What's at stake in the Steele vs. Cardin fight

There's lots of talk in the African American community about the consequences of voting one way or another in the Maryland Senatorial battle. Before you go to the polls, I want to chime in my own thoughts on the subject.

What won't change if Cardin wins:

• President Bush will still be the President of the United States. Cardin doesn't have a message and thus has tried to make the election into a contest between him and Bush. Bush will still be the President of the United States until noon on January 20, 2009. If Clinton was able to withstand six years of the Republicans trying to get him, Bush and Karl Rove can withstand two years of the Democrats, with a much smaller majority should they win, trying to make trouble for him. If you don't like Bush, you'll have another two years to not like him one way or another.
• Abortion will continue to be an epidemic well into the next century. Cardin has a 100% approval rating from NARAL and if made a Senator, will undoubtedly have a "litmus test" for judicial appointments: declare your undying loyalty to Roe or hit the road. It will continue to be an epidemic that particularly ravishes the black community. As of today, for every two black babies born, one unborn black baby is aborted. At least a third of black pregnancies end in abortion. But, our "friends" in the Democratic Party (both black and white politicians) , who are "looking out for us," are advocating a policy that is literally ripping an entire race out of the womb. And don't believe the hype about how if the Democrats get in charge, economic conditions will improve and the rates will go down. These numbers have stayed basically constant for many years.
• We will continue to be in Iraq. The war stinks and it was a terrible mistake to go and invade. However, the Democrats conveniently forget that many of them voted for the war, and many others, including Ben Cardin, voted at some point in time to fund the war and to pass a bill that states that the world is better off without Sadaam. It's nice to have it both ways. It's even nicer to be able to criticize a complete spaghetti mess like the war in Iraq and promise that if you get elected, you'll fix it. Those types of promises are easy to make. However, they're extremely difficult to carry out, as Richard Nixon discovered when he won office in 1968 based on voter discontent with Vietnam. But, we were there for five more years!! Problems like this aren't fixed overnight - ever. Leaving immediately at this point isn't an intelligent option and neither is the idiotic "stay the course" policy that some Republicans have been advocating. Why don't we know the real answer? Because no one in either Party knows how to fix it. Trust me, if the Cardin wins, we'll be in the war for just as long as we will be if Steele wins. Steele has actually had the guts to publicly criticize the civilian leadership. Who do you think would be more influential in persuading the President to make changes? A Democratic Senator who criticizes everything the other side does or a Republican Senator who breaks with his party to criticize from within?
• The Maryland Democratic Party will have learned again that all they have to do to have the complete loyalty of black voters is to pull out the Republican bogeyman. They will continue to ignore black candidates and pay lip service to issues in the black community because they know that they can. They'll know that no matter what they do, we will continue to vote for them regardless of their message or lack of one. That's a dangerous thing for any group of politicians to realize.

Steele will bring a fresh voice to the Senate and some much needed diversity (both in terms of ethnic background and perspective - he wasn't born with a silver spoon in his mouth) to the Republican Party, which will hopefully result in having two parties with more diversity and sensitivity to all voters. The Democratic Party didn't start to change from being the redneck party of Woodrow Wilson until it started to look like America.