Black Republicans Talk Candidly About Race and The GOP -- 03/19/1999

Black Republicans Talk Candidly About Race and The GOP

19 March, 1999

By Bruce Sullivan
CNS Staff Writer

(CNS) – Colorado Secretary of State Victoria Buckley is a lifelong Republican who believes in fiscal conservatism and limited government. She also believes it's time for the GOP – the party of Lincoln and Frederick Douglas – to talk about race.

"We have to sit down and talk and think about how we as a party reach out to all Americans," Buckley told CNS in an interview. "We should transcend race and what divides us and focus on what unites us."

Buckley recently gave Republican National Committee Chairman Jim Nicholson some inside information on how it feels to be a "hyphenated American" when she sent him a letter protesting the use of her photo in an ad encouraging blacks to join the Republican Party.

"Do not use my picture to just attract African-Americans to the Republican Party," Buckley wrote Nicholson. "The fact that I am an African-American in predominately white Colorado is incidental." She told CNS that she objects to hyphenating the word "American," finding it "insulting."

Nicholson could not be reached for comment, but RNC Coalitions Director Robert George told CNS the GOP is "trying to create inroads into minority communities" through the party's New Majority Council, which created the ad featuring Buckley and four other black Republicans, including Rep. J.C. Watts of Oklahoma.

Rep. Watts told CNS that he was not offended by the ad, but said that if Ms. Buckley took offense, "then she did the right thing" by objecting to it.

"One of the reasons we are Republicans is that we believe in our individual merits," said Watts, who is the only black Republican in Congress.

Watts has often said that Martin Luther King's credo–that is, people should be judged by the content of their character, not the color of their skin– applies to all Americans, Republicans as well as Democrats. However, when the GOP looks in the mirror it sees an overwhelmingly white face and Watts said that his party should be more inclusive. "It needs to be able to sit down and talk to people that don't look exactly like itself."

Both Watts and Buckley believe in the GOP, and believe that the values of their party are the values of the vast majority of Americans. But statistics show that there is a communications gap between the GOP and some of the voters they are trying to reach.

"Four out of ten Americans will always vote Republican," said Watts. "Yet seven out of ten say they agree with our values and are not comfortable with those of the Democrats. That's a 30 percent block looking for a place to land," he said.

To reach those three out of ten that have Republican values but don't identify themselves as Republicans takes time, said Watts. "I don't believe that outreach is something that you do 60 days before the election. It has to be done over a period of time."

The RNC's New Majority Council is attempting to recruit 20,000 minority activists for the 2000 elections.

Buckley was just elected to a second term in Colorado and is committed to returning a Republican to the White House in 2000, having recently met with GOP presidential candidate Elizabeth Dole. "I'm not turning Democrat," said Buckley, denying rumors that she was switching parties.

Watts is a rising star on the national political scene and has been mentioned as a possible vice-presidential or even presidential candidate in the future.

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