Symbol or Savior?

Can Michael Steele lead blacks to the Republicans?
The recent election of Michael Steele, the first African-American chairman of the Republican National Committee, may be taken to symbolize the necessary modernization of the Grand Old Party, or merely cynical tokenism at its worst. Steele’s victory ended a racially charged contest in which one candidate, Katon Dawson, was discovered to have belonged to an all-white country club, and another, Chip Saltsman, sent supporters a CD with the song “Barack the Magic Negro.” Steele’s election undoubtedly highlights the GOP’s goal of promoting a new image, most especially, perhaps, in the black community. But, in all likelihood, Steele’s appointment will not be enough to win any significant number of black voters back to the Party of Lincoln.
A Bleak History
In beating Sen. John McCain by seven percentage points overall, Obama won among women by 13 percent, among Hispanics by 36, among young voters by 34, and among new voters by 39. Most dramatically, though, the spread among African-Americans was 91 percent. Some attribute this margin to the presence of the first African-American presidential nominee, but blacks have been overwhelmingly Democratic since the 1960s. As media commentator Callie Crossley told the HPR, “the perception … of the GOP as an exclusionary assemblage of older southern white men” is well established in the black community. Crossley also pointed out that four GOP primary candidates were “unable” to participate in a debate at a historically black college, contributing to a sense among African-Americans that the GOP ignores them and their issues.
Turning The Tables
Despite all of this history, Carl Tate, the Director of Minority Outreach for the Staunton, Va. Republican Committee, thinks that the Republican Party has a case to make to the African-American community. In particular, Tate thinks that the Republicans should emphasize the values they share with the African-American community: “Not only do we share a history, we share values with a deep connection to churches.” Indeed, recent polls indicate that Tate may have a point. Gallup has found that just 30 percent of black Democrats approve of same-sex marriage, compared to 57 percent of non-black Democrats.
Meanwhile, fewer black Democrats than Republicans (black or white) approve of having a baby outside of marriage, and the exact same percentage (46 percent) of both groups approve of sex between unmarried men and women. “Family values” might be a potent rallying cry within the black community, where the decline of the nuclear family over the past several decades has been disastrous and viciously circular.
However, Tate cautioned, these values need to be communicated effectively and directly by Republican leaders. Even in 2004, when social issues were prominent, the GOP’s vote share among African-Americans increased only a few points from 2000.  “The Party must be willing to spend the effort and time needed to compete among African-American voters,” said Tate. With the appointment of Michael Steele, one stumbling block to better communication may have been cleared: there is now a highly visible black Republican leader able to make the conservative case to the black community.
Weighing the Issues
However, there is reason to doubt that one prominent black Republican will change well-established African-American voting patterns. When Steele himself ran for the Senate in Maryland in 2006, his white opponent, Ben Cardin, still received 72 percent of the black vote. Ken Blackwell, the former Ohio secretary of state who also ran for Senate in 2006, received only 20 percent of the black vote. Certainly these candidates performed far better in the black community than a typical white Republican. But their experiences show that, even when presented with the opportunity to elect an African-American to the lily-white Senate, black voters remain remarkably Democratic. And now that Steele is at the RNC, the number of credible black Republican candidates may be down to zero.
The reason for the black community’s consistency is that “jobs and justice issues take precedence over sexual-orientation issues,” Gary Flowers, the CEO and executive director of the Black Leadership Forum, told the HPR. The possible gain from using social issues to drive a wedge between blacks and the Democratic Party might therefore be quite small. If so, Steele’s election at the RNC will have a negligible impact on the future of the black vote.