Bump to that theory.
You've made me curious if indeed this could be a result of that meeting. Certainly I wouldn't expect the BCC to come out in favor of Thomas, even in this very mild late response. You may be on to something.
Could even include competition between the BCC and NAACP.
I do wonder if Hispanics overcoming blacks as the majority minority, as well as their willingness to split their vote between parties, may have done more to shake up these coalitions than Condi, Colin or Thomas.
For the first time they have competition. They've regulated themselves even behind the gay community in willingness to split support. This hurts their influence in Washington. If it keeps on in this vein, they will be irrelevent a decade from now.
I am by no means an expert on black people or the way they think any more than any other white woman. Everyone is different, BUT I have to say that I was very surprised this last summer when the black churches in Florida seemed to back Kerry even though he was for partial-birth abortion, his wife was very pro-gay, and he was wishy-washy.
Jesse and Al Sharpton were dragging him to all these churches basically saying that they (the congregants) should overlook these facts, and go against the way they have believed in order to put a Dem in office.
Also, like you said SS, they also see how many Hispanics that have been elected and appointed and nominated for jobs in the Bush Administration. If they don't at least ACT like they are grateful for the black appointees, then Bush will just keep giving them to the other minorities. Remember, he plans on putting Estrada back up again.