Description
The Republican Party once enjoyed nearly unanimous support among African American voters; today, it can hardly maintain a foothold in the black community. Exploring how and why this shift occurred, as well as recent efforts to reverse it, Michael Fauntroy meticulously navigates the political strategies that have driven a wedge between the GOP and its formerly stalwart constituents.
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Noting the near-unanimous support the Republican Party enjoyed among African Americans at the time of Reconstruction, Fauntroy (public policy, George Mason U.) analyzes the "paradox" of why the party no longer is very successful in reaching out to African American voters. After tracing the decline in African American support for Republicans and 35 years of Republican efforts to regain that support, he concludes that the problem for Republicans lies in their inability to recognize the ideological antipathy of African Americans for Republican policy positions combined with the way that Republican campaigns have frequently used racial political symbolism in their (more successful) attempts to appeal to white conservatives. Annotation ©2007 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)
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