Black America PAC Spends $1million to get Black Youth to Vote Pro-Life

Instead of focusing on our side of the aisle, I'd like to take a moment and note some youth focused efforts on the Conservative side.

Through the nominally "unaffilliated and non-partisan" Black America's PAC (the group is supporting Ken Blackwell in OH, Lynn Swann in PA, and Michael Steele in MD), Herman Cain, former CEO of Godfather's Pizza (you can't make that up), is spending $1million on radio ads to convince african american youth to "vote their values" and embrace pro-life candidates.

“More and more African Americans are pro-life," Cain said in a statement LifeNews.com obtained. “Our message to African Americans is simple -- it's time you vote for candidates who support our values."

Cain will underscore that message with a $1 million advertising campaign in key states and congressional districts targeting black radio programs and urban radio stations young African Americans enjoy. Some of the ads focus on abortion.

The campaign is a second go-round based on a highly successful Ohio campaign in 2004 that helped President Bush garner 17% of the African American vote in the Buckeye State – double his vote total from the 2000 presidential race.

I wasn't sure how seriously to take this (and I'm still not 100%), but the article goes on to quote Donna Brazile about the effectiveness of this program in the past:

The ads are funded by Americas PAC, a Cain-backed organization, which former Al Gore campaign manager Donna Brazile said did a great job in turning out black pro-life votes.

Americas PAC's African American radio strategy “hampered our ability to expand the off-year electorate in 2002," Brazile said.

The new campaign should resonate again with black voters as polls show African Americans are more pro-life than Americans as a whole.

Normally I don't agree much with Donna Brazile, but she does know her stuff when it comes to old media and campaign tactics. So if the quote is reliable (it is, after all, coming from lifenews.com - not exactly an impartial source), its all the more reason to work harder and not assume that all our upward momentum among young voters will necessarily hold.