Republicanism proves a tough sell in Harlem

HARLEM -- When the Republican Party declared its courtship of African-American voters a priority, it began looking forward to the day when enough black voters shift to the GOP to make even Democratic Party strongholds like New York -- and places like Harlem's 125th Street Square, the historic center of black intellectual thought -- fertile ground for Republican candidates.

Ken Mehlman, chairman of the Republican National Committee, raised eyebrows last year with a series of speeches at black gatherings, declaring at the NAACP convention that his party ''was wrong" for past race-baiting strategies. A small but significant group of African-American politicans, including a pro football Hall of Famer, are running as Republicans for major offices. And the GOP boasts that more black voters chose George Bush in 2004 than in the hard-fought 2000 presidential election.

In the Adam Clayton Powell state office building in Harlem, overlooking the historic 125th Street Square, JoLinda Ruth Cogen, Claude Sharrieff-Frazier, and Will Brown Jr. -- African-Americans and members of the Harlem Republican Club -- have a unique perspective on the GOP's courtship of black voters. After all, said Sharrieff-Frazier, the club's 80-year-old president, if the party of Lincoln is serious about the effort, ''there's no better place to demonstrate it than [here], right in the lion's mouth."

There are signs, however, that the recruiting drive is colliding with realities on the ground.

Though Mehlman's campaign made headlines, the GOP's short-term goal of winning elections with African-American votes bypasses the tougher job of building grass-roots relationships in the black community, according to critics and some black Republicans. Meanwhile, the acrimony of African-Americans toward the GOP isn't easily overcome, leading black Republicans like those in Harlem to be viewed with suspicion.

Most black GOP leaders credit Mehlman, who became RNC chairman in 2004, with the party's campaign to win back black voters and point to a range of black candidates running as Republicans: Keith Butler, a Detroit city councilman, and Michael Steele, Maryland's lieutenant governor, are running for US Senate seats, while J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio secretary of state, and Lynn Swann of Pennsylvania, former Pittsburgh Steelers superstar, are running for governor in their respective states. Next month, the RNC will sponsor its first-ever training session for black candidates.

''This is the most aggressive I've seen the party in 25 years," said Butler, a minister.

In New York, moderate Republicans like Governor George Pataki show potential to draw African-Americans to the party, analysts say. Mayor Michael Bloomberg drew 47 percent of the black vote last November, an eye-catching statistic Republicans hope to exploit.

Brown, a local businessman, is firmly Republican; he ran as a GOP candidate for a New York City Council seat last year, and a pair of elephant cuff links finish off his dress shirt. Still, he'd like to see the party do more to build relationships with black people in places like Harlem.

''I'm not aware of any money targeting the community from the Republican National Committee," says Brown. ''You can't shout from afar. You have to come into the community. It would dispense with this notion that white Republicans are afraid to enter into the politics of Harlem."

Last year, when he ran for New York City Council, Brown says he stumped without big-name Republican support. His competitor, by contrast, campaigned with prominent local Democrats, including New York Senator Hillary Clinton -- and won the election.

Like Brown, Butler hails the GOP's principles of equal opportunity and self-determination. Yet others cite his campaign as example of how the party's courtship of African-Americans falls short.

Just months ago, Michigan pundits called Butler the Republicans' front-runner to challenge Senator Debbie Stabenow, the Democratic incumbent, in November. But the National Republican Senatorial Committee convinced Michael Bouchard -- a widely popular white candidate who dropped out of the race for health reasons -- to compete against Butler for the GOP nomination.

Washington-based conservative leader Paul Weyrich, who is white, recently wrote that the Michigan race shows how ''the white Republican establishment is doing everything in its power to frustrate the black candidate."

Tara Wall, RNC spokeswoman and outreach director, rejects that criticism. She notes that the national headquarters has recruited 10,000 African-American ''team leaders" around the country who work with candidates and register new voters. Besides the candidates' training academy, she said, the RNC is planning internships for African-American students.

''The grassroots is the backbone of our party," Wall says.

But the returns on those investments ''takes time," says Michigan state senator Bill Hardiman, a black Republican and a close observer of the party's recruiting campaign. ''You're building relationships, not just in an election year."

University of Maryland political scientist Ron Walters said the GOP wants to build on gains the party made during the last two presidential elections. In the battleground states of Ohio and Pennsylvania, Walters said, President Bush took nearly 20 percent of the African-American vote.

But the GOP must go beyond rhetoric to draw African-American voters, Walters said. So far, he said, the party seems reluctant to do ''the kinds of things that would attract large numbers of [black] voters, and that would be [changes in] public policy."

Despite its history against slavery, the GOP lost the black vote to the Democrats with President Franklin Delano Roosevelt and his New Deal social programs. President Lyndon Johnson's Great Society initiative and his support of civil rights helped solidify African-Americans' loyalty to Democrats.

Though Southern ''Dixiecrats" in Congress stood against the civil rights agenda and a Republican, Senator Everett Dirkson, sponsored the 1964 Civil Rights Act -- the cornerstone of black social progress -- Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, the GOP's 1964 presidential nominee, was outspoken against it. It was a stinging rebuke to African-American voters, and the effect has lasted for generations.

Walters said the party shifted further to the right with its ''Southern strategy," in which GOP candidates used the catchphrase ''states' rights" to deliver an anti-civil rights message to Southern voters. The gulf between Republicans and black voters widened further with President Reagan and the rise of the conservative movement, which scorned social programs like affirmative action.

Though the GOP attracted black voters in the last presidential election, it could be tougher to keep them in 2008, Walters said. Polls show African-Americans ''are far more jittery" about the nation than in 2004, he said, and ''they've seen this tremendous image of Katrina" and blame the White House for poor black New Orleans residents left stranded after the storm.

Last year, RNC chairman Mehlman vowed that his party ''won't become whole again" until African-Americans ''come back home." But the lingering bitterness toward Republicans is so deep-seated that Butler and other black people in the party sometimes take the heat.

''There are those who see us as a traitor to the race," said Butler. ''They believe that Republicans are taking whatever food they have off the table."

Harlem's Sharrieff-Frazier notes that West Virginia Senator Robert Byrd, a venerable Democrat, once was a member of the Ku Klux Klan. ''The Democrats were always the party of hostility to black empowerment," Sharrieff-Frazier said.