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People do not wake up each morning and say, "I am a Black conservative Republican! What a great day this will be!" Instead, they more likely wake up and think, "I have to get to work in one hour, work hard at my job, keep my job, provide for my family, and hope the government doesn't do too much today to screw up my opportunities."
    The insistence by the parties, politicians, and pundits to tag everyone with a label adds to the problem of political homelessness. People do not ask to be labeled, and most people do not want to be placed within someone else's narrow confines and strict definitions of their political ideology. Like my dad, most people are not completely conservative or completely liberal in their personal political ideology. Most people just want to work hard on achieving their version of the American Dream and support political candidates who stand for common sense solutions to the big issues .
    The meanings and connotations of many of the political labels and phrases we hear every day on the radio, on television, or use ourselves have become distorted to the point that serious, rational political discussion is often impossible. If you asked one hundred people what the words "Republican," "Democrat," "conservative," "moderate," "liberal," "rich," "poor," "working class," and "middle class" mean, you might receive one hundred different answers. Controversial issues such as affirmative action and tax cuts likewise elicit highly emotional responses. Political leaders and our elected officials toss around phrases like "tax cuts for the rich" and "government handout" with little regard for educating voters on the facts behind the issues.
    Our political lexicon has been denigrated to such an extent that people interested in learning more about politics and the issues find it difficult to learn about either. We scold our children for name-calling; we should hold our political leaders responsible for the label-calling epidemic.
    Unfortunately, perception in politics often becomes reality. A few years ago, I was traveling from Omaha to South Sioux City, Nebraska, to deliver a speech to the South Sioux City Chamber of Commerce. A college sophomore named Scotty accompanied me that day as part of a job shadow project at his school.
    I asked Scotty, "Do you know what Republicans and Democrats are?"
    He said, "Those are political parties."
    "Very good," I said. "What does a Democrat stand for and what does a Republican stand for?"
    Scotty replied, "A Democrat stands for the little people and a Republican stands for the rich guy."
    That was not the first time I had heard that perception of the political parties from a young African-American. Just as perception differs from reality in people's thinking about the political parties, confusion also reigns in the highly politicized issue of affirmative action. So much confusion surrounds the affirmative action debate that a brief history of the issue is in order.
    In March 1961, President John F. Kennedy issued Executive Order 10925, which established the President's Committee on Equal Employment Opportunity (PCEEO). The mission of the PCEEO was to end discrimination in employment by the federal government and its contractors. President Lyndon B. Johnson issued a similar directive in September 1965 (see text box on following page).
    Though the language in President Johnson's executive order was similar to that of President Kennedy's, Johnson's order went on to abolish the PCEEO, transfer its responsibilities to the secretary of labor, and authorize the secretary of labor to "adopt such rules and regulations and issue such orders as he deems necessary and appropriate to achieve the purposes thereof."

    In December 1971, President Richard M. Nixon's Labor Department issued Revised Order No. 4, which required all federal contractors to develop "an acceptable affirmative action program," including "an analysis of areas within which the contractor is deficient in the utilization of