy, and in 1970 finally voted favorably on policies of racial integration. Despite claims to the contrary - I think it is difficult, however, to point to any concrete evidence that Thurmond had changed his views on racial equality. Having scoured the Congressional record and his statements in writing this piece - I found no public statements that he had in fact repudiated his positions of the 1950’s.

The Strom Thurmond of 1950 - that’s the guy Senator Trent Lott - the head of the Republican party in the Senate - thought should be President. When he said it - the only thing that shocked most pundits was - essentially - this gasp of “oh my! how could Lott be so honest!” But the statement is only one in a long list of statements by Republican leaders and pundits who apparently all suffer from a collective amnesia about our values and our history on the issues of civil rights. Up until the 1970 - civil rights were an important part of Republican politics. The last Republican President to honestly confront civil rights issues - oddly enough - was Richard Nixon. While Nixon accomplished quite a bit in terms of education integration following the decision in Brown, the Nixon White House would ultimately be remembered for the policy of “benign neglect.” Then White House staffer Moynihan (yes - that Moynihan -the man who would become the Senator from New York), in his brief to Nixon, said:

The time may have come when the issue of race could benefit from a period of “benign neglect.”The subject has been too much talked about. The forum has been too much taken over to hysterics, paranoids, and boodlers on all sides. We may need a period in which Negro progress continues and racial rhetoric fades. The Administration can help bring this about by paving close attention to such progress–as we are doing–while seeking to avoid situations in which extremists of either race are given opportunities for martyrdom, heroics, histrionics, or whatever. Greater attention to Indians, Mexican-Americans and Puerto Ricans would be useful. A tendency to ignore provocations from groups such as the Black Panthers might also be useful. (The Panthers were apparently almost defunct until the Chicago police raided one of their headquarters and transformed them into culture heroes for the white–and black–middle class. You perhaps did not note on the society page of yesterday’s Times that Mrs. Leonard Bernstein gave a cocktail party on Wednesday to raise money for the Panthers. Mrs. W. Vincent Astor was among the guests. Mrs. Peter Duchin, “the rich blonde wife of the orchestra leader,” was thrilled. “I’ve never met a Panther,” she said. This is a first for me.”

The best thing Republicans have done in the last 50 years has been to leave the issue of racial equality alone? That’s not a fact we, as a party, should be too proud of. What made matters worse was Kevin Phillips popularization of the concept of the “Southern Strategy.” Saying in part that:

From now on, the Republicans are never going to get more than 10 to 20 percent of the Negro vote and they don’t need any more than that… but Republicans would be shortsighted if they weakened enforcement of the Voting Rights Act. The more Negroes who register as Democrats in the South, the sooner the Negrophobe whites will quit the Democrats and become Republicans. That’s where the votes are. Without that prodding from the blacks, the whites will backslide into their old comfortable arrangement with the local Democrats. (Boyd, James (May 17, 1970) “Nixon’s Southern strategy: ‘It’s All in the Charts’”. New York Times. p. 215.)

This electoral politicking and bickering represents a fundamental corruption of our core values and beliefs and it has been devastating to our ability to govern.

During reign of the great Democratic Congresses of 1970-1980’s, a myth emerges that Republicans don’t care about minorities, because Republicans oppose welfare. Much of this can be attributed to the notion of “benign neglect” - some of this can be attributed to actual neglect of Republican Administrations to effectively confront issues of race equality. That’s not to say I think Democrats became a paragon of virtue during this period - they clearly did not. It is difficult to say that Democratic leaders and the policies they have pursued over the last 20 years are deeply connected to racial or civil equality - but they do seem particularly calculated to ensure leads at the ballot box in urban areas and in maintaining their image as the expander of social welfare for the poor and for minorities. This may be too broad of a brush for all policies - but it is undoubtedly the case that much of race and welfare policy in this country centers around electoral versus equality concerns.

Nevertheless, this myth - Republicans hate minorities - Democrats champion them - becomes cemented, in large part, because Republicans ceded the ground to the Democrats on the issues of civil equality and civil rights starting in the 1970’s. In doing so, we betrayed our history.

