Lynn Swann, Happy to Be on the President's Team

But for many black voters, the history has been far different. For them, the GOP came to symbolize opposition to many policies they largely supported, from school busing to affirmative action. The result has been overwhelming black support for the Democratic Party, something the Republican Party is making an unprecedented effort to change.

Republican National Committee Chairman Ken Mehlman has been speaking before African American groups, asking for their support and apologizing for a Republican history of ignoring black voters -- or worse, leveraging white support by exploiting racial fears.

The party has generated great fanfare by embracing black candidates for major offices in Maryland, Ohio and Pennsylvania. But those campaigns are not going well. Not only is Swann lagging in the polls, but so is Ohio Secretary of State J. Kenneth Blackwell, who is running for governor.

Meanwhile, Senate candidate Michael S. Steele, Maryland's lieutenant governor, has said that being a Republican is like being marked with a scarlet letter, largely because of the public dissatisfaction with the president's Iraq policy.

For his part, Swann hardly treated Bush as a liability. He said that it was "cool" to be standing with the president of the United States, and he lauded Bush as a strong leader in difficult times.

Beaming and looking fit as he and his running mate, businessman Jim Matthews, flanked Bush, Swann said: "This is going to be your team, folks. This is going to be your team."

Bush seemed pleased. "The people of Pennsylvania know that when you draft Lynn Swann, you get a man who performs," he said.

The president also seems determined to stay the course. He was unyielding when speaking about those who say the United States should set a timetable for withdrawal from Iraq.

"There are some good people in our country who believe we should cut and run. They're not bad people when they say that, they're decent people," he said. "I just happen to believe they're wrong."

Warming up, Bush repeated his frequent assertion that the nation can ill afford to change course on Iraq, regardless of public opinion.

"If we cut and run, if we don't complete the mission, what would that say to those brave men and women who have volunteered to wear the uniform of the United States of America?" Bush added. "If we leave before the mission is complete, if we withdraw, the enemy will follow us home."