RETURNING TO REALITY AND PUTTING DOWN THE KOOL-AID

Republicans in recent years have touted their alleged increasing diversity due to their ability to con some within the African-American community to join their ranks. While the GOP can call itself the party of Abraham Lincoln, that was then...this is now.

We could very well be noting the start of some facing reality. Janet Zink in the St. Petersburg Times political blog The Buzz wrote Tuesday that Curtis Stokes, First Vice President of the Hillsborough County NAACP, is considering a change of his political affiliation from the GOP to the Democratic Party following two recent decisions on the local and national level.

Stokes' disappointment comes from three Republican Hillsborough County Commissioners supporting a proclamation honouring Confederate Memorial Day and marking April as Southern Heritage Month. The proposal died after four commissioners refused to sign the proclamation. He also noted Republican representatives' vote against a measure supported by the national NAACP which would have add a voting representative from the District of Columbia (Washington, DC). Currently the District, which has a 57-percent African-American population, has a delegate with no voting privileges.

Stokes has already thrown his support to the presidential candidacy of U.S. Senator Barack Obama, a Democrat, and contributed $2,300 to the campaign during a stop last month in Ybor City.