Just received word about J.C. Please read JC's statement. Reported here first.
Bob
STATEMENT FROM FORMER CONGRESSMAN JC WATTS
June 14, 2008
It has come to my attention that an Associated Press article on black conservatives indicates many are considering voting for Barack Obama for president in November. The writer refers to me and states, "(Watts) said he's thinking of voting for Obama." That is the writer's interpretation of my statement.
If recent polls are accurate, a large percentage of Evangelicals and minority conservatives are leaning to or have committed to Senator Obama. I am not one of them. Like many Republicans across the nation, I consider myself a "free agent" this year, which is what I told the AP. Presidential candidates are going to have to work to earn my vote, and not assume it. I'm urging my friends and associates to follow their hearts in November. I'm hopeful, as the course of the campaign plays out, that Senator McCain will work as hard to merit our votes as he is for other voters, that he would give them reason to vote for him in November.
The article further lists some of my concerns with the Republican Party over its lack of outreach to the black and Evangelical communities. Those concerns are true, and anyone who has spoken to me or read my writings in recent months and years should not be surprised by that position.
But I regret to conclude that the GOP leadership -- the party I embraced and for whom I have worked diligently across the nation -- has come to place evangelicals and Republicans who are concerned about the black community, in the same boat. It seems the party leadership is taking this loyal group of voters for granted and no longer feels the need to work for our votes.
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JC, the current "leadership" of the GOP have left MOST of us out in the cold. As a Christian first, American second, conservative third, republican later, I am not dedicated to rubber-stamping the GOP ticket either. But you can not SERIOUSLY consider Obama a viable alternative? Obama does not, from anything I can see, have a conservative bone in his body. He sounds like a more articulate, less experienced version of John Kerry. Aside from that, what has the democrat party done to reach out to blacks or evangelicals? To say that the republicans take blacks for granted is just silly. CONSERVATIVE blacks, maybe, but it has nothing to do with their being black! The GOP in DC has taken ALL conservatives for granted. Only WE can change that... together as CONSERVATIVES... not as "black conservatives" and "white conservatives". I appreciate that you feel betrayed by the GOP... we all do. We all look at the current crop of democrats and think, "we should be cleaning these guys' clocks in the election"... but if the "moderate" republicans are so turned off by us that they push us away, we will all pay the price of liberal policies... a return to 1979... I know I don't want to go there.
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