Expert: NAACP Snub Shows Bush's Commitment to Winning Republican Base

President Bush's refusal to speak at the ongoing NAACP convention shows that at this point in the campaign he believes that energizing his conservative supporters is more important than ceding most African-American votes to the Democrats, says a Duke University public policy professor. "'Disrespecting' the NAACP will play well with the nearly all-white religious right, as well as with white southern Republicans," said Bruce Payne, a lecturer in the Hart Leadership Program at Duke's Terry Sanford Institute of Public Policy. [more]