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Lincoln was a lonely Republican

So Dana Milbank thinks the 50th anniversary did not live up to the original.  I really can’t imagine how that would have been possible, but no doubt the Milbanks of 1963 gave the original a snarky review as well.

I enjoyed my couple of hours at the Wednesday event.  Dana is right that John Lewis was better than the rest, but he is better than the rest most other days too.  His consistency and persistence in advocating integration in every dimension of American life are welcome relief from the politicians who seek the next big thing.  Not to mention his seemingly impeccable integrity.

If showing up is half the battle, Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton (I’m grateful to President Obama for giving up “Barry”) were winners.  Bill did better:  his declaration that it shouldn’t be easier to buy a gun in America than to vote is certainly a crowd pleaser on the left.  The King family, unfortunnately, got the father’s desire to be heard but not his rhetorical gifts.  But older sister Christine King Farris made a magnificent statement with her terrific hat.

The best part though was the music, which was a vital dimension in 1963 as well.  I’m writing without the benefit of my program, so I won’t be able to cite singers and groups, but the church choir that was invoking the protection of God when I arrived about 2 pm was exactly what the occasion merited.  The overly harmonized Star Spangled Banner wasn’t my thing, but the foxy (am I allowed to say that?) gospel singer who came on later was over the top.

As for the President, he made the appropriate allusions to progress and pushed for closing economic gaps, but he wasn’t all there.  How could he be?  Later in the day he made some of his clearest public remarks about Syria and what he might do, and would not do, to respond to Bashar al Asad’s use of chemical weapons.  But there are a lot of other things on his mind as well:  the impending Federal budget crisis, Congressional deadlock, and the slow economic recovery, not to mention tensions with Russia, the Iranian nuclear program, American withdrawal from Afghanistan and already bogged down talks between Israel and Palestine.  I can’t imagine that he would have sat through an hour of others speechifying, except for this occasion.

The most important political signal of the day was who did not show up.  The nation’s Republican leadership took a pass.  This was not a good omen, as it confirms that the GOP is uninterested in minority votes.  Blacks and hispanics would unquestionably be better off if both parties had to court their votes.  I’d have expected at least George W. Bush, who appointed Condi Rice and Colin Powell to high office and had a position on immigration pretty close to that of Barack Obama.  But today’s Republicans seem to be opting for disenfranchisement and gerrymandering of Congressional districts rather than an all-out effort to compete and break up the Obama rainbow coalition.

That’s too bad for minorities, but it is also a demographically fated strategy.  Fifty years from now, we’ll only have a two-party system if Republicans change their approach.  The only question is how long it will take them to turn around.  Lincoln cannot be the lone Republican leader present at the 100th anniversary of the March on Washington.