From their 1854 beginning, the Republicans were the party that fought slavery, imposed Reconstruction, and opposed segregation, while the Democrats were the party of Jim Crow, race baiting, and Dixiecrats. But for many years, historians and popular culturalists have been telling a story of America’s teleological march to liberalism, in which all good comes from Democrats and all evil from Republicans. The retelling of history has become so complete - even Republicans now embody some sense of guilt for injustices they never committed (not to say that we should not have guilt over the injustices we HAVE committed by abandoning the issue and by not opposing programs that encourage dependency, discriminate against the poor, and perpetuate racial division in the United States).

I get angry, as a Republican, when people defend remarks by Senator Lott, or Senator George Allen and the infamous “Maccaca” statement. Our party should be outraged and upset with what was said. Now, everyone screws up. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone says things they shouldn’t say. Everyone has prejudices. I understand that. Have we so lost our way as a party - we can’t remember what the birth of the Republican party came from? The Republican Party just takes it on the chin and has lost all credibility with many minority voters as the party that just doesn’t care about them.

Put simply - that is unacceptable.

The Lincoln memorial, in D.C., is my favorite monument. I drove by it all the time going back and forth from the Pentagon (which is actually in Virginia) to the various buildings in D.C. Above Lincoln’s statue is says, “In this temple, As in the Hearts of the People, For Whom He Saved the Union, The Memory of Abraham Lincoln, Is Enshrined Forever.” To one side is the Gettysburg Address. To the other, his second inaugural address to the Nation:

‘Woe unto the world because of offenses; for it must needs be that offenses come, but woe to that man by whom the offense cometh.’ If we shall suppose that American slavery is one of those offenses which, in the providence of God, must needs come, but which, having continued through His appointed time, He now wills to remove, and that He gives to both North and South this terrible war as the woe due to those by whom the offense came, shall we discern therein any departure from those divine attributes which the believers in a living God always ascribe to Him? Fondly do we hope, fervently do we pray, that this mighty scourge of war may speedily pass away. Yet, if God wills that it continue until all the wealth piled by the bondsman’s two hundred and fifty years of unrequited toil shall be sunk, and until every drop of blood drawn with the lash shall be paid by another drawn with the sword, as was said three thousand years ago, so still it must be said ‘the judgments of the Lord are true and righteous altogether’.

With malice toward none; with charity for all; with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in; to bind up the nation’s wounds; to care for him who shall have borne the battle, and for his widow, and his orphan — to do all which may achieve and cherish a just and lasting peace, among ourselves, and with all nations.

Are these the words of the Party who denies any American the freedom to achieve his most cherished goals? It is our core value to stand up for the rights of ALL Americans. Republicans have been the party of change since its founding.

So complete has been the rewriting of History by those opposed to the Republican Party, of Lincoln’s values, that even Republicans turn away from their past: No serious candidate invokes the names of Lincoln, Grant, Harding, Cannon, or Coolidge. All of whom were Presidents who fought hard for the rights of minorities against extremely hostile Democratically controlled Congresses. Instead, the voices that have defined our party were President Nixon & Reagan, and Senators Lott, Thurmond, and Helms.

Instead of recognizing our birthright from Lincoln - our party leadership holds their head high and proclaims we’re the Party of Jefferson Davis. A man who was committed, and waged war against our Union, to continue slavery.

We have all lost our way, and what’s worse, even the most faithful among us have forgotten our history - or so it would seem.

Representative Newt Gingrich, in his address to the Congress after becoming Speaker of the House in 1994, stated:

No Republican here should kid themselves about it. The greatest leaders in fighting for an integrated America in the twentieth century were in the Democratic party. The fact is, it was the liberal wing of the Democratic party that ended segregation.

