Steele's Donor List Stirs Racial Questions

Steele also has received support from former Reagan administration education secretary William J. Bennett, who was criticized for suggesting that aborting black babies would help reduce crime, and former first lady Barbara Bush, who turned heads when she mused that mostly African American evacuees from Katrina living at a Houston shelter "were underprivileged anyway, so this is working very well for them." Steele accepted $1,000 from Castellanos, the man behind the "White Hands" ad.

"Having that kind of support sends mixed messages and are going to make it very difficult for him to make inroads with African American voters," said Isiah Leggett, a former state Democratic Party chairman. "He should be smart enough to see the inconsistency there."

But Steele said any attempt to attack him for taking these donations just highlights a double standard he believes that black Republicans face because they are "inconvenient" for Democrats, who have had the support of the vast majority of black voters for the past half-century.

"When I look across the aisle, I see a Democratic leader who was a member of the Ku Klux Klan," Steele said, referring to Sen. Robert C. Byrd (W.Va.). Byrd has said his Klan membership, when he was a young man, was "a major mistake."

"That doesn't stop Democrats from taking his money," Steele said.

Conservative black commentator Armstrong Williams agreed.

"There's absolutely nothing wrong with him accepting that money," Williams said. "These people have supported him. That's his base. Let's say someone is racist, or has been racist in the past. If they give money to a black candidate, wouldn't that show progress on their part?"

Although there might be nothing explicitly wrong with Steele taking that money, said Weldon Latham, a black lawyer in the District with long ties to the Democratic Party, Steele shouldn't expect that there will be no political consequences.

"He can't expect African American support just because he's an African American," Latham said. "People are going to want to know where he stands, and who stands with him."

In fact, in any number of circumstances, a list of donors can be a potent political tool. Paul S. Herrnson, a campaign finance expert at the University of Maryland, said that has been true ever since campaign finance reports were made public.

"Where politicians get into trouble is where they put the campaign for money ahead of the campaign for votes," Herrnson said. "If candidates take money from people whose opinions fly in the face of the voters they're courting, they're taking a risk."

Herrnson noted the immediate response from the political world when the powerful lobbyist Jack Abramoff was indicted. Scores of lawmakers from both major parties announced that they were returning Abramoff's donations.

To this point, Democrats vying to challenge Steele in the Senate race have focused on the money Steele has received from those with ties to President Bush. Their accusation: that Steele is campaigning as someone without partisan ties but is being bankrolled by Bush and his supporters.

Steele has countered that the money does not make the man -- that Bush's name won't be on the ballot in Maryland and Bush won't occupy the Senate seat if Steele wins. The same holds true for such donors as Lott and Burns, Steele said last week.

The important message he has for black voters, he said, "is that it will make a difference for them to have me at the table."