and they are off to a bad start:
Republican strategists are aiming to win as much as 30% of the nation's black vote in the 2008 presidential election — an ambitious goal, given that polls have shown Bush won 11% in his reelection last year and that Democrats remain widely viewed as the party of civil rights.Posted by rdreyes at February 1, 2005 02:17 PM
Democrats say that such lofty GOP goals are the stuff of fantasy for a party out of touch with most black voters.
[...]
Referring to the GOP's new efforts to promote its civil rights record, Yale University history professor David Blight said, "It's appalling to me as a historian and as an American citizen. It necessitates ignoring and avoiding at least 80 years of the history of the Republican Party, that the Republican Party became the bastion of white solidarity, white comfort."
Republicans, however, insist their true history has been obscured — an argument encapsulated by a slogan on their new calendar.
"Celebrating a century and a half of civil rights achievement by the Party of Lincoln," proclaims its cover, which features a large image of the 16th president.