Michael Steele and the GOP
EmailMichael Steele’s election as chairman of the Republican National Committee puts him in an unusual position: an African-American leading a political party that traditionally has received precious little support from blacks.
Only 4 percent of blacks voted for the GOP candidate, John McCain, in November’s election; 95 percent went for a guy named Obama. And more than personal affinity was at play: Democrats have won at least 83 percent of African-American voters in every presidential election since 1976. Blacks are far and away the party’s most loyal backers.
Indeed 90 percent of McCain’s voters were whites (compared with 61 percent of Barack Obama’s). And beyond the election, national data from our ABC News/Washington Post polls look just the same: On average across 2008, just 4 percent of blacks identified themselves as Republicans, and 90 percent of Republicans were whites.
Nor is this new: Aggregating all our ABC/Post polls since 1981 – looking at more than a generation of political affiliation (and more than 420,000 interviews, mind you) – it's the same: Across this period just 6 percent of blacks have identified themselves as Republicans, and 91 percent of Republicans have been whites. (Among all adults, for comparison, 75 percent are whites.)
Certainly some outreach is in order, given not just these results but also the retreat in Republican affiliation since 2004, as the unpopular Iraq war and mounting disapproval of George W. Bush reversed a generation of gains for the party. It’s been noted that the GOP’s in danger of becoming regionalized – a white, Southern party – and the 2008 election surely pointed that way. White Southerners voted for McCain by 69-30 percent. Whites elsewhere split evenly, 49-49 percent, between McCain and Obama.
Steele, a former Maryland lieutenant governor, addressed that result in his acceptance remarks today: “We are going to win again in the Northeast. We're going to continue to win in the South. We are going to win with a new storm in the Midwest. And we're going to get to the West, we're going to lock it down, and we're going to win there too.”
Big plans for that rarest of political figures, a black Republican, one now chairing his party. But who knows? Big plans sometimes work out. Just ask Mr. Obama.
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Word is they didn’t select Michael Steele because he’s African American.
Posted by: Mavsreader | January 30, 2009, 7:04 pm 7:04 pm
Congratulations Michael Steele!
Those who founded this land wanted to forge a new nation – and somehow they believed that God was with them and that God was in it all.
That is our heritage in this country – to see ourselves by faith as partners with God working to build a better world. It is time for us to recapture the faith heritage which is so much a part of the American experience! :)
Posted by: aware2u | January 30, 2009, 9:33 pm 9:33 pm
This is a good example of what I stated in another poll. What party you represent is not important. Just work together for the betterment of all our people,regardless of party, race or christain or non-christain belief.
Posted by: B_Strickland | January 30, 2009, 11:26 pm 11:26 pm
Congrats, Michael Steele!! I am delighted that you will be our new National Chairman. I know you will do great things and challange us all to change the party into one that Abraham Lincoln would be proud of. You’re the best!!
Posted by: Peggy | January 31, 2009, 1:16 pm 1:16 pm
It doesn’t matter if you are african-american or not. It matters whether or not we stand up for what is moral and right. You are suggesting compromising on moral issues. I do not want the republican party to cave in on issues like abortion and stem cell research using live human embros. As a matter of fact I am against in-vitro fertiization. It is wrong and very risky to the babies. planned parenthood loves this because they can kill human embryos from the embryos that are not used to be implanted in a woman’s body. These are conceived and are living human beings. Killing one of these tiny babies for stem cells is murder. These embryos shouldn’t even be conceived outside of a woman’s body and placed in a lab and are made to wait to be placed in a woman’s womb at the whim of some irresponsible doctor who thinks that he is God and a woman who thinks that she can play God and run her life and by planning her own pregnancy without considering the risk of death to her babies. One thing she cannot plan is how her selfishness will put her babies at risk of dying because of premature birth and low birth weight. Playing God is choosing to take your life out of the hands of God and putting your life into the hands of the devil who does not have your babies lives in your best interest.
The devil would rather you and your babies die and not be saved from hell and protected by God. When there are more than two embryos placed in a woman’s womb the babies are at risk because their chances of survival are very low. This is not God’s way of bringing a human being into the world. How ever it is the devil’s and planned parenthood’s way of guiding human being’s to hell. Doing the right thing is the more important than winning
because those who choose to not stand up for what is right are choosing
the devil and winning and as their God and as a result are choosing their own death and destruction with every death and every drop of innocent blood they spill. That is the blood of millions of babies murdered by abortion
(over 3,000 babies a day are murdered in america each and every day.)
Planned parenthood is just as evil as Hitler and just as evil as the leaders of the Islamic terrorists who are killing thousands of innocent people every day.
