In Tony Lewis New

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In Tony Lewis’ New York Times column mentioned below, Lewis prods Senator Joe Biden (a member of the Judiciary Committee) to reconsider his apparent intention to vote in favor of Ashcroft’s nomination for AG.

This brings up a delicate, but important, point. And one that’s worth considering.

African-Americans are an extremely important Democratic constituency. Despite all the hot-air you’ve been hearing about Republicans reaching out to the African-American community, the percentage at which African-Americans vote for Democrats has actually been increasing in recent years. And even more important, black voter turnout has risen dramatically in the last two election cycles – particularly in a series of Southern states like Georgia and Florida.

And as important as African-Americans are for Democrats in general elections, they’re even more important in primary elections – where they make up twice as large a percentage of the electorate.

In short, support from African-Americans is extremely important to any Democrat who wants to run for president.

Which brings us back to Joe Biden.

You may not know this (I didn’t until recently) but Joe Biden is actually interested, very interested, in running for president again.

Really interested.

(Historical Note: Biden ran for president in 1988 but had to leave the race amid allegations that he had plagiarized a speech first given by then-British Labour Party Leader Neil Kinnock … and for what it’s worth, Talking Points actually thinks pretty highly of Joe Biden, and thinks the whole plagiarism charge was a bit overdone.)

Anyway, back to my story.

Let’s assume that Ashcroft is confirmed. If he does I suspect he’ll become a lightening rod for criticism from African-Americans and supporters of abortion-rights, somewhat along the lines of Antonin Scalia, only about twenty times more. (Ashcroft’s militantly pro-life stance hasn’t yet gotten as much attention as it should.)

So … fast forward three years and we’re in the Democratic primary and Joe Lieberman and John Kerry and Joe Biden and John Edwards are duking it out. Needless to say, the one’s who voted against Ashcroft will beat up on the ones who voted for him. And if they don’t, activists and constituency groups will do the job for them.

I’m not saying that this is still going to be a burning national issue four years from now. But primary races are funny things. How else are you going to distinguish these characters from each other?

True, if Ashcroft gets confirmed and we never hear another peep from him again, none of this will matter. But I don’t really think that’s going to happen.

So when you start watching where senators line up on the Ashcroft vote, don’t forget about 2003 and 2004. Trust me, they won’t be forgetting either.

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