Relationship With Rights Group 'Basically Nonexistent,' President Says
By Mike Allen
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, July 10, 2004; Page A05

YORK, Pa., July 9 -- President Bush said Friday that he has a "basically nonexistent" relationship with the NAACP's leadership and he refused for the consecutive fourth year to speak to the group's national convention.

Bush's assessment of his relationship with the nation's largest civil rights organization was a sharp reversal from his rhetoric during his last campaign. Then he spoke to the group's convention as part of an effort to show he was a different kind of Republican and said that "there is much we can do together to advance racial harmony and economic opportunity."

Bush will not be speaking before the 2004 convention, which will open Saturday in Philadelphia. Bush, during a day-long bus tour through Pennsylvania, said in an interview with the Philadelphia Inquirer and two other state newspapers that he "admired some" NAACP leaders and said he would seek members' support "in other ways."

But he castigated the group's officers, who include President Kweisi Mfume and Chairman Julian Bond. "I would describe my relationship with the current leadership as basically nonexistent," Bush said, as reported by Knight Ridder Newspapers. "You've heard the rhetoric and the names they've called me."

Earlier this week, the White House said the invitation had been declined because of scheduling commitments, and officials said that was the reason cited in the letter to the group. But when asked about the matter by reporters on Air Force One on Friday, White House press secretary Scott McClellan made it clear that a lot more was involved. "The current leadership of the NAACP has certainly made some rather hostile political comments about the president over the past few years," he said.

The NAACP said Bush is the first president since Warren G. Harding not to meet with the group while in office.

Bond has accused Republicans of "playing the race card in election after election." He said they have "appealed to that dark underside of American culture, to that minority of Americans who reject democracy and equality," and "preach racial neutrality and they practice racial division."

The snub could affect voter turnout in November. In Florida in 2000, Bush was hurt by heavy black turnout, organized in part by the NAACP because of the group's opposition to Republican Gov. Jeb Bush's rollback of the state's affirmative action program.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/artic...-2004Jul10.html

Bush First President Since 1920s to Skip NAACP Event

July 9 (Bloomberg) -- George W. Bush will become the first sitting U.S. president in eight decades not to attend an NAACP national convention, risking alienating some voters.

Bush, 58, declined to speak at the July 10-15 convention in Philadelphia because of ``scheduling commitments,'' White House spokesman Scott McClellan told reporters aboard Air Force One, adding that ``the current leadership of the NAACP had certainly made some rather hostile political comments about the president over the past few years.''

The NAACP, the largest civil rights group in the U.S. with about 500,000 members, has criticized Bush's Republican Party for racial division, and in a speech last month, chairman Julian Bond said Bush hasn't lived up to his promises of compassionate conservatism. Bush, who received about 10 percent of the black vote in the 2000 election, risks further alienating a community of 34.7 million African-Americans, political analysts said.

``There are going to be intense efforts to encourage African Americans to get out the vote by the Democratic Party,'' said Adam Clymer, political director of the National Annenberg Election Survey in Washington. ``It is one more argument that can be used to get people to get out and vote against'' Bush.

Bill Clinton attended the conference in seven of his eight years as president. The year he missed the conference he sent Vice President Al Gore, NAACP spokesman Hillary Shelton said.

President George H.W. Bush, the current president's father, attended at least one conference and invited the NAACP executive committee to the White House. It's a matter of protocol to always invite the president, Shelton said.

``We've invited Bush to every convention,'' Shelton said.

Black Voters

Shelton said the NAACP is organizing a ``historic get-out- the-vote campaign'' in states such as Missouri, California, New York, and in Florida, where the NAACP and civil rights leader Jesse Jackson have claimed that police intimidation and discriminatory administrative practices prevented thousands of black Floridians from voting in the 2000 election.

Blacks make up 14.6 percent of the voting age population in Florida, or 1.4 million people, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. Bush was certified the winner in Florida by 537 votes in 2000 following an unparalleled monthlong drama involving ballot recounts and Supreme Court intervention. Both he and Democratic rival John Kerry consider the state key to this year's contest.

Eighty percent of blacks in Florida surveyed in a Quinnipiac University poll taken June 23-27 would support Kerry in the Nov. 2 election and 11 percent would vote for Bush.

``People are seeing that their vote could make a difference,'' Shelton said.
Al Gore, Bush's rival in 2000, received 94 percent of the vote of black women and 85 percent from black men, according to a report by David Bositis of the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, an African-American research institute based in Washington. Bositis cited Voter News Service exit polls.

``The Bush administration's policies are almost universally rejected within the NAACP, and I don't think Bush or his campaign anticipate receiving any substantial black support in the election,'' Bositis said.

Showing Up

Founded in 1909, the Baltimore-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People is the country's oldest civil rights organization. Warren G. Harding, who died of a heart attack in his third year in office in 1923, was the last president never to attend a NAACP meeting, the Washington Post reported today, citing Shelton. Bush spoke to the convention in 2000 when he was Texas governor and running for president.

``It has become clear that George Bush only wants to address African Americans when it is convenient for him, and not when the issues are important to African Americans,'' Democratic National Committee Chairman Terry McAuliffe said in a statement.