Posted by: Patricia Spillman | January 31, 2009, 3:00 pm 3:00 pm
Mr. Steele, just please don’t sing songs about bombing Iran, and be much more fiscally responsible than other republicans like Reagan and Bush have been. Actually just ask Ron Paul what to do, and you should do just fine, and maybe you can bring the republicans back from the toilet.
Posted by: Huh | January 31, 2009, 6:53 pm 6:53 pm
Steele has been a popular member of the Repub party for awhile now. And reportedly they got 11% of the Black vote in 2004. I don’t know how many in this latest; it may have been hard for any Black to resist voting for Obama. There is also apparently an active National Black Republican association. I saw they’d put up a bunch of billboards in Colorado during the convention last year….the Dem convention.
Posted by: JenJen | January 31, 2009, 9:54 pm 9:54 pm
Congratulations Michael Steele! Color isn’t related to how well you will do. Your integrity and character do! We need to be the party of those qualities. Just as I knew from the moment I saw and heard Obama that he was going to be “somebody”, I had the same feeling about you. I’m so glad you started apearing on Fox as a commentator. It gave us a forum to see what kind of guy you were. You were on the top of my list for the leader of our party.
I’m not a color, I’m an American. I think whenever color is brought into the picture, you should encourage people to look at it differently. In the military there was only one color. The color of the uniform. Skin color didn’t matter. The man on your left was just as likely to save your life as the man on your right. Be Americans and don’t let color get in the way of doing what you know in your heart is the right thing to do.
Posted by: Deb in Tucson | February 2, 2009, 12:02 pm 12:02 pm
Black Americans have not supported the Republican Party? The Republican Party has not supported Black Americans, to a great extent. No Republican candidate has actively courted black or hispanic voters in fear of alienating the Southern whites, who turned against the Democrats when Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act in 1964. Look at the numbers!!! White Southerners voted 69 – 30% for McCain vs. Obama. The Republican party has already become a regionalized, Southern party…much to the dismay, I’m sure, of their Dixiecrat ancestors.
Posted by: NatFrankie | February 2, 2009, 5:18 pm 5:18 pm
Sad thing is, the first Black elected officials were Republicans, as that was the party of Abraham Lincoln. You can thank Barry Goldwater for losing the Lincoln luster!
Posted by: NatFrankie | February 2, 2009, 5:20 pm 5:20 pm
American, America… (sung by Ray Charles) God shed His grace on the…
The problem with “brotherhood” is that we have not tried to create it in our country. Only now are beginning to think about this concept of “getting along.”
Posted by: Robaire | February 2, 2009, 9:11 pm 9:11 pm
“The problem with “brotherhood” is that we have not tried to create it in our country. Only now are beginning to think about this concept of “getting along.”
No truer words were ever spoken. The problem with our nation is that we have not practiced the principles of brotherhood in earnest or consistency. In spite of the fact that the second book in the Bible is Exodus, a book that chronicles God’s deliverance of his people from the evil of bondage, this nation sought fit to enslave an entire group of God’s children. How is this possible given that this nation was founded by people with Judean Christian backgrounds you ask? How is it possible that even today the most segregated hour in our nation continues to be Sunday morning worship you ponder? How indeed.
These things are possible because supposedly God fearing folk have yet to grasp and put into practice what Christ said was the second most important commandment. The second most important commandment wasn’t about abortion, it wasn’t about gay marriage, it wasn’t about premarital sex, and it wasn’t about stem cell research. Christ stated that the second most important commandment was to “love thy neighbor as thy self”. He then went on to explain who our neighbors were when he gave the parable of the Good Samaritan.
I wish the folks so hell bent on stopping stem cell research, abortions and gay marriage were as hell bent on fellowshipping with folks that don’t look like them. Church members will donate tons of money supporting missionary works 10,000 miles away, but won’t spend a gallon of gas to fellowship 10 miles down the road with other believers. Why? Because “they” don’t look like “us”. And you wonder why the church has little to no relevance or moral authority anymore? If the church can’t get its own house in order what gives it the right to judge someone else’s house?
Two important men in history stated that a “house divided cannot stand”. One man was Lincoln and the other man Jesus Christ. So it appears that Jesus was right when he said “we have eyes yet we do not see”.
Posted by: gammaraygus | February 3, 2009, 3:11 am 3:11 am
The Republican party has learned nothing…
They picked Sarah Palin to attract to 18 million democrats who voted for Hillary Clinton to take them away from President Barack Obama’s campaign..
We all know what happened, it exploded in their faces…
Now they pick an African American to lead a 90+% ultra conservative white party, hoping to gain on the strong black-latino-asian and multirace Californian vote…
The result will be the same, this party once again is only reacting without a glimpse on national and world events, only caring for their partisan benefits…
Posted by: Ram Riva | February 3, 2009, 1:01 pm 1:01 pm
Michael Steele is a very amiable, well spoken,hyper articulate, eloquent leader.
