LAND OF OPPORTUNITY

Crisis, The, Jul/Aug 2006 by Fletcher, Michael A

In mostly Democratic Maryland, have Republicans found a candidate who can win Black votes?

The hearty buffet lunch settled on the conferees packed tight in a stuffy hotel ballroom in Columbia, Md., as the politicians took their turn at the podium during the Maryland Gang Summit.

Attorney General J. Joseph Curran Jr., the patriarch of one of Maryland's best-known Democratic families, told the gathering of law enforcement and social service officials that the state's mounting gang problem could be addressed with better after-school programs, more determined outreach programs and direct intervention in the lives of troubled youth.

Following Curran to the podium was Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, who serves under Robert Ehrlich, the first Republican governor since Spiro Agnew held sway at the Maryland State House 37 years ago. The people in the room seemed to perk up as the tall, dapper Steele, a Republican vying to be the first African American elected to the U.S. Senate from Maryland, strode to the microphone and offered views that would make any Democrat proud.

"We losing kids and face a deteriorating quality of life," he declared, saying that officials have to do more to aid the addicted, to comfort their children and to cajole churches and businesses to help children at risk. As it stands, he said, gangs are filling the void in the lives of troubled youth, providing a measure of kinship and acceptance while saying to them, "I'll give you an opportunity to make money for your bling-bling."

Steele said a youngster in a gang cannot be expected to pick himself up by his bootstraps. Government, he said, must provide an alternative and a helping hand. "Maybe we can get a business to give that brother a job," he said.

Steele, 47, doesn't often sound like a Republican and that is no coincidence, not in Maryland where Democrats outnumber Republicans 2-to-1. With a general election battle looming against the winner of the September Democratic primary, where the field is led by Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin and former NAACP President Kweisi Mfume, this much is clear: Steele will need plenty of Democratic votes to prevail.

The night before the gang summit, President George W. Bush headlined a fundraiser that netted $1 million for the Maryland Republican Party. Led by Ehrlich, many of the state's leading Republicans were there at Bush's side. But not Steele. He was in Las Vegas attending what he called a long scheduled GOP fundraiser. Sen. John Ensign, a Nevada Republican, hosted the event to raise money for several Senate candidates.

Bush, who helped recruit Steele to run for the Senate and last fall hosted a fundraiser for him, nonetheless offered an endorsement for the absent candidate to succeed retiring Democratic Sen. Paul S. Sarbanes. "Make sure you put Michael Steele in the United States Senate," Bush said to loud applause.

The presidential endorsement helps, at least when it comes to fundraising and perceived gravitas. But it also has its drawbacks in a state where the president's approval rating hovers near 30 percent. Among Black voters in the state, who are overwhelmingly Democratic, polls have found Bush with an approval rating of less than 10 percent. Such low numbers could prove toxic to Steele, whose winning formula in the November election would seem to require a large crossover vote from the estimated 28 percent of the electorate that is Black. For his part, Steele says that rather than try to duck the president, he is happy to have his support.

"It's nice that the party leadership encourage you to run. I'm sure Kweisi Mfume would love to have his party leadership encourage him to run, too. I think that is an important distinction that people want to gloss over," Steele told The Crisis. "The leadership of my party, regardless of how popular or unpopular they may be at a given moment, they are looking to the future."

The Republican Party was the party of Black voters for nearly 70 years after Emancipation, before Franklin Delano Roosevelt's New Deal and support of the Civil Rights Movements by Democratic presidents altered that political dynamic and transformed the vast majority of Blacks into Democrats. Blacks have only grown more Democratic over the years, as the GOP went from being the party of Lincoln to the party of the Southern Strategy, known for exploiting simmering racial tension for political gain and opposing policies favored by many Black voters, including school busing and affirmative action.

But this year it is the Republicans, not the Democrats, who are backing Black candidates for major statewide offices in three states. Besides Steele, Pittsburgh Steelers Hall of Famer Lynn Swann is challenging Democratic Gov. Edward G. Rendell in Pennsylvania. And J. Kenneth Blackwell, Ohio's secretary of state, is the Republican candidate for governor of Ohio.

In Maryland, support from top Republicans has translated into major funding for Steele's campaign. At the last reporting deadline on March 31, Steele had collected $2.6 million for his campaign, more than $1.7 million of which remained in the bank.