In all fairness, Republicans haven't been in the trenches fighting side by side with Blacks over modern issues...at least, that's the perception that the *media* gives. Certainly the news media harps on Republican opposition to Affirmative Action.
But that's the past.
Right now Republicans have just started a new advertising campaign. We're calling private school choice vouchers "equal opportunity scholarships."
And you know what, we are going to get these scholarships passed into law for the city of Washington, D.C.
And then we are going to go to inner-city after inner-city, touting the success of those scholarships, all while leading the charge for more and more of them.
Faced with dismal, losing, failing public schools in their own inner-cities, Blacks are going to go for this Republican program in a big way...much to the detriment of the powerful teachers' unions and entrenched Democratic Party politicians (who rely on their public school teachers for much of their activism and recruitment for/from their own benches).
But there is something else going on here. What Blacks (not individuals, but en masse) have always needed is proof that the Republican Party officially cared about them on a big issue crucial to their needs. Once a big issue like vouchers (ooops, scholarships) gets momentum, Blacks en masse are going to recognize that Republicans also share their values. We're all pro-life. We're all pro-military. We're all pro-religion. Suddenly faith-based charity initiatives take on an entirely new dimension.
And once this realization sets in at a cultural level, it will be *Democrats* who have to explain why Blacks should vote for pro-choice candidates, anti-military candidates, and even for anti-religious candidates (e.g. no school prayer, no 10 Commandments).
This is doubly true for Blacks in the South, as the Democrats seem to be abandoning this entire region.
Of course, some Democratic Party issues are going to still play well to some Blacks, just as they do to lily white crackers. Some people simply favor the Kyoto Global Warming nonsense, gun control, and abortion.
But I don't see those sorts of issues playing very well on the street. I don't see Jackie Sixpack being swayed for those issues.
Of course, we aren't to that point yet. There has to be a *major* issue on which Democrats are against and Republicans disagree, and that Blacks favor. Only such a *major* issue can cause a fundmental cultural reassesment of loyalties, much as White Southern voters faced as they left the Democratic Party in droves decades ago. Until that point was reached, White Southern voters would hold their noses and vote for liberal Democratic Party Yankees, if they had to, rather than for a dreaded "Republican".
But just as White Southern voters changed from (D) to (R), so too can Blacks, if only Republicans will fight in the trenches *and* come up with a major Black issue that the Democrats can't support (union votes, gay votes, enviro-votes, abortion votes, there are several angles).