According to a study by the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, only 4 percent of African-Americans are openly Republican. At the awards reception for the National Council of Black Republicans Wednesday, a small collection of old soldiers, rising regional stars and campaign players tried to make the case for a change. Speakers leaned very little on notes, cited the scriptures lavishly and got to the point in their own sweet time. Apparently being a black Republican still requires a pretty thorough explanation. Rep. J.C. Watts, R-Okla., as the sole black Republican in Congress, knows how to deliver that message.
Watts emceed the event with a hopeful yet defensive tone that the other speakers echoed.
Keyes was visibly fatigued from the previous evening's Republican debate in South Carolina. But even dead tired and sapped of the fire that he's used to plague his rivals for the presidential nomination, Keyes was articulate and inspiring, almost making you regret that he's got less than no chance to win. Though Keyes trumped all in the oratory category, the apple of everyone's eye was clearly Condoleeza Rice, former Bush administration national security director and one of the team of tutors now working to make George W. Bush seem smarter than he is. Rice remarked that her own conversion to the Republican camp came when an affable Southern governor turned president displayed a stunning lack of foreign policy know-how. President Jimmy Carter, responding to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, said that he had learned more about the Soviets that day than he had known in all his life.