Beleaguered Party's Damage-Control Strategy Doesn't Appear To Include Us
By George Alexander, Black Enterprise
White Republican presidential candidates, led by Rudy Giuliani, Mitt Romney, and John McCain, are bearing the brunt of the mistakes of the current administration.
With President George W. Bush's approval rating reaching an all-time low of 28%, will Republicans come up with a formula to increase their voter base by wooing more Black votes?
A recent study by AARP and The Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies polled 700 likely African American voters in South Carolina and found that nearly all think presidential candidates should commit to action on affordable healthcare (97%) and retirement security (96%), while many felt that the three most important issues facing the country were the war in Iraq (56%), economy/jobs (40%) and healthcare (28%).
"To date, the Republicans have done nothing to address the issues important to the African American community, such as Katrina, urban policy, healthcare, and employment," charges Ronald Wakers, a University of Maryland political scientist and the author of Black Presidential Politics in America.Other experts concur: "There's been no discussion of any of the issues that are acutely affecting African Americans," suggests Michael Fauntroy, assistant professor of public policy at George Mason University and author of Republicans and the Black Vote. Both Giuliani and Romney declined invitations to address the nonpartisan National Urban League convention in St. Louis this month.
Some experts propose that the Republicans have historically not adequately courted the Black vote because of their discomfort with addressing race relations in this country. "On the whole, White Republican leaders have not done the work of looking racism in the face, thinking about it in their society, thinking about it in their homes, in their communities, and getting to a place of deeper empathy," points out David Campt, Ph.D., an Independent who was a senior policy adviser for President Bill Clinton's Initiative on Race.
"The Republican base is conservative and controlled largely by the religious right," says Walters, who adds that the Republicans may make more of an effort to reach black voters in the general election. The country witnessed this outreach during the 2004 presidential campaign, when Republicans wooed some Black voters through faith-based initiatives led by conservative black clergy. The use of a faith-based strategy is expected again in 2008, says Walters.