GOP Pins Hopes on Black Republicans

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[Sub-Driver]

GOP Pins Hopes on Black Republicans

By KRISTEN WYATT, Associated Press Writer 8 minutes ago

Hope springs eternal when black Republicans seek higher office, yet often the first question that hits them is what are they doing in the GOP. This election year, a man named Steele in Maryland and a former football star named Swann in Pennsylvania are among a small but determined number of black candidates trying to win one for the Republicans despite the Democratic Party's near lock on the black vote.

Republican Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, a former seminarian with a law degree from Georgetown University, is seeking the open Senate seat in November. He is looking to translate one accomplishment — the first black elected to statewide office in Maryland — into another, as the only black Republican in the Senate.

Lynn Swann, a Hall of Famer with the Pittsburgh Steelers in the 1970s, is running for governor in Pennsylvania.

Black Republicans also are seeking the governorship in Ohio, the Senate in Michigan and seats in Congress and state legislatures from the Midwest to the Deep South.

It's never easy.

"Sometimes you feel kind of out there on an island by yourself," said Eric Wallace, 47, an associate minister of a large black congregation in Chicago who is running for the state Senate in Illinois.

"Sometimes when I tell people I'm a Republican, they just automatically shut down and don't want to hear any more," Wallace said.

"But when I start talking about our views — we're not for abortion, we're pretty much against same-sex marriage — they start listening."

As Steele has discovered in the Maryland suburbs outside Washington, getting on the ballot is only one step in an arduous journey.

[Hardastarboard]

As Steele has discovered in the Maryland suburbs outside Washington, getting on the ballot is only one step in an arduous journey.

Yep. You also have to overcome Democrats in positions of power that will break any law, tell any lie, and do anything they can get away with to keep you from succeeding. And there's pretty much nothing you can do about it. The government sure as hell won't give you justice against them.

Being a black Republican in the modern era is a lot like being a civil rights worker in the '60's. You have to be brave, work hard to overcome prejudice, and watch your six every minute of the day. And just like in the '60's, the greatest threat is from Democrats. It's deja vu all over again.

[Grendel9]

PLUS, realize that you would
NEVER have the opportunity to
run for an elected office
let alone be appointed to
one, if you were in the
Democratic Party.

[llevrok]

Democrats = "keep 'em on the plantation"

GOP = "let them OWN the plantation!"

[Antique Gal]

Democrat's motto [Keep um dumb and dependent]

[HHKrepublican_2]

yet often the first question that hits them is what are they doing in the GOP

That is INSULTING.

[dasboot]

Dem/MSM playbook #103

Taint with prejudice any black conservative as a pawn.

[tophat9000]

Democrats = "keep 'em on the plantation"

GOP = "let them OWN the plantation!"

Sorry I use to think that but in looking at how the parts of current GOP leadership disregarded and takes for granted the conservative base....

It's more like

Democrats = Plantation "A"

GOP = Plantation "B"

GOP leaders must of envied for years how the Dem's could totally crap all over there "great unwashed" base and have them come back year after year for more....

So GOP leaders are now doing it to their own base and seeing how long they can pull it off

[infidel29]

Hope springs eternal when black Republicans seek higher office, yet often the first question that hits them is what are they doing in the GOP.

A very liberal question. One that illuminates the 'thinly veiled racism' of the left. It seems to be asking the question "What are you doing here, you must have strayed from 'your place'." Almost as if they are trespassing.

[AlaskaErik]

Hope springs eternal when black Republicans seek higher office, yet often the first question that hits them is what are they doing in the GOP.

Maybe, just maybe, they'd rather be treated as equals in the Republican Party instead of as second class citizens on the Democratic plantation.

[FormerACLUmember]

The democrat party plantation is essentially unchanged since 1820. Here some democrat party public school teachers union officials a minority kid for his first day of classes. No Republican school vouchers for your kid! (100% of democrat party politicians in Washington send their kids to private school)

[Holden Magroin]

Given how the Republican Party is hellbent on making white people a minority, it will have no choice but to reach out to blacks.

[catmanblack.]

Read the book Animal Farm!

[llevrok]

In hind sight, and your comments, I agree. Plantation A and B are more apropos for the two parties.

[KoRn]

"Well. I hope these guys aren't counting on the black vote."

I agree. This would be comparable to the Democrats counting on the youth vote. There's allot of talk of it, but it just never materializes.

[SunkenCiv]

"But when I start talking about our views -- we're not for abortion, we're pretty much against same-sex marriage -- they start listening."

They start listening alright. They start listening to Jesse Jackson who went from being ProLife to saying that everyone is on this Earth as "free agents".