Can McCain Win Black Vote?

Folks:

I have posted about Day Two of Sen. McCain’s town hall event today on JohnMcCain.com:

http://www.johnmccain.com/Blog/Read.aspx?guid=81ffd3f8-a0bf-4de3-8599-02f165c2ab48

Check it out, and if you are inclined to link, we sure would appreciate it.

Patrick Hynes

Note: If you'd like to get excellent updates re: The McCain Campaign from Patrick Hynes, you can do so by e-mailing him at: phynes@calypsocom.com.


Can McCain Win the Black Vote? The short answer is that he can't win a majority of the Black vote -- in any state -- but we can do a lot better than Republicans have in the past. In the past generation, Republican presidential candidates have won only about 10% of the Black vote.

What if McCain can win 20%-plus of the Black vote in battleground states like Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Ohio, and Michigan? Then he would win the electoral votes in all of them. It's that important.

There's some evidence that McCain will do better in Black communities than any Republican since Richard Nixon in 1960 (who won 32% of the Black vote in his race against John F. Kennedy). Frankly, McCain has more in common with most Black who vote than either Caucasian Hillary Clinton or mixed-race Barack Obama.

McCain says he will campaign in all 50 states (although he probably won't campaign much in states like Rhode Island and Vermont). He definitely should campaign (some, not constantly) in cities like Philadelphia, Pittsburgh, Columbus, and even Cleveland, which John Kerry famously visited 41 times in 2004.

In Philadelphia, McCain should bring in Rudy Giuliani and other Italian-Americans to campaign in the "Cheese Steak Area," South Philly. In the Black areas of North Philly, McCain should campaign with Lynn Swann, an NFL Hall-of-Famer and Republican gubernatorial candidate in 2006. McCain also needs to involve Black veterans (tens of thousands in the Philly area) and Black ministers who hold traditional Christian views. Frankly, the Democrats have nothing to offer middle-class Black citizens.

McCain needs to hit Obama hard on issues like education, where Obama has no real plan to improve the awful Philly schools. Because of the terrible murder and robbery statistics in Philly and Pittsburgh, McCain needs to come up with tough plans for reducing crime.

In short, McCain shouldn't concede 90% of the Pennsylvania Black vote to Obama. He needs to hammer home how Democratic leadership has failed the people of Philadelphia and Pittsburgh.
Black Pennsylvanians -- like their white counterparts -- should be willing to consider --and vote for -- an authentic American hero, which they have in John McCain.