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By Stanley Crouch

Feb. 18, 2000 | NEW YORK -- In this first column, I want to introduce myself to those who do not know me and may not have read my work -- and even to some who have. On subjects from the world of politics to the universe of the arts, I'm given to neither liberal nor conservative automatic-pilot responses. Those terms mean nothing to me, because I believe we need people from across the political spectrum to put all their energies on this wild and woolly land we call the United States.

While my ancestry is African, Asian, Choctaw and Irish, I look like your all-American Negro guy. My cosmopolitan bloodline is pretty well hidden and that's all right with me. As a man out here in the world, my allegiance is, first of all, to this country. I have no sentimental investment in Africa, even though I, like just about anybody who considers himself or herself civilized, am sometimes chillingly startled by what those who live on that politically dark continent have to suffer.

As a writer, my intention is to be like the weather. If you are in the wrong place and it rains, you will get wet, no matter your political persuasion, no matter your color, your sex, your religion, your point of national origin. The way I like it, as James Brown once sang, is the way it is, which is to say that I would prefer to look at this ongoing mystery known as the human species as it actually is, rather than explain it by predictable ideology.

Enough about me. Let's get on with what's happening out there right now -- especially in South Carolina, as John McCain and George W. Bush scuffle and huff and puff their way toward Saturday's primary.

I recently spoke with a woman who described herself as "a lifelong bleeding heart liberal Democrat." We encountered one another in an Upper West Side restaurant in New York, the true capital of America. She said how happy she was that McCain had proven himself to be a wolf in sheep's clothing. He had revealed himself by coming out against Roe vs. Wade, which would alienate the female vote, something Republicans have been very good at.

I told her I think her problem with McCain reflects a fundamental problem for the Republican Party. Once more, the business party has misread the populace and is ignoring the possibility of getting votes beyond those of white Americans, and mostly white men. The GOP is acting, all over again, as if it is the party that can be counted on to ignore women, to submit to racists and accept reprehensible policies such as flying the Confederate flag in South Carolina.

It seems to me that both Bush and McCain have hurt themselves by not clearly stating the obvious: that the flag of an army that went to war with the United States is not one that should be flapping on government flagpoles, especially since those soldiers in gray were defending the institution of slavery.

The liberal woman said that we should expect this of the Republicans, because they are a hopeless bunch.

But on that point, I disagreed. I think what the Republicans do with themselves is actually the most interesting and important matter in American politics, since they are now where the Democrats were in the 1960s, when they had to shear away their woolly connection to the Southern redneck faction of their party, after Lyndon Johnson -- himself a Southerner -- became the greatest executive legislator of civil rights policy since Abraham Lincoln. The most realistic Republicans know they have to change. As George W. said to me a few years ago at the governor's mansion in Austin, Texas, if the party doesn't expand itself and build a big tent, attracting and welcoming everyone, it will surely die.

Few professional Republican haters can imagine that some in the GOP actually understand this. But then ideologues are not known for having much imagination about the opposition, whether they are liberal or conservative, left or right. Imagination is also a problem for the media, which has become so cynical about American politics since the Watergate days that bad news is usually considered the best news.

Next page | McCain talks tough about money, punks out on the flag