California Conservative

The Washington Times’ Brian DeRose has a good article on how Ken Mehlman’s outreach is affecting the recruitment of minority candidates.

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman said yesterday that despite the party’s significant progress in attracting black supporters and candidates, the federal response to Hurricane Katrina and lingering mistrust stemming from the 2000 presidential vote recount have posed great challenges. “Katrina has made it harder because people saw a government at every level, federal, state and local, not operating the way it should,” he said.

I’ve reported that the GOP, through Mehlman’s leadership is making progress. That said, I’ve never said that the black vote would flip anytime soon. Destroying the black voting monolith is going to be more of a process than an event. With that in mind, it’s wise that Mehlman speaks candidly with minority voters.

Mehlman deserves kudos for being a good listener too. Listening and acting is a great way of showing someone that you care, which is vital in changing the black voting monolith.

There are more than 50 black Republicans running for federal, statewide and local offices this year, with more announcing candidacies daily, like Ada M. Fisher, who last week announced she will challenge Rep. Melvin Watt, a Democrat and chairman of the Congressional Black Caucus, in North Carolina’s 12th District. But Mr. Mehlman focused on two candidates, Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele, running to fill the seat of retiring Democratic Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes, and former Pittsburgh Steeler Hall of Famer Lynn Swann, who is running for governor of Pennsylvania.
“I can only talk about those two because they are nominees running unopposed [in Republican primaries], but there are other great candidates, like Ken Blackwell, who is running for governor of Ohio, and [the Rev.] Keith Butler, who is running for Senate in Michigan,” he said. He said state Republican parties are clearing the field for black candidates while Democrats “are putting up obstacles to one of their Senate candidates in Maryland, Kweisi Mfume, making it tough for him and anointing someone else.”

As I’ve said before, the more that people see black candidates winning as Republicans, the more the monolith will weaken. This won’t happen overnight but it’s coming.

Cross-post at LetFreedomRing

This entry was posted on Friday, February 24th, 2006 at 7:43 am and is filed under Author: Gary Gross, Elections, RNC, Race. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.