McCain Gets Standing Ovations At NAACP - With Video
But will they translate to NAACP member votes? He doesn’t think so…
CINCINNATI — John McCain told the NAACP and some skeptical black voters Wednesday that he will expand education opportunities, partly through vouchers for low-income children to attend private school.
The likely Republican presidential nominee addressed the annual convention of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored People, the nation’s oldest civil rights organization.
In greeting the group, McCain praised Democrat Barack Obama’s historic campaign, but said the Illinois senator is wrong to oppose school vouchers for students in failing public schools. It is time, McCain said, to use vouchers and other tools like merit pay for teachers to break from conventional thinking on educational policy.
Obama, he said, has dismissed support for private school vouchers for low-income Americans.
“All of that went over well with the teachers union, but where does it leave families and their children who are stuck in failing schools?” the Arizona senator asked. “No entrenched bureaucracy or union should deny parents that choice and children that opportunity.”
In fact, Obama has spoken in favor of performance-based merit pay for individual public school teachers, even telling the National Education Association, the country’s largest teachers union, the idea should be considered in a speech last year.
McCain received mostly polite applause in a room with some empty seats, two days after Obama received a thunderous reception from a standing-room only audience hoping to see him become the first black president.
In his speech, McCain lauded Martin Luther King, Jr., as a leader who “loved and honored his country even when the feeling was unreturned, and counseled others to do the same.”
In praising King to the NAACP, McCain used similar language to his mea culpa in April on the 40th anniversary of the civil rights leader’s assassination, saying he had been wrong to vote against a federal holiday honoring King.
The NAACP gathering heard on Monday from Obama, who said he would push the government to provide more education and economic assistance, but he also drew big cheers when he urged blacks to demand more of themselves.
“Whatever the outcome in November,” McCain told the crowd Wednesday, “Senator Obama has achieved a great thing, for himself and for his country, and I thank him for it. … Don’t tell him I said this, but he is an impressive fellow in many ways.”
During a question-and-answer session, McCain also sought to assuage a frustrated Head Start teacher who complained that her salary from the federal program simply isn’t enough.
The woman, wearing a union T-shirt, said she was making $17,000 a year and cannot afford housing, gas, food, or health care for her children. “We cannot continue this way,” she said.
McCain said the point of his education platform was to boost pay for “a great and outstanding teacher like you” and other educators who are passionate about their work.
“I want to reward good teachers,” said McCain.
Members of the audience said afterward they were glad to have heard from McCain, even if it didn’t change their minds.
“Winning votes, I’m not so sure, but friends, yes,” the Rev. Ronald Terry, pastor of New Friendship Baptist Church in Macon, Ga., said of McCain’s appearance.
Marjory Shields, a Penn State extension nutritionist from Croydon, Pa., said McCain said nothing to make her waver from her support of Obama.
“I gave him the courtesy of listening to his platform. I thought that in order for me to make an informed vote this November I really need to hear what all the candidates have to say,” Shields said.
“As far as my opinion on his speech, I feel he did not address certain key issues I wish he would have elaborated on,” such as more specifics on education funding, she said.
McCain said vouchers and merit pay for teachers whose students perform well are two important ways to help kids in failing schools.
“After decades of hearing the same big promises from the public education establishment, and seeing the same poor results, it is surely time to shake off old ways and to demand new reforms,” he said. “That isn’t just my opinion. It is the conviction of parents in poor neighborhoods across this nation who want better lives for their children.”
Both the merit pay and voucher proposals have met stiff opposition from teachers unions. Obama has indicated he would support some kind of merit pay system for teachers, if teachers help craft it.
(Fox)
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Hey when you endorse their candidate, what do you expect.
July 16th, 2008 at 2:04 pm“I thought that in order for me to make an informed vote this November I really need to hear what all the candidates have to say,” Shields said.”
Yeah right… you’re not one of the 98% voting for the prick because he’s convinced you he’s ‘black’.
Bitch you’re going under the bus right along with the rest of us, the Constitution and the Bill Of Rights.
July 16th, 2008 at 2:17 pmIt’s a BIG fucking bus.
McCain did the right thing by speaking to them, but like the woman said, it won’t make any real difference in their votes.
July 16th, 2008 at 2:32 pmThanks for endorsing hussein, mccain. Are you TRYING to not get any votes?
July 16th, 2008 at 2:54 pmWhy is Mac running even with Odumba? Because apparently the type of campaign he is conducting is reasonating with a lot of people. Mac doesn’t endorse Hussein but does allow that he is another human and deserves a modicom of respect even if he is all wet and a dumb ass. Analyze what is happening. I hate the phoney Odumba but if you are a class act, you show it always. Mac is a class act in my book.
July 16th, 2008 at 7:20 pmI have to say one thing about Democrats, they have and continue to fool our black citizens. I just don’t understand some things … like the 300 years of slavery that I keep hearing about. Let’s see, the United States began with our Declaration of Independence from England in 1776. Followed by our Constitution being ratified 11 years later in 1787, then the Emancipation Proclamation in 1863 and a civil war ending in 1865. If you want to consider North America under a government from 1492, it would have to be the British government. Now consider slavery in North America from 1492 until 1863 … it was under a British government (1492 until 1787 is 295 years). It was under the US government from 1787 until 1863 which is 76 years. Yes, 76 years too long but, in the end, it was a Republican that ended slavery. Then you have the NAACP, who’s beginnings came about when black voters were disenfranchised in the south around 1890 to 1909 … look up which party held the govenorships of the southern states in 1890 thru 1909 (and just before and just after) - DEMOCRATS. Of of the first thing that the NAACP (once officially founded) took on was to oppose Pres. Wilson who tried to introduce segregation into the government … now which party was Wilson from? You guessed it, he was a Democrat.
So I ask this, how is that black people either do not know this or choose to ignore it? And why is it that no running Republican ever brings this up?
In my view, one of the biggest obstacles black people have is the Democrats and their policies keep getting in their way from having real ‘progress’ … I just don’t get it.
If anyone can explain it to me, please set me straight.
July 16th, 2008 at 7:55 pm“If anyone can explain it to me, please set me straight.”
Despite Ike’s efforts at desegregation it was LBJ that was the genesis of ‘hope’ and ‘change’ and the pursuit of ‘equal outcome’ rather than just ‘equal opportunity’.
http://www.hpol.org/lbj/civil-rights/
Every effort by black ‘leaders’ since LBJ has been directed at achieving ‘equal outcome’. Affirmative action, race based quotas, etc.
July 16th, 2008 at 8:55 pmThe Marxists saw the ‘opportunity’ of an equal outcome society and have been pressing it since 1968 or so.
NAACP cannot endorse a candidate but the members certainly can
July 17th, 2008 at 6:09 am