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Bradley in DC
09-28-2007, 07:13 AM
http://www.columbusdispatch.com/live/content/local_news/stories/2007/09/28/gop_full_debate.html?sid=101

GOP candidates rip four who skipped race-issues debate
Friday, September 28, 2007 1:53 AM
By Ken Herman
COX NEWS SERVICE
BALTIMORE - Second-tier GOP presidential candidates reached out to African Americans at a debate Thursday night while the party's top-tier candidates stayed away in favor of reaching out for cash.
The top four candidates, in a decision criticized by some Republicans, cited schedule conflicts as their reason for skipping the nationally televised All-American Presidential Forum at Morgan State University, a historically black school. . .

On hand for the Thursday night debate were Texas Rep. Ron Paul, Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo, Kansas Sen. Sam Brownback, former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, California Rep. Duncan Hunter and former Ambassador Alan Keyes. . .

The evening's first question came from Lucille Victoria Rowels of Chicago, winner of an online contest. She wanted to know why blacks “are not able to name even one Republican president in the 142 years since Lincoln's death who have left a positive and significant legacy for black Americans.”

She also wanted to know what each candidate would do as president to leave a positive legacy among blacks.

Huckabee said he hoped blacks would remember President Eisenhower's move to federalize the National Guard in Little Rock in 1957 when a Democratic governor denied blacks admission to schools. He also vowed to fix inequities in the criminal justice system.

“He goes to rehab,” he said of a whites caught with cocaine, “and the black kid goes to prison for 10 years.”

Paul struck a similar note, calling for “repeal of most of federal laws on drugs and the unfairness of how blacks are treated with these drug laws.”