Cobb

Lonely days are over, black Republicans say

12:35 AM PDT on Thursday, September 2, 2004

MICHELLE DeARMOND / The Press-Enterprise

NEW YORK - Standing before a packed ballroom of fellow black Republicans
on Wednesday, Ohio's lieutenant governor told the story of a reporter who
half-jokingly asked this week if all the black members of the GOP could
fit in one elevator.

Looking around the standing-room-only crowd in The Waldorf-Astoria, Lt.
Gov. Jennette Bradley didn't need to tell the audience how she replied.

"We do not have to apologize for being Republican," she told the crowd.
President Bush "does have support within the African-American community."

Bradley laughed about the episode, noting this Republican National
Convention is her fourth as a delegate, and she's been serving as the
country's first black female lieutenant governor since January 2003.
Still, the anecdote touched a chord of frustration with many at the
weeklong event in New York.

"The media blacks out what we do, and we literally have to beg the media
to come cover us," said Roxanne Petteway, a Temecula Republican on the
African-American Coalition for the Bush-Cheney campaign. "They believe the
lie that we can all fit into an elevator."

Hundreds at Event

A few hundred black Republicans and a handful of reporters attended the
two-hour affair at the swanky Manhattan hotel, where several high-profile
black Republicans spoke. Rep. J.C. Watts, R-Okla., drew murmurs of "amen"
and enthusiastic head nods as he revved up the crowd, offering statistics
to back up his point that the involvement of blacks within the party is
growing.

The percentage of black Republican national convention delegates grew from
10 percent in 2000 to 17 percent in 2004, he said. Black Republicans hold
office in 22 or 23 states across the country, Watts said.

The former college football star called on the party activists in the room
to support black Republican candidates financially and to spread the
message themselves of how the Republican Party better matches blacks'
values. Bush-Cheney campaign staffers and celebrities, such as former
"Cosby Show" actor and Republican Joe Phillips, are overwhelmed by
invitations to speak, Watts said.

"We don't have enough time to cover the requests that we have," Watts
said. "I am appreciative of all the efforts that all of you make."

Democratic Doubts

The mayor of Palm Springs, a black Democrat who attended that party's
convention last month in Boston, said if the GOP really best suited
blacks, the membership would naturally reflect it. Speeches like those
made Wednesday disprove the Republicans' point, he said.

"The very fact that they have to go out and do that says that isn't true,"
Ron Oden said in a telephone interview from the desert. "There would be a
natural gravitation (to the GOP) if that were true."

Petteway and others argue that the GOP has historically been better for
blacks, and it's time for it to come "back to its roots." Some people just
don't know the facts, she said. Oden disagreed.

"If they're looking at who was president when slavery was abolished,
perhaps, but the thing is that is not the Republican Party of today," he
said of President Abraham Lincoln, who oversaw the abolition of slavery.
"The fact is that we don't have to worry about recruiting
African-Americans."

Black membership in the GOP has been growing for awhile, Petteway said,
but people just haven't heard about it. Black Republican candidates and
officeholders from Utah to Maine attended Wednesday's meeting, standing to
tell of their successes in the ballroom where marble columns flanked the
speakers at one end and a chandelier hung overhead.

State GOP Support

In California, the state Republican Party has thrown money behind the
California Black Republican Council and has backed efforts to boost black
Republican activism in urban areas, Petteway said. Places such as
South-Central Los Angeles historically have been such Democratic
strongholds that the GOP often doesn't even run candidates there.

The California Black Republican Council also has opened several new
chapters in recent months, Petteway said. The council has chapters in
Riverside and San Bernardino counties. For Damon Alexander with the San
Bernardino chapter, spreading the word about the party is something he
does without pressure. He simply outlines the GOP's positions and asks
people to see which lines up with their own beliefs, he said. "Don't look
at the elephant or the donkey," he said. "I let them make up their own
minds.

Reach Michelle DeArmond at (951) 368-9441 or mdearmond@pe.com.