Opinion
I
t’s a question that comes up
every time you hit the home
page of the Republican Nation-
al Committee’s website: Where
are all the Black Republicans?
Only a year after celebrating the
last days of its first African-Amer-
ican chair, the RNC is fairly light
on Black faces these days. What
was once, especially during the
’90s, a fairly aggressive photo-op
promotional strategy strung
together by a small network of
die-hard Black political consult-
ants, former elected officials and
partisans, is all but dead. While it
did little in the way of yielding
any results comparable to Demo-
cratic counterparts, there was a
sense — leading up to the election
of Michael Steele as party chair —
that some progress had been made
in mending the often bitter rela-
tionship between African Ameri-
cans and the Republican Party.
Now, as a bloody Republican
primary carries on, the GOP
appears smitten with the Latino
vote. Presidential candidates Mitt
Romney and Newt Gingrich are
bending over backwards, and
breaking the bank, to connect with
Latinos — looking for every con-
ceivable angle to attract skeptical
Brown voters turned off by a wave
of anti-immigration sentiments.
And the RNC happily trotted out a
P HILADELPHIA T RIBUNE
Charles D. Ellison
Most politically active and
prominent Black Republicans —
and there are only a few compared
to Black Democrats — are not as
vocal about their displeasure with
the GOP’s intense focus on the
Latino vote. Most are quiet, some
Presidential candidates Mitt Romney
and Newt Gingrich are bending over
backwards, and breaking the bank, to
connect with Latinos — looking for
every conceivable angle to attract
skeptical Brown voters turned off by a
wave of anti-immigration sentiments
out of fear they might anger RNC
bosses who are already stressed
trying to keep a fractured party
intact. But many are seething over
what they view as a combination
of betrayal and intrusion, a knife
in the back from a Republican
Party that was theirs from its
Abraham Lincoln beginnings.
However, a source tells the Trib-
The move angered a number of Black
Republicans who were already feeling
left out in the cold following the
abrupt downfall and forced removal
of Steele in 2011
Director of Latino Outreach in
January, eagerly announcing the
move in a gritty effort to snatch
Hispanic voters away from
Democrats in what observers
expect to be a grueling November
election.
“The RNC will place staff on the
ground across the country to coor-
dinate the GOP’s Hispanic effort
as part of a program to make sure
Barack Obama is a one-term pres-
ident,” said RNC Chair Reince
Preibus when introducing Betinna
Inclan as the point person for
Republican Latino strategy. “Lati-
nos play an integral role in our
communities, and the Republican
Party believes it is essential to
involve Latinos at every level of
our Party’s efforts in 2012.”
Meanwhile, the move angered a
number of Black Republicans who
were already feeling left out in the
cold following the abrupt downfall
and forced removal of Steele in
2011. Many continue to express
disgust at the GOP love fest for
Latinos, some out of concern that
they have no other political home
to turn to.
“You have no Blacks on staff at
the Republican National Commit-
tee — or any of its other commit-
tees — and there are no Blacks on
staff of any of the presidential
campaigns,” snorts longtime
Black Republican strategist and
marketing expert Raynard Jack-
son. “But maybe after a few more
electoral loses you will awaken to
the most loyal customer you have
ever had.”
just over 11 percent of the Black
vote against Democratic nominee
Sen. John Kerry, D-Mass. In
statewide races, Republicans tend
to garner 15 percent of the Black
vote on average. In 2006, then Lt.
Gov. Michael Steele was able to
capture more than 20 percent of
the Black vote in Maryland’s U.S.
Senate race — but that was still
very negligible for a Black candi-
date with extensive local roots and
une that focus could shift back to
Black outreach as the Romney
campaign prepares to hire a senior
advisor for that exact purpose.
While the source would not give
details on the timing of an
announcement, it was clear the
embattled former Massachusetts
governor is thinking ahead to the
general election. “We’re finaliz-
ing the details,” said the source.
“But, we’re not completely there,
yet.”
