George W. Bush won a surprisingly large 11% of the national black vote in 2004

Good article. But I laughed out loud when I saw this part:



11%? That's "surprisingly large?"

And I'm not suggesting that the Democrats don't play racial politics. Of course they do. But their gains from those types of things, when they happen, are minimal, compared to their gains from the fact that the Republicans haven't shown up and have made big mistakes in this area.

The Democrats commit a lot of penalties in this part of the game. Unnecessary Roughness. Tripping. Too many men on the field. But it's the Republican fumbles that have been the difference in this aspect of the contest.

IOW, if you have two apparently irreconcilable segments of the population, a strategist is going to look at that and wonder if there is political advantage to be had.

Meanwhile in other venues on the right, i.e. those focused on policy, we have the rise of intellectual conservatism growing in appeal, and having a negative effect on the electorate in ways unintended by the theory.

The Democrat party (as you said) became more extreme in its liberalism. A big part of that means more gov't., which is to say, more socialism.

AFDC = socialism
Food Stamps = socialism
Heating assistance = socialism
Medicaid & Medicare = socialism
HUD housing = socialism
Housing vouchers = socialism
More civil service jobs = socialism
Busing = federal social engineering
Affirmative action = federal social engineering
Pro union labor laws = federal social engineering

With the Democrat party becoming more socialistic with each electoral era, those Americans who believe in liberty, limited government, low taxes and minimal regulation of the marketplace, were increasingly alienated from the Democrat party.

ValuesVoter, where is your book?? You can just copy-and-paste your excellent posts here at HucksArmy and weave them into several outstanding chapters on the GOP and minorities.

I currently have about 600+ pages of notes and dozens of books that I am reading for more info. My goal is to try to wrap up researching in the next month, get a detailed outline finished (I have a high-level one now) the month after that and get a draft done within a few months after that. It's slow going but I'm still going.

ValuesVoter, I love reading your stuff. When you are done with the draft of your book, if you want a fresh pair of eyes for final proofreading, I'd be glad to volunteer. I've never seen so much as a jot or tittle out of place in your posts, so I doubt that much proofreading would need doing. But it would be a pleasure to help you get your message out!

I have this picture of you in the future, appearing on the Mike Huckabee TV show, promoting your ground-breaking book, which Mike is enthusiastically recommending!

If anyone reading TVV's posts can get copies of them to Gov. Huckabee, they would be doing a huge favor to Mike, to the GOP, and to America.

Mary, I like your quoting Mike's favorite adage!

Most blacks are conservative-except when it comes to voting. How can the Republican Party appeal to them?

