He left the GOP to form his own political party and is supporting its candidate for President this year. Presumably that makes him persona non grata for stuff like this.
I don’t recall him being particularly attached to AA outreach issues in anycase. That as opposed to Michael Steele, whose been an advocate for GOP outreach to black voters at least since he was GOP chair, making his absence on Romney’s council for the same cause rather conspicuous.
In that case, a guy like Obama should be allowed to make his own choice as to racial identity – and he apparently made that choice a long time ago, by marrying an African-American woman whose racial identity is not open to question, and joining a black church, etc.
80? More like 50.
In the South, they weren’t voting at all.
After the civil rights movement allowed them to finally vote in large numbers, they voted in the Democratic primaries because the GOP didn’t exist in the South (party of Lincoln, you know) and the Democratic primary *was *the election.
When they found themselves losing those primaries, racist whites ran away from the Democrats in large number and switched to the GOP.
Well, no. I’m all white, but joining a black church and marrying a black woman wouldn’t make me black.
Obama is bi-racial. He can call himself black, or white, I guess, or bi-racial, or nothing.
That’s actually an excellent point- what would have been the votes of those black voters disenfranchised in the south? OMG- I think it’s likely that (before civil rights), had black voters in the south been allowed to vote, that the numbers might have been entirely different.
So the black voting numbers pre-civil rights are probably not a good representation of the political leanings of African-Americans at the time.
Republicans have a different sense of numbers from centrists. In a health-care thread several months ago, one of them (Bandit? Pepper?) disputed my claim that a significant number of Americans lacked health insurance. His surrejoinder was something like “Only 16%? So I was right – that’s not a significant number.”
Nor many white voters. For instance, I would have been a staunch Republican…in 1860.
No mention of Herman Cain yet? I am saddened. 
Herman Caine!
(Feel better?)
If that was so, they’d win the middle class vote.
Your conclusion doesn’t follow.
Then it also follows that winning the black vote does not make the Democrats more pro-African American.
Democrats were actually winning the black vote long before they got religion on civil rights. Black voters were so Democratic that they had to be kept out of Democratic primaries. If they were still Republicans the local politicians wouldn’t have cared.
Votes are won based on people’s impressions of a party. Those impressions may or may not be correct.
That much I agree with. But I objected to the OP because it implied that Republicans appealing to blacks was somehow funny. There’s no reason why the GOP shouldn’t try to persuade African-Americans to vote for them. There are many areas of agreement and as more and more African-Americans enter the middle class and the ranks of the wealthy, Republicans should be able to do better.
PErsonally, I think income is much more determinant of voting habits over the long term than ethnicity. The Republicans will never win poor voters, but they can and usually do win the working class. Actually, they win the working class more consistently than they win ultra wealthy voters. The really rich folks supported Obama in 2008.
Basically, if there’s a demographic that is fairly well off financially, Republicans should be winning that demographic. If they aren’t, they need to figure out why and adjust their messaging to win that group.
The whole campaign is pretty much a joke at this point. To think that they can win over votes at this point in the campaign by forming a “Black Leadership Council” is wishful thinking.
It does them more harm than good because people see it as insincere and patronizing. No one will consider them sincere until they actually do address issues that are important to African Americans. And when I say that, I mean issues that really are important to African Americans, not issues that Republicans claim are important to them.
It’s pretty hard to make any conclusions about the black vote before civil rights, because before civil rights in the south, many or most blacks could not vote.
NOthing looks more patronizing to me than Democrats focusing on one or two issues per demographic and proclaiming it “their” issue, as if all women care about is abortion and black people can’t get ID. But must still somehow file their taxes every year on penalty of imprisonment. Last I checked, that’s a lot more complicated and onerous than getting an ID.
Are you saying that blacks shouldn’t have to file taxes, or that they shouldn’t be punished if they don’t? 
I have to say, that stance might win you some votes. 
I’m saying that if ID is onerous, then every government requirement that is more onerous should also be lifted.
And to get back to the point, it’s condescending to imply that black people can’t get ID. I’d say that’s more a problem for the elderly, although not a big one even there. If they can march down to H&R Block, they can march down to the DMV. If someone does their taxes for them, someone can take them to the DMV.
The existence of a truly onerous government requirement that people actually comply with infers that far less onerous government requirements are not a problem.
What is the evidence that Democrats don’t win the middle class vote? In 2008 Obama won every bracket up to the $50k to $75k bracket. And that bracket was 49-48. Democrats have won those brackets ($50k and less) every election since 1992 (the earliest record I can find). Cite for that here: Exit Polls - Election Results 2008 - The New York Times
The median family income in 2008 was $49,341, right in the bracket that Obama won 55-43. If instead you want to define “middle class” as the third quintile, then you have a range from $37k to $60k. That doesn’t match up perfectly with the exit polling methods, but it includes half of a section that was 19% of the electorate and Obama won by 11 points and two thirds of a section that was 21% of the electorate that he lost by 1 point. Cite for median income: Dave Manuel - Economy, Stock Market and Real Estate News. Cite for income quintiles: http://www.theglitteringeye.com/images/incomequintiles.gif
So I’d say that Obama pretty clearly did win the middle class vote in 2008. If you broaden it to include 2nd and 4th quintiles ($20k to $97k) then Obama won as well - he also won the $75k to $100k bracket.
