The Strategic Inconsequence of The Race Vote

I am often on “The Russ Parr Morning Show” discussing Sen. Barack Obama's (D-Ill.) fortunes and misfortunes during this presidential campaign. What is intriguing about Parr's audience is that voting for the Democratic Party is seen uniformly as helpful to blacks as a race.

Because American blacks spend much of their time in their own communities, they somehow convince themselves that they constitute a huge voting bloc in America. What's more fascinating is that I do not know of any other community in America, Jewish, Latino, Asian or white, that would, overwhelmingly, to the tune of 90 percent-plus, vote for someone just because they assume others with the same skin color or history of discrimination share their economic, cultural and social interests.

When you really get down to brass tacks and the outcome of the presidential election, the black vote drama and their support of the first American black who has a chance of becoming president is largely overrated.

Everyone knows that blacks would overwhelmingly support the Democratic candidate irrespective of his or her race. And why should the McCain campaign waste valuable resources, especially considering Obama's huge popularity among that voting bloc? The Republicans knew going into this election that they needed another strategy to win. You would think by now that blacks would have figured out why former Presidents Reagan, Bush I and Bush II won despite losing their vote.

It is actually quite simple. Republicans predict success based on their ability to appeal to other minority voting blocs, including women and Latinos, not based on their race or gender, but by appealing to their other interests; whether those are economic, cultural or other.

Given the serious possibility that the Republican Party will be successful in picking off members of the so-called Democratic base, it would behoove the black community to stop putting all their eggs into one basket.

Because if they do now what they've done in the past, and Sen. Obama loses, they will find themselves left out in the cold once again.