WHEN the Southern Republican Leadership Conference met in Biloxi, Mississippi, this spring, those attending selected a favourite for the Republican nomination in 2000. To no one's surprise, George W. Bush, the governor of Texas, came out on top. Much more surprising, and perhaps of more significance, was the man these southern Republicans wanted for vice-president: J.C. Watts, a conservative black congressman from Oklahoma. Mr Watts is in the vanguard of black conservatism, which is more self-confident and influential these days than at any time since the end of the civil war. As he and many other black politicians know, black Americans may vote left, but they often think right. Poll after poll shows that blacks are more conservative on social issues than whites. They are tougher on homosexuality, abortion and drugs, and more outspoken in favour of school prayer. They are also surprisingly conservative on key political issues. Most think term limits are a good idea; and yes, America should strive for a balanced budget. Even affirmative action is viewed suspiciously; in one Gallup poll, 74% of blacks were opposed to minority preferences in hiring. And yet, despite all these indicators, Bill Clinton snapped up 84% of the black vote in 1996. Why? The biggest reason is that blacks still equate conservatism (and, by default, Republicans) with racial prejudice. They have not forgiven conservatives for opposing the civil-rights movement, and they still perceive the Republican Party as something of a country club, jolly enough for members but haughty towards those left outside. The Republican drive to downsize government, which has given many blacks jobs and advancement over the years, is another stumbling block. And the style of the wilder Republican candidates does not help. ''I'm not saying Pat Buchanan is a racist,'' sighs one black Republican, ''but to most black folks, that's the way he comes across.'' Blacks do not often have much contact with Republicans anyway. Few Republican campaigns are eager to spend their hard-begged dollars reaching out to black voters. In most places, Republicans in effect cede the black vote to Democrats before any real money is spent. Latinos, by contrast, are actively pursued wherever they are numerous, simply because they hint that they might be willing to slip into bed with Republicans. ''It's the worst of all worlds,'' says Clark Kent Ervin, the black assistant secretary of state in Texas. ''Republicans ignore us and Democrats take us for granted.'' Yet there are signs that this is changing, and nowhere more strikingly than in Florida. There, Jeb Bush, the younger son of the former president, is striving to win the hearts of blacks in his race for the governorship. This used to be a group he almost wilfully ignored; asked in 1994, during his previous race, what he would do for blacks if elected, he famously answered ''Probably nothing''. Now he is campaigning with enthusiasm in some of the poorest black districts in the state. In Liberty City, a depressed black area of Miami, he has helped to set up a charter school. The tactic seems to be working; blacks are beginning to ask themselves whether this Republican, who talks like a conservative Democrat, might not be on their side. Florida's blacks have also learned that they have leverage. Mr Bush needs them, because they make up 20% of the state's voters; they may spell the difference for him between victory and defeat. Richard Nixon knew this, too: in 1960 he snuggled up to Jackie Robinson, the first black to play national league baseball, and won more than a third of the black vote from Kennedy. Indeed, if black voters applied themselves in a Machiavellian manner, they would vote Republican in large enough numbers to worry Democrats and thereby gain more influence in both parties. This is exactly what is happening in the Missouri Senate race. There blacks are deserting the Democratic candidate, Jay Nixon, in favour of Christopher Bond, the Republican incumbent. Mr Nixon has annoyed them by proposing to end busing as a means of school integration, and assuming that they will vote for him all the same. By contrast, Mr Bond, with no assumptions, is working hard in black precincts (where he barely set foot in his previous races) and is going to all the right church suppers. The black mayor of Kansas City, among other prominent blacks, is now publicly contributing to his campaign. There are, of course, a small core of blacks who vote Republican without persuasion. Pollsters say they are such a tiny sample that it is hard to generalise about them. But they tend to be recent immigrants (particularly West Indians such as Colin Powell); the upwardly mobile (''buppies''), especially businessmen and lawyers; blacks in the armed forces; and those brought up as Episcopalians or Catholics, who-the argument goes-have a broader outlook than blacks attending more narrowly black churches. Frances Edwards-West Indian, Catholic and an executive with HBO, a cable TV channel-is a good example of the upcoming generation of black conservatives. She finds it hard to relate to liberal leaders such as Jesse Jackson; instead, she gains sustenance from thinkers such as Thomas Sowell and Shelby Steele, who emphasise that blacks must progress by their own efforts and not with the help of government. She regrets what she calls ''censorship'' of the black conservative view, and resents the way the media present blacks as a group with a single political outlook. Her views are echoed even more forcefully by Clarence Thomas, the lone black voice on the Supreme Court, who in a new book of essays by various writers, ''Black and Right'' (Praeger-Greenwood), applauds ''dissident blacks'' for refusing ''to give in to the cult mentality and childish obedience that hypnotises black Americans into a mindless political trance.'' Yet, for all their passion, black conservatives seldom run for political office. An exception is Alan Keyes, a black politician from Maryland (and Republican candidate in the 1996 presidential race) who is the standard bearer of social conservatives both black and white. Mr Keyes has founded Black America's Political Action Committee (BAMPAC) to encourage black conservatives to get elected. Its director, Alvin Williams, says the vital issues are tax reform, school choice, amendments to affirmative action, welfare reform; and, above all, moral regeneration. Mr Williams believes that black conservatives are the true voice of the black community: self-starting, respectful, pious. BAMPAC, with 60,000 members, contributes to the campaigns of black Republicans and holds training sessions for political novices. Already it has three notches in its belt: Mr Watts, elected to Congress in Oklahoma; Ken Blackwell, elected state treasurer in Ohio; and Vikki Buckley, elected secretary of state in Colorado. This autumn it will be backing several more black conservatives, including two first-time congressional candidates from Texas. For those blacks-and there are many of them-still reluctant to show their Republican sympathies, there is a model in Tex Moten, who in 1940 wandered into the Texas campaign office of the Republican presidential candidate, Wendell Willkie. As a black man, he had to enter by the side door. The white campaign officials looked at him strangely; what was a black man doing in a Republican office? He told them that he opposed Roosevelt's government handouts, and wanted to help the Republican campaign by stuffing envelopes. He never looked back. Mr Moten, now in his eighties, remains a staunch Republican, retailing the party's virtues to anyone who cares to listen. Republicans, he insists, are not racist and never have been. Most black colleges, he points out, were founded by Republicans. Several of the founding fathers of the Texas Republican Party were black men. Indeed, Republicans held power during Texas's turbulent Reconstruction largely because of black suffrage. And whatever its lapses during the civil-rights years, the party was originally founded to fight slavery. Besides, times have changed. At the turn of the century Mr Moten's grandfather, a freed slave, tried to register as a Republican and was laughed at. ''Boy,'' said the county official, ''in this county we only allow Democrat [expletive].'' Never let it be said that that particular prejudice is still alive and well

A simply silly idea for GOP to lure blacks

Election Day sees conservatives, in the National Review, performing their perennial hand-wringing and head-scratching over the lack of black Republican voters.

In the Nov. 7 issue of the biweekly, author Henry Klingeman suggests, with breathtaking simplicity, that Republicans would get more black votes if they just asked for them.

As a case in point he cites Sen. Jesse Helms (R-N.C.), openly hostile to civil rights legislation, credited with just 2 percent of the black vote in voter surveys before the 1984 election.

Helms made a three-day campaign swing through black precincts and ended up pulling 13 percent of the black vote - ironically, his margin of victory over a pro-civil rights Democrat.

"If you want someone's vote, you have to ask him for it," Klingeman writes in an article titled "I Just Called to Say I Love You."

"The tendency of Republican candidates to avoid black audiences only reinforces blacks' fear that the GOP platform is one big code word for racism," he continues.

The time is ripe for Republican gains because "the black establishment today is in disarray and black activism is stagnating," while the black/Democratic alliance merely is "running on nostalgia," Klingeman adds.

He ignores this year's Republican "ballot integrity" program. It's aimed directly, court proceedings have shown, at purging black voters from the rolls.

He also ignores both parties' poor showing in recruiting black candidates. In today's elections no major-party Senate nominee is black; a black Democrat in California and a black Republican in Michigan are running for governor, but both are expected to lose.