Black Republicans face
election tests

Alex Bloom

Though they have the blessings of President George W. Bush and the Republican Party, three black Republican candidates are praying that those blessings are not a curse.

In Ohio, Secretary of State Ken Blackwell is the Republican candidate for governor against Democrat Ted Strickland. In Pennsylvania, Republican Lynn Swann is trying to unseat incumbent Gov. Ed Rendell. And Lt. Gov. Michael Steele is seeking the open U.S. Senate seat in Maryland.

Jeff Johnson, a television personality on BET’s “Rap City” and host of the quarterly show “The Jeff Johnson Chronicles,” is supporting Blackwell for governor and believes that the Republicans are finally recognizing African Americans.

“What I’ve seen Republicans do is say, ‘I don’t want anything from you, I just want to hear what your concerns are,’” said Johnson. “That alone has been enough because they haven’t heard that from the Republican Party in the past.”

Johnson cites Bush’s appearance at the NAACP’s annual convention on July 20 and his renewal a week later of Voting Rights Act of 1965 as both symbolic and tangible proof that the GOP is reaching out to minorities.

But David Bositis of The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies isn’t buying any of it. Nor does he believe that the three black Republican candidates stand a chance for victory this November in an election largely considered to be a referendum on the Bush administration.

Bositis has studied African American voting patterns for years and believes that the current attention Republicans have paid to African Americans this election cycle is purely coincidental.

He argues that Bush’s appearance in front of the NAACP was a ploy to distract attention from a worsening Iraq situation and the Voting Rights Act renewal was purely for show and in the Republicans’ self-interest.

“It certainly looks like there’s going to be a strong Democratic tide this year, so there’s a very real possibility they’re all going to get murdered,” said Bositis.

According to Rasmussen Reports, the latest polls in Ohio show Strickland leading Blackwell by 24 points. In Pennsylvania, polls show that Rendell has a 19-point lead over Swann.

“Are black candidates going to vote for them? No,” said Bositis. “Black voters are very upset with the Republican Party and they’re not going to be voting for them.”

Amber Wilkerson, deputy communications director for the Swann campaign, believes that despite poor polling numbers, Swann has a case against Rendell and for African Americans.

“When you look at the way things have been done in Pennsylvania, the current administration has let down African Americans and the state as a whole,” said Wilkerson.

Swann conducted a barbershop tour to speak to African Americans and wants to tackle the issues affecting them. Pennsylvania is currently 41st in the nation in job creation, and 55 percent of the state’s ninth graders do not graduate high school.

“I don’t think that this administration has really enacted the reforms that the African American community has hoped that they would,” said Wilkerson.

Swann, however, will be a tough sell in Pennsylvania since he has to prove he can relate to African Americans better than Rendell, Philadelphia’s popular mayor from 1989 through 1997.

“This administration has let down that community,” said Wilkerson. “That goes for Republicans and Democrats. [Swann] is ready to enact reforms that will help all of Pennsylvania.”

While Republicans scramble to get their house in order, the Democratic Party is not without its own problems.

“Sometimes when you’re in a situation where you’re being taken for granted, the fact that someone else is willing to listen is enough to make someone interested,” said Johnson. “I thinks that what we’ve seen happen.”

Johnson supports many of Blackwell’s initiatives in Ohio, including job creation, economic development and an education reform plan to increase classroom spending for public schools. He has yet to see a clear agenda from Strickland.

“I think that [Strickland] is going into communities and meeting with 30 to 40 black leaders at a time for them to voice their concerns versus really spending time with African American leadership to talk about what his agenda is,” said Johnson.

African Americans, according to Johnson, should no longer be considered a single bloc of voters because of the differences in income, beliefs and class in the demographic as a whole. The Democratic Party has treated African Americans as a group vote for too long.

“To think that you can approach every African American the same way is lunacy,” said Johnson. “We can’t continue to pretend the African American base is monolithic, as if the same tactics of 40 years ago are going to attract us now.”

Johnson and Alexandra Boone of the GAP Communications Group, both of whom are African American, have endorsed Blackwell over Strickland.

Both Johnson and Boone want African Americans to make smarter decisions when choosing candidates for political office. Johnson wants African Americans to look past party affiliation.

“It’s less of an issue about do we join the Republican Party and more of how do we critically assess on a candidate-by-candidate basis who is best going to serve our agenda,” said Johnson. “That way we’re not acquiescing to others’ agendas. We’re firmly rooted in our own.”

Bositis debunked beliefs that African Americans are ready to switch to the Republican Party. He noted that the slight jump in Bush’s 2004 numbers with African Americans from 8 to 11 percent did not even reach Bob Dole’s level of 16 percent from his unsuccessful 1996 bid to unseat President Bill Clinton.

“I’ve been listening to them talking about it since [George H.W. Bush] was president,” said Bositis. “I review the exit polls every year there’s an election and there’s nothing there. What can I say? It’d be interesting [if it changed]. But the fact is, for the time being, the Democratic Party is the party of African Americans.”

Additionally, the three GOP candidates will have to defend their affiliation with Bush, whose approval numbers have hit rock bottom this year. And when those questions come, Bositis thinks that it will be a lot harder for the candidates to defend themselves.

“There’s nothing they can do about it,” he said. “They’re stuck. He’s their president.”