I have ran in elections once as an Independent and just this year as a Democrat. Since my towns elections are non partisan I actually ran with both Independent and Democrats on the same slate.
Now my town is predominantly black so Republican is just a dirty word and as a politician you don't want it associated with you in any way.
What's sad is that the Republican Party seems to want it to stay that way. Not just in my town but in other predominantly black towns. They have little presecence and in many cases no prescence at all.
Now I am a Democrat but I believe that having another party vying for voters attention makes both groups have to step their games up. When people have to compete for your vote they tend to try to actually keep their promises and stay more in touch with the community.
To be honest the Democratic Party could do a lot better by African American voters who have been loyal over the last 20 plus years and some are starting to question this out loud. The Democratic Party is not trying to earn our votes they are just expecting us to vote Democrat no matter who they run without much question. The problem is that the person running may not be the best candidate but if people blindly vote Democrat they will find that out when it's too late.
We need some type challenger there with very good monetary backing to try to keep this from happening. In most cases that challenger would be a republican.
This is opening up an oppurtunity. One that the Republican Party does not seem to want to take advantage of.
It's even more sad when you stop and think that most blacks especially those that vote on a regular basis have conservative views.
Ignoring this segment of voters would be like Paramount ignoring 10-14 year boys in its marketing of Transformers 2. It just doesn't make any sense.
I know Michael Steele has given lip service to reaching out but so far it has been just that lip service.
Can somebody tell me why Republicans are having such a hard time reaching out to us.
George Cook http://www.amazon.com/dp/B002E19JKU