In March of this year Al Sharpton spoke at a voter-ID conference in Missouri arguing that Republicans are trying to “roll back our right to vote” by requiring a photo ID when voting. Of course he also says it is happening because “Barack Obama is running for reelection”.
Sharpton compared voter-ID laws to requiring a ‘poll tax’ from back in the days of Jim Crow, even suggesting that “today we are fighting James Crow Jr. Esquire”. He argued against the idea that these laws are being created to prevent voter fraud and cited the Bush Justice Department saying that there was only 0.003% of ‘voter cases’ which he says weren’t all voter fraud. Because of this he argues that Republicans have a hidden agenda:
So you’re trying to have a solution looking for a problem, rather than a problem in need of a solution. So therefore your motive must be different because you’re not solving a problem, you’re creating a problem.
He then said they have always had to have ID to vote, but that ID isn’t good enough anymore because Obama is up for reelection:
Let’s have the same ID when Ronald Reagan ran, and George Bush Sr. ran, and Bill Clinton ran, and George Bush ran. We always had ID to vote. But why now is the ID we been having no good when all of a sudden Barack Obama is running for reelection?
Eventually Sharpton gets to the real reason why Republicans are creating voter ID laws. He says that Republicans are trying to roll back everything achieved in the last half-century, including affirmative action and their right to vote. He then plainly declares that it’s a war on blacks, women, and immigrants and Republicans want to roll back their right to vote!
“Let me be clear. They are moving at rapid pace to undo everything that was achieved in the last half-century. This October the Supreme Court is going to hear Affirmative Action. If they take race out as a factor…in education, it won’t be long Chairman Cleaver that it won’t be a factor in unemployment. Which means all of ya’ll with these diversity jobs, all of ya’ll that are working places that had to hire a certain amount, that’d be unconstitutional. …
It’s war on blacks, it’s war on women, it’s war on immigrants. … We have got to turn this around and start targeting in Missouri those legislators that want to roll back our right to vote!”
There it is. What Sharpton is really trying to do is motivate black voters to get out there and vote for Obama. And Sharpton is having to bend the truth around absurdity to do it. That says a lot about how they feel November is shaping up.
Watch below: