All of us, at least those of us that are politically engaged, from time to time wonder just how we got on a particular email list. So it was with me today, when, in very timely fashion, I got an email from the slurper touting his new proposal to destroy public schools. Of course, he doesn’t present it that way. It’s all about school choice: funneling public money to private schools. Nonetheless, that’s what it is, and there’s really no point in proving the obvious.
What struck me was the list of endorsers for his attack on public schools. Besides the almost inevitable Jeb Bush there’s a virtual laundry list of ethnic front groups:
- Julio Fuentes, President of Hispanic Council For Reform and Educational Options
- Kenneth Campbell, President of the Black Alliance For Educational Options
- Rabbi David Zwiebel, Esq., Executive Vice President of Agudath Israel of America
- Kevin P. Chavous, former D.C. City Councilman and current Executive Counsel for the American Federation For Children
See boys and girls, this must be all hunky dory, because look, they’ve got well rewarded colored folks and Jews to endorse it. These astroturf organizations with the names-with-which-you-cannot-take-issue (though certainly they could have snuck the word “family” in there somewhere) are a specialty of Republicans. It would be interesting to know if the ploy still works. Democrats, of course, never do this, nor do they call bullshit on the people who do. That would be so impolite and besides, they are scared to death that they might scare away the one voter in a thousand who might support such organizations and also consider voting for a Democrat.
I suspect that it’s not as easy these days to gain instant cred by making up a compelling name and lining up some token endorsers. It’s an old game and people have grown somewhat inured to it. At least that’s my hope, but it would be nice if the Dems would fight fire with fire once in a while.
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