Uniting the Party of Lincoln

Julie Carr Smyth facetiously describes Blackwell as the "King of Modesty" in Cleveland's Plain Dealer, Feb 27, 2005 Inside Politics column, page H3. She describes a fundraising letter from Blackwell in this manner

"Secretary of State Ken Blackwell pulled out all the stops in his latest fund-raising letter. He told would-be supporters that his “huge 15-point lead” in the 2006 race for governor is the reason for all the attacks against him by Democrats.
“As a conservative Republican and African American, I understand very well that unapologetic liberals like Jesse Jackson and Democrat Stephanie Tubbs-Jones consider me a ‘threat’ to the Democrat Party’s presumed monopoly on the black vote,” he wrote in the four-page, single-spaced missive.
"Blackwell goes on to paint the ascendancy of a black conservative governor in Ohio as something that would put the GOP “well on our way to establishing sustainable majority party status” nationally.

The rhetoric of late has escalated about the GOP's increasing black vote as Gore Campaign Manager Donna Brazille, GOP Chairman Ken Mehlman, prominent black clergyman Eddie Long, and Tampa Bay, Florida's St. Petersberg Times all mention the impact that such a voter shift will have on elections.

The question now that needs answering is: Will the rise of voting percentages match the increase voting rhetoric? In the '04 elections President Bush increased his total amongst black voters from 9% to 11%. This increase is not quite the voter shift that makes an almost permanent majority. However, this fact that, at this early stage, party leaders are already talking about the shifting coalitions, signals change-for-the-better is on the way.

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