Angling for Hip-Hop Appeal

By Matthew Mosk
Washington Post Staff Writer
Friday, August 25, 2006

Maryland Lt. Gov. Michael S. Steele's credibility with a pivotal constituency -- African American voters -- got a boost yesterday when hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons got behind his U.S. Senate bid.

"It's extremely significant," said Donna Brazile, a Democratic political strategist. "It says that Michael Steele is someone who is comfortable with youth voters and minority voters."

Yesterday's heavily promoted announcement was just the latest example of how one of the nation's highest-ranking black Republican office holders is trying to balance two aspects of his life -- his race and his political party. Standing beside Simmons, Steele happily embraced the label "hip-hop Republican."

That title is the essence of Steele's delicate campaign strategy to draw votes from Maryland's large pool of black voters while retaining financial and Election Day support from another minority group in the state, conservative Republicans.

He might, for instance, be the only politician in America to have had fundraisers hosted this year by Russell Simmons and Dick Cheney.

Simmons, in turn, might just be the only host to throw fundraisers for both Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton and Michael Steele.

"I'm from hip-hop, how can I give in to la-

bels?" asked Simmons, who as co-founder of Def Jam Records has been at the forefront of hip-hop's ascendance, as well as efforts to register black voters.

Simmons said he first came to Maryland four years ago to campaign against Steele, but Steele won him over. "Every time we've had a discussion, it boils downs to the same two things: education and opportunity," Simmons said. "The lieutenant governor is clear on his mission."

Steele's message of black empowerment -- that African Americans no longer want a seat at the lunch counter, they want to own the diner -- has resonated with Simmons and with Cathy L. Hughes, founder of Radio One, one of the nation's most successful black-owned radio networks.

Hughes's name appeared on the invitation for a fundraiser last night in Baltimore, but she did not attend.

Support from these icons of black popular culture could help burnish Steele's image for political dexterity. He almost never invokes his deep GOP roots on the trail and launched his first television ad this week pledging to "talk straight about what's wrong in both parties."

Other Democrats, though, have called his strategy a cynical attempt to divert attention from his own biography: that of a social conservative who chaired the state Republican party and worked aggressively on behalf of President Bush.

State Democratic Party Chairman Terry Lierman yesterday advised against reading too much into the endorsements.

"I think it's two individuals supporting a right-wing candidate who does not reflect the values and priorities of Marylanders," Lierman said. "When the time to vote comes, people will know that a vote for Steele is a vote for Bush."

Steele has consistently trailed in polls that match him against one of the leading Democrats in the party's crowded primary field, Rep. Benjamin L. Cardin of Baltimore. Polls have shown Steele in a statistical tie against the other Democratic front-runner, former NAACP president Kweisi Mfume.

Mfume said yesterday that the significance of the Simmons and Hughes endorsements was "lost on me."

But Brazile, who has long warned the Democratic party not ignore its black voters, saw significance.

She called the endorsements a "shot across the bow" for the Democratic Party. That cry rose in Maryland four years ago, when Republicans became the first to nominate, then elect, an African American to statewide office: Steele.

"This should be a wake-up call," Brazile said. "You cannot take your most loyal base for granted. You cannot assume that just because people are black they will vote Democratic."

Where Simmons and Hughes could also prove to be powerful allies is in the image they present to younger black voters who may not feel the same tug of loyalty to the Democrats as do those who lived through the civil rights era.

An internal Democratic Party report found as much, saying that "at this time, a majority of African American voters are open to supporting Steele, particularly younger voters."

The March 27 report, by strategist Cornell Belcher, found that the most likely black voters to migrate to Steele would be men ages 18 to 29.

Simmons, who has long reigned as one of the entertainment industry's most capable promoters, is someone who can help Steele reach that demographic, said Brazile, who worked with Simmons when he went on a nationwide drive that registered 4,000 new Democrats in 2004.

"He has reach," she said.

Mark Anthony Neal, an associate professor of black popular culture at Duke University, agreed that Simmons "has tapped into the hip-hop generation" and used that skill to reach consumers. But he's not sure it will reach voters. "I don't think he's has shown he can do that yet," Neal said.

Hughes -- who chairs the nation's only publicly traded company headed by an African American woman, with about 71 stations across the country, including its Washington flagship, WMMJ (102.3 FM) -- also has potential to help, especially if she is able to draw any of her many celebrity friends behind Steele's candidacy.

A recent gala celebrating the 25th anniversary of her broadcasting empire drew Janet Jackson, Sean Combs, Jay-Z, Ruben Studdard, Danny Glover, go-go music pioneer Chuck Brown, roughly half the record industry and just about every major African American political figure, including Steele.

But even if the two help Steele reach young black men, it's unclear how much that will improve his election chances, said David Bositis, who studies black voting trends at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies.

"Of all the groups in the black population, they are the least likely to vote," Bositis said.

Bositis also predicted that, if Mfume wins the Democratic primary, "that's the last time you'll see Steele pursuing black voters."

Benjamin F. Chavis Jr., a former NAACP president who co-chairs a nonprofit group with Simmons called the Hip-Hop Summit Action Network, said that even if Mfume is the Democratic nominee, many African Americans will continue to follow Steele.

"Steele's candidacy offers a lot of hope and has inspired the positive aspirations of a lot of people in Maryland," he said.

In a brief interview, conducted as a stretch limo idled in an alley in Laurel, Simmons laughed that Steele was only the second Republican he's supported. (New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg was the first.) But then he turned serious.

"We're not looking for a hip-hop Republican," he said. "We're looking for someone concerned about the war on poverty and ignorance, and anyone who is open-minded about that, as the lieutenant governor seems to be."