Black Preachers, Still "carrying the water for the Republican party"

File this post under, Politics of Race, Religion, and 21st Century black water boy.

As reported by WaPo the GOP is now seeking black votes after ignoring Presidential issue forums addressing black concerns and needs They the GOP even have black preachers still acting as water boys for the Republican party (even though, get this, they say in the Washington Post article , they have stopped carrying the GOP's water).

Yes, as black folks get ignored by Republicans, my sources, indicate the GOP has plans to try to sneak into black churches across the country and talk with conservative black preachers to gain political support in the Presidential primaries and general election.

Enter, Pastor Harry R. Jackson Jr. who calls his group, High Impact Leadership Coalition, the "moral compass of America."

WaPo reports In his rhetoric and his political agenda, Jackson has much in common with other evangelical Christians who are part of the conservative wing of the Republican party, except that Jackson is African American and so is his congregation at Hope Christian Church in Prince George's County.

The washington Post article notes "black pastors called the High Impact Leadership Coalition, in many ways personifies the possibilities that Republican strategists such as Karl Rove have seen in appealing to the social conservatism of many African American churchgoers. Blacks overwhelmingly identify themselves as Democrats and typically support Democratic candidates, but optimists in the GOP think one way to become a majority party is to peel off a sizable segment of black voters by finding common ground on social issues.

As a group, blacks attend religious services more frequently than whites and are less supportive of gay rights. In a Washington Post-Kaiser Family Foundation-Harvard University poll this summer, 43 percent of white Democrats supported same-sex marriage, about double the percentage of black Democrats who said they do. More than half of blacks said they oppose both same-sex marriage and legal recognition of same-sex civil unions.

In the 2004 election, there was evidence that an appeal aimed at those differences could work. President Bush nearly doubled his share of the black vote in Ohio, thanks to a same-sex-marriage initiative on the ballot and the targeting of black churchgoers through mailings and radio ads. But it's unlikely that the 2008 Republican presidential candidate will be able to consolidate those gains, and Jackson is one indication of why.

During the last presidential election cycle, Jackson prayed for Bush and crisscrossed the country pressing conservative social issues. Now he's pushing an issues agenda rather than "carrying the water for the Republican party." More HERE

AAPP: I guess the GOP is telling black preachers, get me some of that water "boy."