The Senate will also have its first black Republican in decades: Tim Scott, appointed by South Carolina's governor to replace retiring Senator Jim DeMint.
For instance, a prominent black Republican in Illinois told me about a presentation a few years ago with party elders about how they could attract black voters.
But Tim Scott, former chairman of the Charleston County Council, may eclipse them both in his bid to be the first black Republican in Congress since Rep. J.
His friendliness to blacks, according to Webster Brooks, the political director of the National Black Republican Leadership Council, is intended to increase his share of the black vote in the mid-west, which could provide the margin of victory in the region that traditionally decides the election.
"He'll have much bigger influence than most governors if he wants to continue to play on the national scene, " said Charlie Black, a Republican strategist.
The fact of the matter is, is that black people will go to the Republican Party when the Republican Party presents programs, platforms, policies that will draw a larger number of black people.
But combined, in total, they have not done enough to substantially increase the turnout of the black voting community to the Republican Party.
"No matter how much support you get from insiders, activists, fund raisers, you still gotta run the gauntlet, " says longtime Republican strategist Charles Black.
Does that mean that Trent Lott, you know, weighs down any Republican effort to win black folks over?
The last time a Democratic incumbent President faced a Republican challenger with the Black unemployment rate this high was 1980.
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Conservative Republican supporters touted support from black religious and civil rights leaders.
National Review reports that there are now 41 Republican candidates for Congress who are black.
All the Republican candidates had been invited to debate this week in Des Moines, not only at the Brown and Black Forum but also at a TV event to be sponsored by the Republican Party of Iowa and Fox News and a radio-only event sponsored by Iowa Public Radio and NPR News.
It also mutes somewhat the Republican argument that the Democrats take the black vote for granted.
We may be white, black, or brown, young, old, Republican, Democrat, or independent.
Mr Obama was elected the first black US president on Tuesday with a resounding win over Republican rival John McCain.
Shortly after the election, Republican legislators sent him memos suggesting visits to black churches and other simple means of connecting with the masses.
Republican candidates historically do not win much of the black vote.
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More important, the initiative has also managed to put together a coalition that crosses both ethnic and party boundaries, including black inner-city pastors and Roman Catholic leaders as well as Republican activists.
He knows, of course, that even a successful campaign for a Republican presidential candidate won't do all that well among black voters.
It would also be a smart move for the Republican Party if they ever hope to get on base with black voters.
The party is grooming more than 50 black candidates for national office this year, says Tara Wall of the Republican National Committee.
Republican leaders are right to make their case to young, urban, black and Latino voters, and should be grooming candidates from all communities.
But for the Republican race it would be the candidate just in terms of the role of black voters in - for Republicans.
However, the GOP's lack of black support is not because of a lack of effort, according to officials with the Republican National Committee.
What Republicans typically do with their black outreach is try to convince swing voters that they are not their father's or grandfather's Republican Party.
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