Vision Circle

Sharpton Issue Update

I'm going to give an academic presentation on the Sharpton campaign at the American Political Science Association's annual conference in Illy. I've already gotten a pissed off version written up, but I think I'm going to do an Issue Watch. Report how long it takes for Sharpton to actually put up issues on his website.

So I checked today...found out that I've been looking in the wrong place. Sharpton has a website for his exploratory committee...then one for the National Action Network. So I take a deep breath, hoping I'm wrong...

Nope. Not a single issue paper.

Know who else doesn't have one? If you guessed Carol Mosely Braun you'd be right. As of 5.25.03 at 1:48am they don't have policies the first. At least with Lieberman (whoa....is he SURE he isn't just PASSING as a democrat?!?), Edwards and the others you know exactly where they stand. And as far as explicit policies dealing with race are concerned most of them stand pretty far away. Hell, when it comes to policies dealing with progressive issues in GENERAL they are pretty centrist. But at least you know where they are, know what focus groups they are fighting for.

With Sharpton...and now Mosely Braun...it certainly appears as if they're just running on melanin fumes. And while I can't speak for Mosely Braun, I KNOW Sharpton's got political scientists working with him.

To beat a dying horse, to run as if one is the sole candidate of "the black community" and not have a policy platform basically assumes that black people vote for candidates based on how they speak rather than what programs they support. On what color their skin is rather than the content of their platform. I have to laugh to keep from crying. This is awful.