A shrinking black presence at GOP convention
'It's so disappointing,' says a former Maryland lieutenant governor of the dramatic decline in African American delegates.
ST. PAUL, MINN. -- — Michael Steele was once the symbol of the Republican Party's ambitions to expand its reach into black America -- a high-ranking African American elected official who traveled the country telling longtime Democrats why the GOP should be their new home.
But as he stepped onto the stage Wednesday to deliver a prime-time speech, he was greeted with a disheartening sight: Out of 2,380 Republican delegates in St. Paul, only 36 were black, or 1.5%.
That's a jarring decline from four years ago, when the GOP, eager to chip away at the Democratic Party's black voter base in the South and big cities, seeded the presidential convention with minorities, including 167 black delegates, according to a report by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington.
"It's so disappointing, and I'm very frustrated," said Steele, a former Maryland lieutenant governor who now heads a conservative political action committee.
Privately, Steele is no longer the happy, supportive party man. Instead, he bemoaned that his party -- intimidated by the historic candidacy of Democrat Barack Obama -- had all but given up its ambitions to win more black voters.
"When it comes to the black vote, the Republican Party thinks it has to come up with some sort of magic solution that's strange or complicated," he said. "No one wants to put that level of energy into courting the black vote, so nothing gets done."
Shannon Reeves of the Republican National Committee said the party intended to "compete for each vote within the various ethnic communities of our country."
But from the perspective of the convention floor, the battle for black support seemed lacking.
Thirty-three states -- as well as the District of Columbia and the Virgin Islands -- have fewer African American delegates here this week than in the previous convention in New York, according to the report. And 24 states sent no black delegates -- compared with seven in 2004.
By comparison, 24.5% of the delegates -- or 1,087 -- who attended last week's Democratic National Convention were black, according to officials with the Democratic National Committee.
"It's not a good sign for the Republicans," said David Bositis, a senior political analyst and the report's author.
The Republican convention has long been a white bastion, although it hasn't been for lack of trying.
