Several prominent black Democrats who backed former Congressman Kweisi Mfume for Senate said they now support Republican Michael Steele.
“I?m sick and tired of being taken for granted by the Democratic Party,” said attorney William Murphy, a former judge, who said, “I?ll never be a Republican.”
“We don?t embrace George Bush. We embrace Michael Steele,” Murphy said.
The Democratic Party has doggedly linked Steele to President George W. Bush, who has helped Steele raise funds. For the first time in the campaign, a man with a George Bush mask in a blue pinstripe suit showedup at the Steele Democrats endorsement at Baltimore?s Eubie Blake National Museum. Staying in character, the Bush masquerader denied he was working for the Democrats.
Garland Williams, head of the President?s Roundtable, a group of black business owners, said, “It?s time for all Marylanders to be treated fairly.”
“I?m supporting him because of the content of his character,” not because Steele is black, Williams said.
Steele used Thursday?s event to again ask that a radio ad aimed at black audiences be pulled from the air, because it blames Democrats for the founding of the Ku Klux Klan, racial segregation and opposition to civil rights.
The ad by the National Black Republican Association is “about division, it?s not about empowering people,” Steele said, calling it “offensive or confusing or both.” He said he wants no part of the kind of negative “slash-and-burn partisan” advertising he expects to be directed against him.
Attorney Dwight Pettit said Steele?s candidacy “is sending a message to the Democratic Party” and to the black community, which should not be “solely relying” on the Democrats.
