Brother From Another Party: Can a black Republican win in a blue state?

JAMES TARANTO, Wall Street Journal

ANNAPOLIS, Md.--When Michael Steele was running for lieutenant governor in 2002, the Baltimore Sun endorsed the opposing ticket and opined dismissively that Mr. Steele "brings little to the team but the color of his skin." Normally this would be an invidious thing to say about a black politician, but the usual rules of racial etiquette don't seem to apply when it comes to Mr. Steele. For he is a Republican.

He felt his first vaguely political stirrings at age 14, when a summer job turned him into something of a tax rebel. "I was working at Sterling Laundry in Washington. . . . I worked that summer making $2 an hour cleaning toilets, and I was so proud when I got that first paycheck, because I knew how hard I had to work my tail off for those 40 hours. . . . That meant a lot to me when I looked at that bad boy and I saw how much $2 times 40 hours would gross me. But then what I was bringing home--I was a little bit upset about that. So I started talking to people and started trying to figure out, well, who's going to protect my money? Who's going to allow me to keep more of my money? And, you know, this whole FICA thing. What is that all about? Who is this person? Why am I paying these people this kind of dollars?"

Three years later he realized he was a Republican. "Ronald Reagan ran for president in the Republican primary. . . . I was fascinated by Reagan, because Reagan sounded a lot like my mother in terms of speaking to values, speaking to the kind of America that recognized my individuality and my genuineness, to be able to go up there and lasso the American Dream for myself. That spoke to me, because that's what my mother always told me."


Reagan, of course, lost the nomination to Gerald Ford. Mr. Steele turned 18 in October 1976, and "ended up voting for Jimmy Carter in that election." He also worked for Democrat Marion Barry's mayoral campaign in 1978. But in 1980, "when Reagan came back on the scene, . . . it was just like, OK, Katie bar the door. . . . Man, this is what I'm talking about!" He earned a degree from Baltimore's Johns Hopkins University, spent a few years studying at a Catholic seminary, and eventually settled in Prince George's County, Md., where he became the local GOP chairman and later state chairman.

If Mr. Steele is a Reaganite, he is not a doctrinaire right-winger. On several issues he takes what seem to be liberal positions, though he explains them in terms that a conservative can appreciate. He opposes capital punishment, he says, "because I'm pro-life." He tells me he favors a "strong minimum wage," but only "as long as you incentivize employers. . . . They have bottom lines to keep. They have costs that they have to bear." Then he notes that most businesses pay more than the minimum anyway, so that "the idea of the minimum wage is almost a fallacy."

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As he has made his political case, Mr. Steele has again encountered racial prejudice, often from fellow blacks. When I ask him about this, he teases me: "You're hurtin' the brother here. Give the brother a break!" He then tells me about the "Oreo incident," which happened at a 2002 campaign appearance. "After the event was over, I get up out of my seat. . . . Apparently some folks in the audience thought it was humorous to toss some Oreo cookies in my direction. They landed at my feet." Oreos, of course, are a symbol for blacks who are "white inside." Mr. Steele took it in stride. "I turned to the person next to me and asked, 'Got milk?' We kind of joked about it. It's silly."

Less silly, last October, after Mr. Steele announced his Senate bid, an Angry Left blogger who is black posted a racist caricature of Mr. Steele with the caption "I's Simple Sambo and I's running for the Big House."

What accounts for such hideous invective? "I think for a lot of people, someone like me is considered a threat," says Mr. Steele. A Thursday Washington Post story proves him right. Democratic strategist Cornell Belcher, according to the Post, has produced a 37-page report warning that Mr. Steele has "a clear ability to break through the Democratic stronghold among African American voters in Maryland." Mr. Belcher speculated that Mr. Steele could win as much as 44% of the black vote; by contrast, the 2002 Ehrlich-Steele ticket managed just 23% in majority-black Prince George's County. Mr. Belcher's advice to his party was to hurry up and "knock Steele down."


How can the GOP make the most of the moment? "Be honest. For goodness' sakes, don't go in there pretending to be something you're not. Don't go in there thinking you've got to win the black vote, because you're not going to win it in that moment. This is going to be a long process."