Republicans step up efforts to bring blacks into the party

"A lot of the entertainment world is so much against George Bush, but they're glorifying sex and all the wild things, drugs, and we have a high HIV/AIDS rate, especially for minorities," says Mr. Jackson, who also cites the GOP message of lower taxes equals more jobs as a reason to sign on.

To men like Mr. Wyatt and Jackson, the Republican Party's role in ending slavery and, eventually, letting the Democrats take over the civil rights mantle may be important - but it's history. Today, the message of economic opportunity, which dominates Mehlman's outreach speeches, is the driver. The values message is also there, as he promotes the president's faith-based initiative, but Mehlman skips a social issue that could give the GOP inroads into the black vote: gay marriage.

Pastor R.W. Vance, a Pentecostal minister and a Democrat, says he came to the Mehlman breakfast because "the more we gain a relationship with whoever's in office, the better off we'll be as a whole."

He says that marriage should only be between a man and a woman, and he opposes abortion. But he credits Democrats for their defense of affirmative action. "When the bottom line comes, we'll always make a move to those who will give the most help," he says.

Given the African-American community's 40-plus years of strong allegiance to the Democrats, some Republicans have quietly told Mehlman he is wasting his time. Other observers agree.

"It's not just the way the Bush administration responded to Katrina, but events afterwards," says David Bositis, an analyst of the black vote at the Joint Center for Political Economic Studies. He notes the suspension of rules about giving subcontracts to minority-owned firms and those requiring payment of the prevailing wage. "There's too much history.... The center of gravity of the Republican Party is white Southerners, the group African-Americans trust the least."

Raynard Jackson, a black political and business consultant, calls Mehlman a dear friend, and gives him credit for believing in what he's doing. But Mr. Jackson thinks the outreach should be focused more on concrete business connections. "You can talk about school choice or the faith-based initiative, but if I don't have a job, I don't hear your message," he says.

The president himself has his work cut out to reach African-Americans. In Gallup's annual minority-relations poll, Bush has gone from a high of 41 percent job approval among blacks in 2002 down to 16 percent in 2004 and 2005. In Gallup's first post-Katrina poll, that figure had slipped to 14 percent. Bush also has yet to address an NAACP convention, a point that, after five years in office, has grown symbolically loaded, despite his appearances before other black groups. The skepticism appears to be mutual.

"The more important question will be, why have some national NAACP leaders allowed themselves to become so partisan that they would appear to many people to be speaking on behalf of one of the two political parties," Mehlman said to reporters in Waterbury.

Mehlman himself addressed the national NAACP convention in July in Milwaukee, including a headline-making acknowledgment that Republicans' strategy of trying to benefit politically from racial polarization was wrong.

It was there that Jim Griffin tapped him on the shoulder and invited him to Connecticut. That was before Katrina. Now, to Mehlman, the imperative to reach out is no doubt even greater.

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