Here’s Why Black Voters Might Be the GOP’s Secret Weapon

“What have the Democrats done for you lately?”

Republicans should start asking black Americans that question–early and often. Here’s why engaging black voters could become the GOP’s secret weapon.

Republicans need not win the black vote. Securing 15 percent of the black electorate severely erodes the stalwart Democratic base. If 20 to 25 percent of blacks vote GOP, it’s curtains for Democrats.

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Campaigning among black voters would help Republicans stop resembling “stuffy, old white men,” as an RNC focus group described them. Listening to and speaking with black Americans refutes the notion that Republicans are just country-club Caucasians. Shaking black hands and kissing black babies would reassure nervous white voters that Republicans are not bigots, and it’s OK to support them.

Democrats would be badly disarmed without the race card. Democrats would have to double down on their phony “War on Women” and stoke class hatred even harder.

Bored by cautious GOP nominees, Republicans and Right-leaning independents likely would become electrified, knock on doors, and turn out for Republicans who deploy this strategy. Had Mitt Romney Romney visited black neighborhoods, unenthused conservatives would have become inspired and, at least, voted. That might have been Mitt’s margin of victory.

The Republican message should combine opportunity-related themes with historical facts about Democrats’ largely shameful record towards blacks (from stymieing Reconstruction, to launching the Ku Klux Klan, and filibustering federal anti-lynching legislation and the 1964 Civil Rights Act). {snip}

Besides addressing the NAACP, Mitt Romney did little to win black votes. Nonetheless, against Obama, he won 6 percent of black voters, 50 percent more than Arizona Republican Senator John McCain’s 4 percent in 2008.

What if Romney had fought for black votes? He barely lost several swing states. With mildly stronger black support and a modestly tighter embrace among decreasingly “nervous” whites and energized GOP-base voters, Romney could have delivered an Electoral College squeaker.

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A muscular, year-round appeal to black voters would benefit the GOP and black Americans alike.