GOP Targets Black Voters
Tampa Tribune - April 21, 2008
TAMPA - For Charlie Crist, a pitch to black voters was one of the biggest successes of his 2006 campaign for governor of Florida, drawing a record number of black votes for a Republican.
Now, Republican presidential candidate Arizona Sen. John McCain, whom Crist backs, and Jim Greer, whom Crist chose to be chairman of the state Republican Party, are trying to follow the same path.
McCain plans a series of town hall meetings this month in Democratic strongholds, including inner-city neighborhoods. Greer is continuing what he says will be a sustained pitch to black and Hispanic Floridians.
Their efforts don't appear on the surface to be great successes - if you define success as waves of support from blacks and Hispanics in the 2008 presidential election.
But that's not exactly what they're aiming at. Both hope to accomplish something more subtle: to develop a reputation for openness and inclusiveness, for being willing to listen and respond frankly to any constituency, black, white, Hispanic, Republican or Democrat. That could help them with all voters. They hope, in other words, to get points for showing up and listening.
To Democrats, who can count on black Americans as the most unified voting bloc in U.S. history, the GOP efforts seem piddling:
•On April 4, McCain appeared at a Southern Christian Leadership Conference memorial service for the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. at the site of King's 1968 assassination in Memphis, Tenn., and apologized for his past opposition to a King holiday. He was booed.
•On April 10, Greer hosted a group of black ministers at the state GOP headquarters in Tallahassee, with Crist sitting in for an hour - a notable commitment of time for a governor in the midst of a tough legislative session. The numbers were small. Most of the ministers were from small churches and most were Democrats, but Greer still proclaimed it "historic."
•The next day, Greer had another unusual meeting - an interview with the editorial board of the Florida Sentinel Bulletin, Tampa's black community newspaper. He didn't win any endorsements for GOP candidates from the newspaper, owned by a staunchly Democratic family, but he said it's the first time a state GOP chairman has met with the editorial board.
McCain's town hall visits will include Youngstown, Ohio, home of thousands of unemployed union workers, and largely black communities in New Orleans' 9th Ward and in Thomasville, Ala., said campaign spokesman Jeff Sadosky.
He said McCain expects to be challenged at the open, unscripted sessions.
McCain's goal, even if he wins no votes, is "showing a commitment and willingness to engage all Americans," Sadosky said. "You're not simply governing 51 percent of America, you're governing 100 percent and you need to talk to all Americans."
Embracing Diversity
University of South Florida political scientist Susan MacManus said Republicans are trying to respond to the historic diversity in the Democratic primary race, which has included Hispanic, black and female contenders.
"It sends a message that Republicans are interested in diversity as well," she said. It will help McCain with white voters, not just blacks - "anyone who believes we're a diverse country and that you can't turn your back on that."
In Florida, 81 percent of the state's 1.2 million black voters are registered Democrats; 5 percent are Republican.
But blacks typically vote even more heavily Democratic than that - generally about 90 percent in presidential elections, said MacManus, a specialist in political demographics.
Greer wouldn't give any figures when asked whether he hopes his minority outreach efforts will take a percentage of black votes away from Democrats.
"Success," he said, "is achieved in many ways.
"I'm not looking for immediate results, but to move the ball forward," he said. "You can't open dialogue by talking only to the people who agree with you.
"America as a whole believes everyone should have a seat at the table," and "Democrats feel committed to the same issues" as black voters, he said, when asked if it will help him with white voters.
Greer began his efforts last fall, intensifying party staff work on minority outreach, launching advisory committees for black, Hispanic and Jewish voters, and holding a black Republicans conference in Orlando.
The results among black voters are minuscule compared with the overwhelming number of black Democrats.
For example, 33 ministers attended Greer's gathering.
Although Leon County is one-third black, only two Tallahassee ministers, both from small churches, were among them. At least one attendee, a pastor from Leesburg, came from a mainly white church.
Democrats Say Effort Is 'Just Crazy'
Democrats say that Republican attitudes, including a history of black vote suppression and opposition to social programs, will keep black GOP numbers low.
"Republicans in the Legislature are massacring health care for low-income communities and reducing per-student spending on education for the first time in 40 years," said state Democratic Party spokesman Mark Bubriski. "Their priorities haven't changed. For them to do this at this time is just crazy."
But Greer said despite philosophical differences, he seeks and sometimes finds common ground in meetings like the one at the Sentinel Bulletin.
"They would have expected a Republican chairman to be adversarial," he said. "They were surprised when I agreed with some of their points."
Greer's minority outreach effort gets some heft from Crist. He got a record 18 percent of the 2006 black vote, according to exit polls, after a campaign in which he emphasized high-profile stands he's taken on civil rights issues.
Some of those stands were none too popular in his own party, including easing the process of restoring voting rights for former felons and paying restitution to wrongly convicted black prisoners.
Kenneth Scrubbs, a Republican who is outreach pastor of the mainly white First Baptist Church of Leesburg, attended Greer's meeting and called it "outstanding."
"Having the attention of the governor and the chairman is a remarkable start for what I believe will be a continued dialog," Scrubbs said.
Jacquelyn Porter, a Democrat and pastor of majority-black New Life Deliverance Ministry in Tallahassee, which she said seats 100 to 125 parishioners every Sunday, was more restrained, but still positive about the gathering.
"They could make some progress if they would," she said of Republicans' attempts to court black voters. "If they're truthful, they could. The Democrats could do that as well."
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