Blacks Nowhere in Romney's Orbit?

Harry Siegel and Ben Jacobs of the Daily Beast argue in a piece today that Mitt Romney has scarcely even bothered to try to win the support of African-American voters and has given little indication that he'll ever make the push:

After a long primary season, Mitt Romney begins his contest with Barack Obama without having attracted any notable black endorsers, surrogates, or high-ranking campaign staffers.

So far, Romney’s highest-profile endorsement from a black supporter might be Aubrey Fenton, a former Burlington County New Jersey freeholder, and there are no African-Americans in the top ranks of the campaign. The two black Republicans in Congress, Tim Scott and Allan West, still haven’t endorsed the party’s nominee-apparent. The Romney campaign, which often touts its support from Hispanics, women, and other groups, did not provide any information about black supporters or staffers in response to several requests from The Daily Beast ...

Politicos of all ideological bents stressed that Romney was in no way prejudiced against African-Americans, but also agreed that his campaign had paid little attention to the group. As Lee Siegel memorably described the candidate who once tried to appeal to a group of black kids at a Martin Luther King Jr. Day parade by singing the refrain of “Who Let the Dogs Out,” "Mitt Romney is the whitest white man to run for president in recent memory."

Meanwhile, the authors point out that the "Romney-friendly" Drudge Report linked to a story Monday with the headline Report: 'Stunning lack of diversity' in Obama's re-election campaign ... ', which is based on a single picture of a group of predominantly white Obama-campaign staffers in Chicago. "I just saw a piece on Drudge [that] looked at the Obama campaign, and it seems like neither [campaign] has diversity," said Alphonso Jackson, the former secretary of Housing and Urban Development in the Bush administration, in response to the image.

We're not sure who he's trying to convince with that particular comparison, but something tells us that being anywhere close to Romney when it comes to support from African Americans is not near the top of the president's list of problems.

Read more at the Daily Beast.

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