Kerry, a senator from Massachusetts and the presumptive Democratic Party nominee for president this year, will address the NAACP convention in Philadelphia on Thursday morning, according to a copy of a schedule from the NAACP.
Yesterday, Bush addressed the League of United Latin American Citizens Annual Convention in San Antonio by videoconference, explaining how his proposal to grant temporary work permits for millions of immigrants would help the economy by filling jobs Americans don't want to take.

Weighing the Benefits

Christine Iverson, a spokeswoman for the Republican National Committee, didn't immediately return a phone call seeking comment on McAuliffe's remarks.
Bush plans to ``fight for every single vote among African Americans,'' McClellan said.

Although several of Bush's top advisers, including National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, Secretary of State Colin Powell and Education Secretary Roderick Paige are black, Bush's tax policies and opposition to affirmative action have alienated many black voters, said Nathaniel Persily, a professor of law and politics at the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia.

``President Bush received the lowest percentage of the African American vote than any Republican president in recent memory,'' Persily said. The White House may have ``made a calculation that the possibility for embarrassment at the NAACP meeting exceeded the possibility of gaining African American votes.''

http://quote.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=1...fqI0v4&refer=us

http://www.stltoday.com/stltoday/news/stor...s+Bush+policies

NAACP chairman blasts Bush policies
By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS

PHILADELPHIA - NAACP Chairman Julian Bond condemned President George W. Bush's policies on education, the economy and the war in Iraq on Sunday. He implored members of the nation's oldest civil rights organization to increase voter turnout to oust the president from office.

"They preach racial neutrality and practice racial division," Bond said Sunday night in the 95th annual convention's keynote address. "They've tried to patch the leaky economy and every other domestic problem with duct tape and plastic sheets. They write a new constitution of Iraq, and they ignore the Constitution here at home."

Bond, a leader in the Student Nonviolent Coordinating Committee during the 1960s civil rights movement and a Georgia legislator for 20 years, became chairman of the Baltimore-based National Association for the Advancement of Colored People in 1998.

During the Philadelphia convention, volunteers have been working on voter drives in black communities.

Leaders of the group are upset that Bush has no plans to attend. Bush spoke at the 2000 NAACP convention in Baltimore when he was a candidate but has declined invitations to speak in each year of his presidency, officials said.

Democratic challenger John Kerry has accepted an invitation to speak Thursday on the final day of the convention, the NAACP said.

Bush would be the first president since Herbert Hoover not to address the Baltimore-based civil rights group.

Kweisi Mfume, president and chief executive officer of the NAACP, said earlier that he shook Bush's hand at his first State of the Union address in early 2001 and offered his support, which he said the president welcomed. But, Mfume said, "That's the last I heard from him."

NAACP delegates arriving Saturday at the Philadelphia convention center said that while the president was unlikely to get many votes from their ranks, his refusal to speak would only weaken his support among blacks.

"It'll just deepen him more in the hole," said Clifton Marvel, 57, a retired bus driver and local NAACP officer from Natchez, Miss.

Said Domieque Perkins, 19, of Kankakee, Ill., "If he wants our votes, he should have been here, to show his face around."

BUSH MISLEADS ABOUT RACE RELATIONS

In 2000, Presidential candidate George W. Bush courageously chastised his own conservative colleagues saying "while some in my party have avoided the NAACP, and while some in the NAACP have avoided my party, I'm proud to be here...I believe we can find common ground." [SOURCE: Bush Speech, 7/10/2000]

But after refusing to speak at yesterday's NAACP's annual convention, President Bush became the first President since Herbert Hoover not to attend an NAACP convention.[1]

According to NAACP President Kweisi Mfume, the NAACP "has reached out to Bush numerous times in hopes of meeting with him,"[2] but the President never responded to the NAACP. Instead, the President chose to mark key civil rights holidays with racially-insensitive announcements and behavior.

For instance, last year, the President chose the Martin Luther King holiday to announce the Administration's stance against affirmative action.[3] This year, the President used the same holiday to unilaterally elevate Charles Pickering to the federal appellate bench[4] in the face of what Mfume noted was "Pickering's hostility to civil rights and leniency to cross burners."[5] This year he also used a visit to Martin Luther King's grave to force taxpayers to foot the travel costs for a $2,000-a-plate political fundraiser in Atlanta, Georgia.[6]

Sources:
1. "Bush says no to NAACP speech," NewsDay.com, 7/09/04, <http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1214970&l=45442>.
2. "NAACP chairman calls for Bush's ouster," CNN.com, 7/13/04, <http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1214970&l=45443>.
3. Presidential Remarks, WhiteHouse.gov, 1/15/03, <http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1214970&l=45444>.
4. "Bush Gives Recess Appointment to Pickering," Fox News, 1/16/04, <http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1214970&l=45445>.
5. "NAACP chairman calls for Bush's ouster," CNN.com, 7/13/04, <http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1214970&l=45443>.
6. "Bush Exploits MLK's Grave For Political Fundraiser," Misleader.org, 1/15/04, <http://daily.misleader.org/ctt.asp?u=1214970&l=45446>.
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He's written off the African American vote. I guess Powell and Rice will vote for him though.