The reason behind that reluc-
tance could reflect a larger sense
of caution surrounding the pri-
maries. There are still many more
states to go, with the delegate-rich
“Super Tuesday” on the horizon
for March 6. With the Romney
campaign nervously gauging the
rise of Rick Santorum while
smarting from triple losses in Col-
orado, Missouri and Minnesota, it
may be difficult to start thinking
about the national scene while
you’re still engaged in state-by-
state trench warfare. Plus, finance
reports are showing a Romney
campaign low on cash and near
tapped on donors. Do they even
have enough to go the distance?
In terms of the Black vote, it’s
much more complex than that.
Much of it has to do with pure
numbers — only 10percent of
African-American voters, on
average, vote Republican during
any given presidential or congres-
sional mid-term cycle. The only
Republican in the 21st century to
slightly defy that trend was Presi-
dent Bush in 2004 when he won
who never shied away from his
Blackness.
Many Republican strategists and
candidates alike are quick to
attribute those dismal ratings to
Black dismissiveness. “It’s hard.
We get called ‘racists,’ but we’re
expected to go out and do outreach
with these people,” complains one
veteran white GOP campaign
expert who wanted to speak off
the record. Visibly angered by the
question, the senior aide to numer-
ous
Republican
campaigns
accused Black voters of “setting
unfair expectations.”
Hence, Republican insiders
point to the math in recent primar-
ies. For example, only 2 percent of
Black voters in South Carolina are
registered Republicans. To make it
worse, only 1 percent of South
Carolina primary voters in January
were Black — and that was in an
“open primary” where voters of all
partisan stripes can vote. In Flori-
da, it was the same: only 1 per-
cent. And, in Iowa (where there
are sizeable pockets of African
Americans living in such cities as
Des Moines), Black votes didn’t
even register on a significant
scale.
The problem is two-fold. The
Republican Party’s southern strat-
egy in the 1960s alienated Black
voters in the race for southern
white and segregationist votes.
This has led to the prevailing
image of a political party either
constantly attacking major Black
policy priorities, or serving as the
face of institutionalized political
racism. But there is also the prob-
lem of African Americans refusing
to force the two major political
parties to compete for their voters.
Most are fiercely loyal to the
Democratic Party to the point
where such affiliations are based
more on personal considerations
than political interests.
In contrast, Latino voters only
lean 60 percent Democrat on aver-
age. In key primary states like
Florida and Arizona, they repre-
sent 12 percent of the Republican
primary electorate — a significant
presence that warrants the atten-
tion of campaign strategists bat-
tling for every vote they can get.
And a recent Cooperative Con-
gressional Election Survey found
14 percent identified as Republi-
can and a significant bloc, 19 per-
cent, identified as “Independent.”
It’s that 19 percent that gives
Republicans reason to believe they
can compete for Latino votes in
the general election against
Barack Obama, despite recent
anti-immigration rhetoric and leg-
islation. The survey also found
Latinos are more inclined to vote
by race than party. With scores
more Latino Republican elected
officials than Black Republican
AP PHOTO/J. SCOTT APPLEWHITE
Elections 2012: Where Did GOP Blacks Go?
Rep. Allen West, R-Fla. speaks
at the Conservative Political
Action Conference (CPAC) in
Washington, Friday, Feb. 10.
elected officials (there are none of
the latter under the age of 40), the
GOP figures it has a better chance
chasing after Brown votes than
Black ones.
Political strategist and former
congressional candidate Princella
Smith argues that because African
Americans vote “lopsidedly
Democrat — 80 percent to 90 per-
cent of the time,” the Republican
Party fails to see any prospect of a
return on the investment. “Why
should I campaign to a communi-
ty who will reject me as soon as I
get to the front door?”
Ron Thomas, a Black Republi-
can and former senior advisor to
Rep. Michelle Bachmann’s, R-
Minn., failed presidential bid,
agrees, quickly arguing that the
GOP’s enthusiastic focus on Lati-
no voters should be something for
Black Republicans and African
Americans in general to worry
about. “I have a bottom line phi-
losophy: You have to have ten-
sions on both sides of the aisle.
We’re the only culture where we
don’t make the political parties
compete for our vote. Until we
decide as a people that we’re
going to do that, we’re going to
stay in the same situation we’re in
right now.”
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February 29, 2012 The Portland Skanner Page 5