Believe it or not, Michael Steele is having a hard time bringing minorities into the GOP fold
Republican National Committee Chairman Michael S. Steele, under fire recently from members of his party for what they view as his shortcomings in management and communication, has also made little headway in another area: winning over minority voters to the GOP cause.
When Steele took the helm of the RNC last year, he said expanding the party beyond its traditional base was one of his main goals. But he has not been able to chip away at a current political reality: The vast majority of non-white voters are Democrats who generally approve of President Obama.
In a recent Washington Post poll, 23 percent of non-white registered voters said they had favorable views of the Republican Party, compared with 72 percent who viewed the GOP unfavorably. Those numbers were similar to polls taken in 2008, before Steele took over as RNC chairman, when 28 percent of non-white voters had favorable views of the party and 67 percent unfavorable.
African Americans' views of the GOP have barely budged since Steele's tenure began: In Post-ABC News polls following Steele's becoming the GOP's first-ever party chairman, 78 percent of blacks say they view the GOP unfavorably, again virtually unchanged from two years earlier.
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