Surge in black GOP candidates for 2010

I won't comment on the choice of partisanship, but I can certainly understand why so many GenX AA's are running. The AA community has been hit hardest by the Unraveling and early Crisis. Communities are falling apart, educational institutions have failed their children, and their children are dying in the streets while Boomer government leadership looks the other way. Society, as a whole, has turned their backs on the problem because no one knows what's broken or how to fix it.

GenX is all about fixing major problems, no matter what it takes. So it's not surprising that members of the AA community are stepping up first out of this generation; they have the most to gain from improvements and they're sick and tired of the status quo. They know not to expect anyone else to help and they need to do it themselves. I predict the rest of GenX isn't far behind.

Echoing Carolina, I think the facts are that this election cycle is seeing the collapse of the Silent. While they have been losing share of Congress for years, nearly all of the Silent Senators up for reelection have lost or are retiring (Specter, Bennett, Dodd, Bond, etc.) Fully a third of the 35 Silents in the Senate (who wield more power than their numbers would suggest, because of seniority)

Except in rare cases, people born before 1940 are being booted. Now, this will take three cycles to come to fruition, but by 2014/2015, we could see fewer than 10 Silents in the Senate. The House is a bit different story, because gerrymandering so protects incumbents, but even there, Silents are retiring.

Xers are stepping into these shoes (though Boomers will likely increase share of officeholders somewhat this time around). Silents are really the generation that fought the battles of Civil Rights. They were the marchers. They were the people registering folks to vote. Their struggle, which has so been part of the narrative, and which has been so personally renewed in every speech and every vote, is fading.

Xers have been brought up to see advancement as something personal. Obama, who embodies this, even if his policies don't, is reflective of a generation of black Americans who believe that they succeeded not through “solidarity” but through personal achievement. By and large, they are right. Like most people who believe that they have achieved something on their own merits, they are hostile to those who suggest that they “owe” someone else for this.

So, no surprise, younger, or at least Xer black politicians reflect the new Zeitgeist. I wish them well. I would love to see what the Congressional Black Caucus meetings would look like if there was a major surge in black Republicans.