Free Republic

WASHINGTON - President Bush is skipping this week's annual NAACP convention for the fifth straight year, but that isn't preventing the White House and Republican Party from waging a drive to woo African-American voters. The outreach effort, which began shortly after Bush's re-election, will be on display Thursday as the president addresses about 3,200 people at the Indiana Black Expo Summer Celebration luncheon in Indianapolis and Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman speaks at the NAACP convention in Milwaukee. In Indianapolis, Bush will tout his "ownership society" theme, noting gains that African-Americans have made in homeownership and small business on...

It was a historic moment for the Grand Old Party: At the 2000 Republican National Convention in Philadelphia, black conservatives took center stage, delivered speeches in prime time, raised their voices in a gospel choir and locked hands with the white men who, by an overwhelming majority, run the party. By the end of the convention, the future national security adviser, Condoleezza Rice, and secretary of state, Colin L. Powell, had emerged as black conservative stars, and a concerted effort by Republicans "to invent new black leaders" -- as former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) once put it -- was...