The GOP’s newest star is only 23, but he’s already been a successful entrepreneur, vice chairman of the Nevada Young Republicans and one of the state party’s top fund raisers. He’s also pretty good at breaking a full-court press. Greg Anthony, 6-foot-1 point guard for the University of Nevada-Las Vegas Runnin’ Rebels, has talked about running for Congress as early as 1992. That’s good news for Republicans, who want to woo the black middle class from the Democratic Party by showcasing upwardly mobile young blacks like Anthony. Party officials think colleges are their best target. “The Democratic Party is coming to realize that they don’t have a lock on black voters any longer,” argues White House presidential aide Sig Rogich. “[Anthony] symbolizes the movement among young, educated blacks that sense there’s something better out there.”
Polls show blacks as a whole still identify themselves as Democrats. But many younger blacks–with little memory of the Democratic-led struggle for civil-rights legislation in the 1960s–don’t feel the same bond. A 1990 survey by the Joint Center for Political Studies shows that 82 percent of American blacks older than 50 consider themselves Democrats, compared with 58 percent of those between 18 and 29. The new generation is producing a group of young black GOP officeholders. In 1990 Connecticut’s Gary Franks became the first black Republican to win a House seat in half a century. Detroit City Councilman Keith Butler could succeed Mayor Coleman Young. Oklahoma corporation commissioner J.C. Watts, an ex-Sooner football star, became the first black elected to statewide office last year.
Before he was stricken by the brain tumor that killed him last week (page 66), former Republican National Committee chairman Lee Atwater launched a black college outreach program. The RNC says that since 1989 it has doubled the number of Republican chapters on predominantly black campuses (from five to 10) and is organizing seven others. Atwater, architect of a 1988 presidential campaign that critics say played to white racial fears, saw the effort as a showpiece. He wanted more blacks in the GOP, but he also hoped to convince white baby boomers that the party was not controlled by rednecks or racists. “This was largely for white consumption,” says one ally. Atwater’s illness and budget cuts weakened the program. Republicans are invisible at Alabama’s Tuskegee University, an RNC target. “We had an active Republican club three years ago, but Kip graduated,” says a spokesman.
Republicans won’t find a more attractive black role model than Anthony. Growing up fatherless, he was driven by his mother to excel on and off the court. He’s earned a real-estate license and had a successful T shirt business before the NCAA made him give it up. Anthony’s explanation for his GOP connection sounds more like an audition for the diplomatic corps. “I think it’s important for minorities to be involved on both sides,” he said last week. He has time to sharpen his answers. The NBA–not the RNC–is likely to get first crack at him.
