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Now for some real money
With her campaign over, Elizabeth Dole is free to pursue a more lucrative calling: Self-promotion.
By Monte Paulsen
[10/22/99]

Attendance down at Columbine after threats
A "suicidal" senior was arrested after vowing to "finish the job" on the eve of the six-month anniversary of the massacre.
By Dave Cullen
[10/22/99]

Deleted?
Political Web pioneer Linda Muller e-mails her "Buchanan Brigades" the news that she was dismissed by the candidate's sister.
By Alicia Montgomery
[10/21/99]

Publisher halts George W. Bush bio
As J.H. Hatfield's credibility crumbles, St. Martin's Press stops distribution of his new book, which says the GOP front-runner was arrested on drug charges in 1972.
By Daryl Lindsey
[10/21/99]

Bush playing for keeps in California
Allies of the GOP front-runner seize control of the state Republican Party.
By Robert Bryce and Anthony York
[10/20/99]

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Now that high-profile black Republicans like Colin Powell and J.C. Watts have emerged to lead the way, it would seem logical that rank-and-file blacks would feel comfortable rejoining their historic home in the party of Lincoln.

But so far, public-opinion polls show little evidence of such a trend, although a growing number of blacks do seem to be identifying themselves as independents. Whites have been moving away from the parties as well, but not at nearly the same speed.

Blacks make up about 10 percent of the electorate and still vote overwhelmingly Democratic (89 percent in the 1998 elections), so the issue is not so much that they are switching parties; it's that they're ditching parties altogether.

According to David Bositis, senior policy analyst at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, there has recently been a strong upward spike (more than 50 percent this year alone) in the number of blacks who identify themselves as independents, which has now reached fully 23 percent of the black electorate. This is still low compared to the general population, 38 percent of whom identify with the independent camp, according to a Gallup poll, but blacks seem to be catching up fast.

Bositis says 68 percent of blacks still identify themselves as Democrats and only 5 percent as Republicans; interestingly, twice as many black men say they are Republican as black women. But, "Blacks are starting to say 'no' to both parties," concludes Bositis, "many by not voting at all."

So why would blacks be poised to set aside their 50-year relationship with the Democratic Party? For clues, we may have to look back over black political trends throughout history. When blacks were first enfranchised in 1870, nearly all of them initially gave their allegiance to Abraham Lincoln's party of abolition, the Republicans. But only 28 percent were still Republican by the time of FDR's second New Deal administration in 1936.

Black allegiance to the Democratic Party kept increasing until it peaked in 1964, when Lyndon Johnson, who signed the Civil Rights Act into law, won the presidential election with 94 percent of the black vote.

In recent election years, roughly nine in 10 black votes have still routinely been going to the Democratic candidate. But a growing number of voices in the black community are asking themselves why this should continue.

Phyllis Berry Meyers, a black Republican who heads the National Center for Leadership Training and Recruitment at the Black America's Political Action Committee, argues that it is simply not strategically sound for blacks to support the Democrats so monolithically.

"Blacks, especially older black women, are the greatest bloc that's solidly Democratic. Why? That commitment is so one-sided," says Meyers. "Besides, it's crucial that we not allow the Republican party to be the haven of whites. Of course black Republicans agree that lots of progress still needs to be made; we just differ on how to get there."

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