Why can't Republicans attract black voters?

The Associated Press

John McCain meets voters in Selma, Ala. Can he win the support of black voters?

Featured Topic | Posted 1 year 46 weeks ago

Why can't Republicans attract black voters?

Seeking support in rural Alabama, Republican presidential candidate John McCain this week said he knows it will be difficult to win over black voters who have supported Democrats for generations. "I am aware the African-American vote has been very small in favor of the Republican Party," McCain told reporters. "I am aware of the challenges, and I am aware of the fact that there will be many people who will not vote for me, but I'm going to be the president of all the people."

McCain may have a tougher time this year because his opponent may well be Barack Obama, who would be the first-ever African-American nominee of a major political party. But Republicans have long had a tough time attracting the support of black voters -- in part because the GOP is believed to have long used the "Southern Strategy" of appealing to white voters angry over the results of the Civil Rights movement. But modern Republican leaders have repudiated that approach, which in recent years appeared to be costing the party votes among moderate white voters. And many GOP leaders believe that black voters, who tend to be socially conservative in many respects, would be a natural fit with their party.

So why can't Republicans attract black voters? And what can they do about it?

Ben likes: In black and white

Thomas Sowell/National Review

The Republican strategy for making inroads into the black vote has failed consistently for more than a quarter of a century. Yet it never seems to occur to them to change their approach.

The first thing that they do that is foredoomed to failure is trying to reach blacks through the civil-rights organizations and other institutions of the black establishment. The second proven loser is trying to appeal to blacks by offering the same kinds of things that Democrats offer — token honors, politically correct rhetoric, and welfare-state benefits.

Blacks who want those things know that they can already get them from the Democrats. Why should they listen to Republicans who act like imitation Democrats?

Joel likes: Is the GOP the black man's party?

David Weigel/Radar

The Republican establishment is taking all this in with mixed emotions—part confusion, part exasperation. Talk to them about the black vote and you'll get history books stuffed with anecdotes about how Republicans pushed through the Civil Rights Act of 1964, how Democrats take blacks for granted, how George W. Bush has given an administration job to every black official with a resume, how black home-ownership numbers are way up under the GOP.

If they really want to court the African-American vote, Republicans must first acknowledge—if only to themselves—that they spent the '70s and '80s alienating, and in some cases demonizing, black voters; that their policies (school choice, Social Security privatization) haven't sold with blacks as well as the GOP hoped they would; and that the last decade of outreach has been wasted. Of course, this isn't the quick-fix Republicans want. It's more like a surgeon's advice to the victim of a botched facelift: multiple expensive operations over many, many years. Let the healing begin.