Is The Minority Vote for Sale?
When Mike Rawlings, a white North Dallas business man, decided to run for mayor he knew almost no one in the black neighborhood of South Dallas. Then he paid $305,000 to a black political consultant. It paid off:
Rawlings wrapped up almost every important endorsement from southern Dallas elected officials and ministers. And in the June 18 runoff, he carried much of the south…
It’s a common theme that has played out in Dallas politics for years — the northern Dallas business-backed candidate hiring a consultant to help make the rounds with ministers and politicians south of the Trinity River.
More from Rudolph Bush in the Dallas Morning News.
People have been buying votes for years, yet its just as troubling the 100th time we hear it as the first.
It’s not uncommon for politicians to hire political consultants to help them identify potential constituents, sharpen their message, and build a base of supporters.
However, I wonder if the ministers who the consultant rounded up, and the supporters that voted for Rawlings based on their ministers’ recommendations, knew that the only attraction to Rawlings was that $300K changed hands and landed (allegedly) in the hands of a corrupt South Dallas politician, who was peddling his influence?
This happens a lot. I remember reading one article in the Observer that told of how some of John Wiley Price’s political consultants tried to be the “political escorts” for Richard Allen of The Allen Group, which was trying to improve the inland port in south Dallas.