No to ‘conventional thinking’

Republican presidential candidate Sen. John McCain entered what some would consider the lion's den Wednesday, addressing the annual convention of the NAACP in Cincinnati.

The old-line civil rights group is considered so hostile to Republicans -- so closely identified in recent decades with Democratic schemes of government redistribution -- that President George W. Bush turned down repeated invitations to speak at their convention during his first term.

President Bush was unwise to sidestep the chance to bring the message of freedom to this significant voter bloc, whether they seem initially receptive or not. Wednesday, Sen. McCain showed how it's done.

Such groups grow accustomed to politicians coming before them and promising them ever more "programs," to be funded with higher taxes.

Compared to that familiar cycle, Sen. McCain's prescription must have hit Wednesday like a jolt of fresh air -- or, to some, cold water.

It's lower taxes and school choice -- not more handouts -- that offer the best route out of poverty for blacks and other minorities, the Arizona senator said.

"The worst problems of our public school system are often found in black communities," Sen. McCain told NAACP members, warning that any solution may "require a willingness to break from conventional thinking."

Sen. McCain re-stated his support for vouchers that would help parents with children in failing government schools pay tuition at private institutions or charter schools.

"Senator Obama dismissed public support for private school vouchers for low-income Americans as 'tired rhetoric about vouchers and school choice,'" Sen. McCain said. "All of that went over well with the teachers union, but where does it leave families and their children who are stuck in failing schools?"

These are winning issues not because they necessarily draw immediate cheers from every side, but because -- since freedom is always the answer -- they can only gain strength over time, even as the coercive, top-down schemes of the redistributionists inevitably founder on the shoals of history.