Must Read: "Arizona Blacks: Where's McCain?"

A report in the Politico today exposes McCain's disconnect with the African American community in his home state just days after McCain acknowledged having made 'a mistake' when he opposed making MLK Day a holiday. According to the report, despite having represented Arizona over the past quarter century McCain has not established a strong relationship with the state's black community. As the Politico notes, "the widespread perception of activists in the state's traditional civil rights organizations and the African-American press is that McCain has consistently treated them with indifference."

The following are excerpts of the story:

Arizona Blacks: Where's McCain?
Politico
By: Jonathan Martin
April 8, 2008

"Oscar Tillman heads the Phoenix area branch of the NAACP and is a former statewide president of the group. He has been a leader of Arizona's small, tight-knit African-American community for decades. So it comes as something of a surprise to learn the name of one person, over all those years, with whom he has never spoken. It is the state's senior senator better known these days as the presumptive Republican presidential nominee. John McCain, said Tillman, 'has pretty well zero relationship with the African-American community that I know of.' 'I don't recall him ever attending any function with the NAACP,' Tillman added. 'Each year we send them an invitation [to an annual banquet], and each year they say no.'...

"'In a word, none,' said Ron Busby, president of the Greater Phoenix Black Chamber of Commerce, when asked to describe the senator's relationship with Arizona's African-American community. In the 10 years that the organization, which represents about 300 black-owned businesses, has been in existence, Busby said McCain has never been to any of its events. Busy, who owns a large janitorial services firm that cleans businesses, hospitals and the home of the Arizona Cardinals, said his organization is not a traditionally liberal black group...McCain's discomfort with this kind of touchstone politics underscores a central part of his political persona: He has great difficulty feigning interest in subjects in which he lacks genuine personal interest. Civil rights organizations are hardly unique in this respect. Whatever the constituency or issue, if McCain doesn't care deeply about it, his feelings tend to be obvious over time...

"'As far as I've seen, he has no relationship with the African-American community in Arizona,' said Cloves Campbell Jr., publisher of the Arizona Informant and a Democratic state representative from Phoenix. 'He's never been to the paper,' said Campbell. 'We've called to get interviews, but there has never been any response. I've never talked to him.' Founded in 1971 by Campbell's father, also once a state legislator, the Informant is a weekly that serves the 4 percent of the state's population that is African-American. 'We've had conversations with Kyl several times; we even had [former Rep.] J.D. Hayworth in the office,' said the younger Campbell. Nor has McCain ever been to his church, Campbell said. Tanner Chapel A.M.E. is the oldest African-American congregation in the state and is located in downtown Phoenix."