He is my hero and he was great when he subbed for Hannity. He will revive the Republican party. He is an American, not an African-American,just plain American. He advocates personal responsibility instead of assigning more people into victimhood and expect the overburdened taxpayers to correct imaginary grievances with our hard earned money.
MICHAEL STEELE FOR PRESIDENT!!
Posted by: Cheryl | February 4, 2009, 4:27 am 4:27 am
The rise of Mr. Steele in the Republican party is an indication of how much trouble they are in. As a nation, we do not change anything until we have to change everything. For the Republican party, this is admitting that their time honored stratagies no longer work. Demonizing and excluding people no longer works. Nobody is listening. They are becoming extinct.
Posted by: MARV | February 5, 2009, 5:42 pm 5:42 pm
Well, it goning to be very hard for Mr. Steel to pretend to be a democrat any more !
Posted by: TYSPOCK | February 6, 2009, 9:11 am 9:11 am
Why in the world does everyone try to play the race issue/card? Steel is a Rhino if he’s a republican, and a conservative democrat when he goes back…
Posted by: rob | February 8, 2009, 8:33 pm 8:33 pm
Black Americans have not supported the Republican Party? The Republican Party has not supported Black Americans, to a great extent. …….. posted above
Black Americans can be part of the Republican Party if they would stop following the hand-outs from the Democrats. Blacks are Republican, they just will not be honest about their beliefs!! Republicans and blacks do have the same values and agree on most issues. Stop listening to the media’s lies and take a closer look at the Republicans … MLK did!
Posted by: JimOnTheRight | February 9, 2009, 10:24 pm 10:24 pm
Mr.Steele I applaud your nomination and installation as RNC leader. My opinion is you are a fish out of water. If the RNC stood for what was “Right”. Just by virtue of that , you would have many more black consituents. But, that is not the case and your party has just about bankrupted this country. I have always kept and open mind. I voted the 2nd half for bush . What a disaster and do you think any sane person would possible want more of what we’ve got now . NO Sir. But, Brother to Brother I wish you luck.
Posted by: David Alan Hawkins | February 10, 2009, 4:22 pm 4:22 pm
GOP, you can not just pick any minority. It doen’t work that way!!
Posted by: momof4boys | February 11, 2009, 11:59 am 11:59 am
The GOP DIDN’T just pick ANY minority. They chose Michael Steele. Haven’t you ever heard of him before? He’s a great statesman/spokesman/gentleman.
Posted by: Sue | February 11, 2009, 4:47 pm 4:47 pm
you will never be a barack obama. nobody ever liked you as a kid and now your finnally someones hero. b.s.
Posted by: lester | February 12, 2009, 10:04 am 10:04 am
Hello-the man is a political hack-check out his record. Business as usual-this is not the fresh clean face we need-kudos for going with a minority but this guy is more of the same. Cant you all find someone under 50 and not a machine politician-time to throw out all the Republicans and start over fresh.
Posted by: Sam | February 12, 2009, 1:04 pm 1:04 pm
The Republican party is a party that has played the race card in favor of conservative whites, instead of appealing to all Americans. Why would I, an African American feel confortable with a party that has never reached out to me or fellow minorities and recognize that the poorest person who has been given a fair chance might embrace the message of the GOP. Instead, the party moves so far to the right, reasonable people look to another point of view to express their opinions.
Posted by: CAG | February 14, 2009, 6:27 pm 6:27 pm
I am a 64 four year old college educated white female, and have been a registered Republican since I left Nebraska many years ago. This last fall I retired after many years of working. My extra leisure time afforded me the opportunity to intensely and fairly research the presidential campaigns very closely. The 2004 election caused me concern, but 2008 confirmed major problems with my party. I was shocked and alarmed at the vicious untruths presented by Republicans. I witnessed rampant crowd induced hate mongering by Republican candidates. The Democratic and Republican National Convention TV coverage undeniably revealed Republicans are a party mainly of the white race. Research of media campaign coverage across the country revealed Republicans were blatantly lying on many issues and stances. Excuses of media being liberal did not obscure true facts unfortunately as I researched all media reports left and right to evaluate fairly.
I ultimately voted for Barack Obama. I am changing my party affiliation after 40+ years of being Republican. America is now a multicultural nation and Republicans need to address why they are not. Their recent actions reveal they are not changing either. Electing a black legislator to head party is a start but does not negate their past pursued actions over many years.
My professional training and life time work sadly enabled me to see truth. All stances are only my opinions after careful research and evaluation. Some of you will disagree with me. And that is your choice. This is America. Politicians of both parties need to start being for the people they represent and must realize they will be held legally accountable. Greed has become too rampant in Washington.
