In the “Rise of the Black Republicans” from the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, Ryan Frazier and fellow black GOPers are flying under the media’s radar for a reason:
I bet you haven’t heard of Tim Scott, Allen West or Ryan Frazier. If they were Democrats, I might lose that bet.
But they’re not. Mr. Scott, Mr. West and Mr. Frazier are three of the 14 black candidates running for Congress as Republicans this November. Thirty-two black Republicans ran in the primaries. […]
Most of the 14 are running all-but-hopeless races against black Democratic incumbents in black majority districts. But Mr. Scott, running in South Carolina, is a virtual cinch to win. Mr. West (Florida) and Mr. Frazier (Colorado) are in races that are judged tossups.
If all three win, that would be a post-Reconstruction record. The largest number of black Republicans to serve together in the House in the last century is two, J.C. Watts (Oklahoma) and Gary Franks (Connecticut) between 1995 and 1997. There haven’t been any since Mr. Watts retired in 2003.
One might think the resurgence of black Republicans, coming as it does at a time when a black Democrat is president, would rate more than a feature story or two in the national media. But that would conflict with the liberal meme that Republicans are racist. [emphasis added]
Chris Cillizza of the Washington Post has taken notice, and sees Frazier as one of a select few that could make a huge difference for the GOP’s prospects should the candidates win on November 2:
The four men hail from competitive districts: Frazier is running for a suburban Denver seat and Perry for an open seat that includes Cape Cod, while Scott and Demmer are vying for largely rural districts in Georgia and Minnesota, respectively. But, in a roundtable conversation with the Fix last week, it became clear that they are campaigning largely on the same ideas: against government spending and unified Democratic control of government in Washington and for a fresh start to a Republican Party that had been moribund as recently as two years ago. [emphasis added]
“People are also looking for a balance in Congress that is not there today,” said Frazier, an African American city councilman seeking to unseat second-term Rep. Ed Perlmutter (D-Colo.) in a district that went forBarack Obama by 19 percentage points in 2008.