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GOP Talks to Black Community - Offering Nothing

Prince George's Community College, Howard University, "The Tavis Smiley Show" and the African American New Jersey Chamber of Commerce -- not the usual itinerary for a new chairman of the Republican National Committee. But Ken Mehlman, who took the job in January after managing the Bush-Cheney reelection campaign, is using a "Conversations with the Community" tour to continue the party's quest to chip away at an ultra-solid Democratic constituency. "No matter how well we do in elections, the party of Lincoln will not be whole until more African Americans come home," Mehlman said in an interview Friday after visiting the Martin Luther King Center in Atlanta. The party has announced such drives again and again over the years but has made little headway, with many African Americans dismissing the blitzes as little more than rhetoric. But Mehlman received new credibility when Donna L. Brazile, a grass-roots consultant who managed Al Gore's presidential bid, went on NPR to warn Democrats that Mehlman is "now inside the community" and "is a different chairman." Brazile wrote in her "Stirring the Pot" column in Roll Call, a Capitol Hill newspaper: "Among Democrats, Mehlman's efforts should be cause for alarm." Mehlman, who has raised $935,000 for state and county parties during his travels, pushes President Bush's Social Security, education and faith-based agendas as beneficial to minorities. "My message is: Give us a chance, and we'll give you a choice," he said. Bush took 8 percent of the black vote in 2000 and 11 percent in 2004. [more]

My People Let Pharoah Go! When looking at Pres. Bush and GOPers "gaining strength in the black community, consider these remarks by" College Park, MD, Bishop Harry Jackson Jr.: "I'm a registered Democrat, and I didn't vote for Bush in 2000, but now I'm a vehement supporter. Look at the moral issues. The black family is under siege in this culture, and something like same-sex marriage will take us right down the slippery slope. When I heard Bush say he supported a constitutional amendment to ban it, well, that made sense to me. Sacred rights are different from civil rights. The Democrats are being held hostage by their gay-rights agenda. They ignored black issues until the last weeks of the campaign." Originally published in The Hotline March 7, 2005
Mary Kay Gordon - Santa Monica One would hope that when considering the Republican argument regarding the shorter life expectancy of black people -- which would lead to less return on their Social Security investment -- that black people would instead push for basic healthcare, the far greater and more immediate problem. Why not work toward longer life for votes, and then talk return on investment?
Ron Neal -- Westlake Village Being an African American male, I am insulted by the Bush administration's ploy to seduce black support for his wrongheaded plan to overhaul Social Security by creating private investment accounts. However, I am more deeply disturbed by black faith-based-financed bishops and ministers who are being hustled to hustle members of their congregations to accept this modern-day gambit of 40 acres and a mule. It is easy to imagine these self-serving ministers as descendants of the "colored" pastors who criticized Martin Luther King Jr.'s nonviolent tactics, that is until the Black Panthers showed up. Much like the Africans who captured other Africans for white slave traders, one now sees a black former welfare mother, Star Parker, leading a conservative "think tank" that supports private investment accounts. One can only speculate where the welfare checks in her current bank account originate. LA Times letter page March 5, 2005