Posted by: Sharon | February 15, 2009, 12:44 pm 12:44 pm
How come all you so-called democrats bring race into the issue. Should it not be americans???????? But I guess without that complaint you would be loosers.
Michael Steele has class, what some of you apparently lack.
Posted by: Lizzie | February 16, 2009, 2:55 pm 2:55 pm
i was a homeless man who mr steele exploited while running for gov he brung men from philly to maryland in 2006 saying he was a democrat now he s a very well known republican he is a crook just not like me lol
Posted by: JONATHAN | February 16, 2009, 6:51 pm 6:51 pm
if you want to know that republicans are playing games as usual. Look at how they conive and non of them refused to support the bill to help American, just because the bill did not support their personnal agenda. They country need to stick together and leave them behind
Posted by: GRACE | February 17, 2009, 2:16 pm 2:16 pm
I think the Republican Party is too southern, white and male-dominated to appeal to blacks. Their politicans appear to be rigid, narrow-minded and not very smart. Michael Steele agrees with every word uttered by Hannity, who is as smart as Rush, when he is one his show. In his recent appearance on tv, he presented a lame argument on work and a job. Their anti-government creed is so phony. Mr Steele is smart, intelligent and presents well, but mostly negative, on tv, but I frankly do not think blacks will flock to the Republican party anytime soon because he is there.
Posted by: Barbara | February 17, 2009, 11:26 pm 11:26 pm
Michael Steel…..what a TOKEN BLACKMAN..THAT THE GOP IS JUST SIMPLY USING…..AND RUSH-LAMMY…IS JUST AND STUPID…. !!!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: James | February 19, 2009, 9:23 am 9:23 am
Steele is, without question, the best person for the job. I am a 65 year old white man, and have always voted Republican … I hope we are reaching a point when a person’s race is never cited.
Posted by: zipstick | February 19, 2009, 12:31 pm 12:31 pm
THE REPUBLICAN PARTY HAD BLACK MEMBERS BEFORE MIKE STEELE.
Posted by: Crazyconan | February 20, 2009, 12:13 am 12:13 am
Color should not be a factor in selecting anyone for office. However,the GOP over the years has used race to win elections here in the south though they have now realized that strategy does not work anymore. The problem with the GOP is that it does not understand the changing demographics and instead keeps on listening to Rush. The party demonizes hispanics and still expects to win elections! If this mentality continues our nation will end up having a one party democratic administration forever. Look at the states the GOP will be defending in the next couple of elections Arizona, Florida and Texas.These states have a large and rapidly expanding Latino electorate and as things stand today they will certainly vote democratic. So Steele if you are listening you better talk some sense into you party base!
Steve
Posted by: steve anderson | February 28, 2009, 11:43 am 11:43 am
The best the GOP can do with Michael Steele is receive compensational food stamps by way of sectional support in key demographic locales along with some key lobbyist groups on the soup lines. If this is the best the republican party can do they are destined for extinction. Having a so-so, somewhat qualified front man in Michael Steele is problematic at best.
Posted by: Jenner | February 28, 2009, 4:36 pm 4:36 pm
It really is unfortunate that the only common thread between Democrat, Republican and Independent is their insistence that everyone and everything they believe in is the absolute best for everyone.
It is no wonder that our Country is in the condition, Financial, Moral, Physical and Educational that it is. It seems that our quest for personal ideological dominance is driving us to wider and wider differences. Our God given ability to be logical, rational, considerate, respectful and humble has been overrun by greed, self indulgence, egotism and selfishness.
It will take a lot more than the efforts of one individual or one political party to get us back on track to the goals and aspirations of our forefathers and the Constitutional guidance they left for us.
Posted by: Frank | March 1, 2009, 2:07 pm 2:07 pm
FROM ONE DISENCHANTED VOTER FOR OBAMA I AM READY FOR THE GOP TO COME UP WITH A LEADER. THIS SHALLOW POLITICIAN FROM CHICAGO MACHINE POLITICS HAS SHOWN ME I MADE A BIG MISTAKE. HE IS A PHONY AND A FRAUD. IF REPUBLICANS NOMINATE A SUCCESSFUL BUSINESSMAN LIKE MITT ROMNEY THEY HAVE MY VOTE FOR SURE IF WE HAVE A COUNTRY LEFT BY 2012.
Posted by: ROBERT T. DAVIS | March 2, 2009, 9:02 am 9:02 am
I congratulate him on the nomination but I doubt it is more than a token gesture on behalf of the GOP.
Posted by: angela Frink | March 2, 2009, 7:01 pm 7:01 pm