• Turnover at party campaign committees is common, and losing four staffers isn’t inherently shocking.That said, the exodus raised eyebrows because the staffers weren’t replaced; instead, the RNC brought on Telly Lovelace, who has said he will leave the committee after the election.Leading black conservatives who spoke with The Daily Beast had nothing but good things to say about Lovelace—but added that he’s being expected to do the work of large team.But the committee’s failure to re-staff its outreach team hasn’t inspired much confidence that the party as a whole will invest in courting black voters.“Orlando Watson and Raffi Williams are two fine gentlemen,” said Ron Christie, a board member of the American Conservative Union, of two African-American staffers who recently left the RNC.
• Every time we lose an election, we talk about what we’re going to do differently, then we don’t do it.”And he doesn’t take heart from the fact that there’s one person doing full-time black outreach from RNC headquarters in D.C.“It’s laughable,” he said.
• Ohio and Florida, both must-win swing states in presidential years, have sizable black populations, and increasing their support for Republicans by small margins could have an outsize impact.
• Crystal Wright, a conservative communications consultant who worked with the RNC during 2012 to build a website to reach out to black voters (a project the committee eventually scuttled), said she thinks the committee’s outreach efforts have never been serious.
• In 2012, for instance, then-vice presidential contender Paul Ryan wanted to campaign in inner cities, pitching predominantly black communities on conservative policies.