What? How so? Senator Strom Thurmond - a Democrat in 1964 - filibustered for over 24 hours against the Civil Rights Bill. Many Democrats who supported the bill did so in large measure to secure votes on their own programs and were angry at Thurmond for causing such difficulty. But the myth that Democrats championed racial equality in 1964 is overblown at best - it’s a legend that has become part of our American consciousness. And as we all know from the “Man who Shot Liberty Valance” - when the legend becomes fact, print the legend.

Several myths have contributed to this mass Republican amnesia about our history in civil rights and civil liberties with respect to the “Second Reconstruction”.

One myth is that Goldwater’s anti-civil rights vote was rooted in racism. Goldwater is in fact the modern “forefather” of the current Republican Party. Goldwater’s standard was passed to Reagan. Thus the “heir to Reagan’s legacy” is in part an heir to Goldwater’s. More a libertarian than anything else, Goldwater opposed sections of the bill that denied private businesses the right to deny service to any person for any reason. In his home state of Arizona, Goldwater was known as an advocate of integration. However, his commitment to libertarian views of business autonomy trumped his views of providing for social equality - something I believe he reconciled later in life.

Another myth is that Goldwater’s views represented the Republican’s position on civil rights. Put simply - that’s just wrong. Twenty-seven of the thirty-one other Republican Senators supported the Act. Twenty-one Democrats voted against it, among them Sam Ervin (star of the Watergate hearings), Robert Byrd (the “cicero of the Senate”), and Albert Gore (father of the vice president). Such “right wingers” as Karl Mundt, Carl Curtis, and Roman Hruska voted for it. The most eloquent speech came from Republican minority leader Everett Dirksen, quoting Victor Hugo: “Nothing is so powerful as an idea whose time has come.” 82% of all Republicans in the Senate voted for the final bill - compared to 46% of all Democratic Senators. If you look at the House votes - both the original bill that the House passed, and the second vote on the Senate bill - more than 80% of Republican House members voted in favor of the Civil Rights Act - compared to 63% of the Democratic Representatives.

Not to paint all Democrats with a broad brush - as clearly many stood up in favor of the reforms of the Civil Rights Act and the Voting Rights Act. However, Speaker Gingrich - just who were you referring to in that speech?

It is time that as Republicans we reclaimed our party’s birthright and focus on the rights and civil liberties of all Americans. We should not be critical of what Senator Obama is saying on race. Let’s debate his policy prescriptions. Let’s debate the lessons of history in providing for the common good. Let’s have an honest discussion about race. Let’s discuss providing equality for all.

In addition, I think we need to look critically at the Nixon & Reagan legacy and the impact that ignoring these issues has had on the Party and our ability to govern “all the people.” Reagan stated he was frustrated that many people saw him on the “wrong side” of race issues. However, I think that the perception - right or wrong - has stayed with us. 120 years of fighting for racial equality and equality for all Americans wiped out in the period of time from 1970-1990. I think President Bush has done a considerably better job on race issues, and on minority issues generally. I also think President Bush can be proud of a very diverse cabinet, and having appointed people of color to some of the most senior cabinet positions in the United States.

But quite frankly - it’s just not enough.

How can we provide for equal opportunity if we’re not willing to stand up for ourselves in defeating the lies about our Republican history? How can we be expected to govern “all the people” - if we become a party that decides not to care about all the people? I’m not suggesting that we must capitulate to the demands of public policy gurus and agree with Democrats to provide a welfare state or abandon our arguments about the problems associated with “Affirmative Action”. But the fact is, we cannot afford any longer to just ignore social ills, and be painted as the party that just doesn’t care. Republicans championed civil rights in 1964. Nixon stewarded the country through one of the most tenuous social and political integrations. The birth of our party was in response to moral outrage to slavery. We have much to be proud of - but we have much to do, and the next Republican President can do much to push the ball down the field and restore confidence of all the people that the Republican Party does believe in everyone’s rights and for equality.

We all should be concerned about civil rights and equality - our Nation is founded on a simple belief that all people should be entitled to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. We have held that value close to our hearts since the founding of our Party.

Republican Presidents and Republican leaders have fought hard for equality and civil rights in this country. We should never forget that - but we shouldn’t just rest on it either.