In quest for Black votes, Republicans spin their wheels

While Black voters continue to reject the Republican Party, conservative Black ministers such as Bishop Harry R. Jackson are looking to Black mega-churches for GOP converts

Despite the calculated outreach efforts by the Bush Administration -- spearheaded by Ken Mehlman, the former head of the Republican National Committee -- to turn the Black vote, exit polling from the 2006 election showed that close to 90 percent of Black voters stayed firmly with Democratic Party candidates. And, although the GOP fielded what they thought were several attractive Black candidates for state-wide races around the country -- former Pittsburgh Steelers wide receiver Lynn Swann ran for governor in Pennsylvania, Maryland lieutenant governor Michael Steele contended for that state's vacated Senate seat, and Ohio's Secretary of State, and longtime party activist, Kenneth Blackwell was that state's GOP gubernatorial candidate -- the Party failed to win any of those contests. (Swann received 13 percent of the Black vote; Steele received 25 percent; and Ohio's Blackwell received only 20 percent of the Black vote.)