These African American Repubs support McCain:
JONATHAN GURWITZ, Seattle Post-Intelligencer
ST. PAUL, Minn. -- During the B.S.P. era -- Before Sarah Palin -- the 2008 campaign for the White House was the race that wasn't about race.
Remember Pastor Jeremiah Wright -- and Barack Obama's eventual rejection of him? Or the damaged reputations of Geraldine Ferraro and Bill Clinton, who suffered for comments perceived by critics to be racially insensitive?
Only a week ago, the McCain and Obama camps were trading accusations about playing the race card.
Before Sarah Palin's historic and controversial vice presidential nomination, there was Barack Obama's historic if less controversial presidential nomination. And swept up in the racial vortex of Obama's groundbreaking candidacy are black Republicans.
Oh yes, there are black Republicans in 2008. And they're not tokens either.
Michael Williams, the popular chairman of the Texas Railroad Commission, has been wowing GOP crowds across the Lone Star State for more than a decade. He was the first African American in Texas history of either party elected to a statewide executive office. Wednesday night, he had the privilege of formally nominating John McCain for president of the United States at the Republican National Convention.
Williams, speaking in an interview beforehand, acknowledged that African Americans will overwhelmingly cast their votes for Obama. "While I am also enormously proud of what Sen. Obama has done, and I recognize the historic nature of his candidacy, campaigns are about more than identity politics. They're about ideas and about values."
On that score, Williams says a chasm separates him and the Democratic nominee.
Those same conservative ideas and values are what drew Johnny Lovejoy to the Republican Party. As a college student in Vermont, Lovejoy joined the Reagan revolution. A stint in the Air Force brought him to San Antonio, where he won election to the State Republican Executive Committee.
Why is he supporting McCain? "The obvious -- he's not Barack Obama."
Lovejoy is irritated by the assumption that because he is an African American, he should -- or must -- vote for Obama, a sentiment voiced by other black Republicans. When he expresses his support for McCain, Lovejoy says the reaction he often gets is "outright hate."
Bill Calhoun of Houston faces the same stereotyping. He's the chairman of the Texas Federation of Black Republicans, which boasts more than 1,000 members statewide. But he claims some immunity from the vitriol that members of his organization often encounter.
Calhoun is a lifelong member of the NAACP, attended Prairie View A&M, a historically African American college, served on the board of the state's only African American-owned bank and is deeply involved in community activities.
When people challenge his politics, he tells a personal story.
"I take it from the standpoint of how my daddy raised me. My father was a sharecropper in Kaufman County, Texas. I grew up in a segregated town of about 200 people. Yet his great-granddaughter is getting her MBA from the Harvard School of Business.
"That happened because my father inculcated a sense of independence that I still live on. It would be a sign of disrespect for all of what my father taught me ... a disservice to my father to buy into Barack Obama's policies just because he's black."
The vast majority of black voters in 2008 will make that decision in favor of Obama. But Calhoun says some will do so for all the wrong reasons. "I am more interested in being my father's son," he says, "than being Barack Obama's brother."
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Jonathan Gurwitz is a columnist for the San Antonio Express-News; jgurwitz@express-news.net
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