The Year of the Black Republican?

Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell is running for governor. He sees himself as an agent for increasing competition for the black vote. (By Kiichiro Sato -- Associated Press)

Still, some Democrats say the GOP's investment in high-profile black candidates represents a strategy that cannot be dismissed lightly. "It cuts into the Democratic base," said Columbus Mayor Michael B. Coleman. "It gives choices. And what that does is say to the Democratic Party, 'Put your money where your mouth is.' "

The Grooming of Steele

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Though all three African American candidates are breaking fresh ground for the Republican Party, it is Steele who has been the most aggressively groomed and recruited. This is due in part to a longtime friendship with former RNC chairman Ed Gillespie and to Mehlman's Baltimore roots.

Tall, elegant and disarmingly direct, the 47-year-old Georgetown Law graduate left a struggling consulting business in the late 1990s to become the chairman of the Maryland Republican Party. In 2002, Gov. Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. tapped him to be his running mate, and Steele became the first black person elected to statewide office in Maryland.

At the 2004 Republican National Convention, Steele was handed a prime-time speaking role and a seat in Vice President Cheney's box. Last year, when Sarbanes announced that he would retire, a succession of party luminaries, including President Bush, called to urge Steele to join the race.

He and the governor spent hours agonizing over the decision. Steele said he did not want to run an un-winnable race just to make a point.

"I had a very long and frank conversation with the leadership of the Republican Party," Steele said Friday. "I told them: 'This has to be real. This can't be tokenism.' "

High-level support followed quickly. Just weeks into Steele's candidacy, the president and top aides, including Karl Rove and Andrew H. Card Jr., have hosted fundraisers for him. Gillespie, the campaign's national finance chairman, held a $100,000 event at his home. Since October, Steele has raised more than $2.6 million.

Four years ago, post-election analyses showed the Ehrlich-Steele ticket winning 10 to 15 percent of the black vote, which did not represent a gain for the GOP. In this campaign, Steele has a strategy that includes outreach to African American business leaders and frequent appearances at predominantly black churches.

Last week, he visited the Hope Christian Church in Lanham. Steele stood comfortably at the pulpit, recalling the religious teachings he soaked up in the three years he spent as an Augustinian friar, studying for the priesthood.

He seemed eager to enter the debate over same-sex marriage, which has cross appeal among Republicans and blacks. Calling marriage "a covenant between one man and one woman," he told the group of about 100 ministers: "This is the way it's always been and always should be. What part of this don't people understand?"

Steele is generally cautious with his references to the Republican Party, although he says that is because most people know his political affiliation. When he announced his candidacy before a boisterous crowd in Prince George's County, the nation's most affluent majority-black suburb, he did not once mention his GOP affiliation. Instead, he described himself as a "bridge" between the parties.

Leonardo Alcivar, a communications specialist who worked for Steele's campaign and is now working for Swann, said there is a key distinction between the way the two men are running. "We don't have to shy away from being Republican in the way Michael does," he said.