Whatever happened to the massive recruiting effort to entice more African-Americans into the Republican Party? Two years ago, after George W. Bush’s re-election and 5 years into his presidency, efforts to recruit African-Americans into the party have stalled. Despite the high profiles of the nation’s first Black Secretary of State and 3 Black cabinet members, the Republican Party did not cut into the strangle hold the Democratic Party has on the Black electorate. That fact is even more telling when you consider the Democratic Party’s lackluster effort to reenergize the Black electorate in this post Bill Clinton era.

The National Republican Party brain thrust failed to realize how important affirmative action initiatives are to the African-American electorate. The urban myth that all Republicans are virulent right wing racists and thus the main reason for African-Americans not gravitating to the Republican Party is more myth then reality. Certainly far too many right wing anti-African-American zealots call the Republican Party their political home, but this kind of bigotry is not limited to the Republican Party. The Republican Party failed to recruit African-Americans because the Republican Party’s platform refused to accept the fact that affirmative action initiatives are not racial quotas nor are they instruments of reverse discrimination.

Even with the Republican Party’s failure to raid the Black electorate, the Democratic Party failed in its promise to become the dominant party in Dallas County. With the election of Lupe Valdez as County Sheriff and George W. Bush’s narrow victory in Dallas County, the county Democratic Party machine was promising vigorous challengers for every major county electoral office come mid-term elections. Buoyed by strong Black voter turn-outs in recent national and city elections, local Democrats mistakenly believed they had found the magic elixir to automatically invigorate the Black electorate.

The current mid-term roster does not indicate the Democratic Party is poised to take over County politics. The Republican Party appears to be positioned once again to dominate the County Court house. Credit District Attorney Bill Hill for strengthening the Republican Party’s chances of retaining the DA’s office by stepping down before 2008. Had Mr. Hill waited until his term ended, the Republicans would have possibly faced an election with a sure Black voter motivator like Senator Hillary Clinton at the top of the Democratic ticket for President. No matter who the Democrats had run for DA, he would have benefited from the Hillary factor.

Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans lived up to their 2004 hopes of courting the Black electorate. Only on the local level because of two strong mayor proposals has the promise of a motivated Black electorate been witnessed. The Republican Party’s stance on affirmative action initiatives will forever doom their efforts to attract Black voters. Meanwhile, the Democratic Party must do more to register and get out more Black voters to the polls. Lackluster white men will not attract Black voters just because they are Democrats. Rousing civil rights era rhetoric without money spent to train and hire Black Democratic operatives will not produce the kind of Black voter turn-out that will defeat the Republicans locally, statewide, or nationally. That’s how we see it from South of the Trinity.

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