[advance_copy]

I don't think Condi could do much better than President Bush. She is indellibly linked to the President, which is a good thing except among black voters. They loved Bill Clinton, I mean they LOVED him (though for the life of me I can't figure out why). Hillary will benefit from that. And the DUmbocRATS are going to get mean with all of the "uncle Tom" stuff.

[Dustin Hawkins]

<<<<>>> I disagree. I had a conversation with a black female Kerry worker and brought up this issue. She said she would vote for Rice in a heartbeat.

[section9]

Assume for a moment that she keeps most if not all of the voters that Bush got this 'time round.

Bush increased his share of the black vote from eight percent to twelve percent. Condoleezza Rice is a conservative black woman but she is a black woman who never lets audiences forget that she remembers where she came from.

She will approach 20% of the black vote, easily, by going around the NAACP and going into the Black Church, which she knows like the back of her hand. If she gets anywhere near that number, or even more, we are talking an electoral landslide-as several upper Midwestern states, Pennsylvania, Ohio, and possibly Washington state slide into our column.

Again, this stuff is REALLY early.

But it's worth thinking about. Don't dismiss her pull on black voters just because she is Republican.

Be Seeing You,

Chris