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Originally Posted by Tex
The results I cited come from CNN's exit polling (links below). Interestingly enough Bush's 2000 black vote exactly mirrored Reagan's 1984 black vote.
I think you mean "constituency" although "demographic" is a better word. Mormons were not included as a separate category in the exit poll results.
As you can see, until you get to political questions, no demographic is more political monolithic. The only one that gets close are Jews who voted 80/17 for Gore.
I suppose both sides have legitimate gripes about the other, and some that are not so legitimate. However, if memory serves, one of the (many) stories to come out of the 2000 election was how badly Bush did with blacks despite a concerted effort to court black votes. A second attempt in 2004 yielded 11% of the black vote, which was considered a stunning improvement by some.
The GOP will continue to try (and it should) because there are people who care about courting black votes in the party. But until blacks as a "community" decide that not only one party can meet their interests, there is little the GOP can do to change their voting patterns.
To bring this discussion back to the original topic, GOP candidates might as well appear at a Democrat fundraiser as speak to the NAACP. When the face of black America is Kweisi Mfume, Julian Bond, Harry Belafonte, and the kingpins of race-baiting politics, Al Sharpton and Jesse Jackson .... when large percentage of blacks believe that the GOP blew up the levies to kill more black people .... there is nothing to be accomplished by making an appearance in front of a hostile organization.
1984 exit polling
2000 exit polling |
I will take a look at your exit polls, though it is amusing that you have already admitted they don't say what you claim they say. You claimed that "No other demographic ... not religion, race, gender, or age ... approached the monolithic vote of the black "community" in 2000." I bring up one obvious religious body, and you can't say whether they were more "monolithic" or not.
Even as "monolithic" as the LDS voting bloc is, can you imagine a Democratic president refusing to meet with LDS leaders? Clinton met with Hinckley and other members of the First Presidency multiple times, and he came in third in Utah.
Dole got 14% of the black vote in 1996, and he was running against "America's First Black President." Bush lost 3% of that vote just 4 years later. Could it be that Republicans are doing more to alienate black voters than you want to admit? If you want things to change, defending your party's actions in avoiding the NAACP is not a good start.