On the bright side, the new strategy couldn't be any worse than the old one.
Apparently, a big part of the Republican Party's new African-American outreach strategy is to follow the lead of how the Texas Republican Party does things (
pdf):
There are numerous outside groups that are studying the best way for the Republican Party to better reach African American voters. The Republican Party should leverage the best practices identified by such organizations. Investing time and resources in African American communities by leveraging best practices of organizations like the Texas Federation for Republican Outreach (an affiliate of the Republican Party of Texas) is essential.
Unfortunately, we don't have 2012 exit polls to explore whether the Texas GOP worked some sort of magic last year, but in 2008 there were exit polls, and the numbers were ugly:
98 percent of African Americans in the state voted for President Obama, which was three points
better than the president polled nationwide.
Maybe that's why the head of the Texas Federation for Republican Outreach offered this advice:
Bill Calhoun of the Texas GOP added, “Don’t try to get African Americans to become Republicans, but persuade them to vote independently by voting their principles and not party affiliation.”
So, when asked how Republicans can expand their appeal to African-Americans, the head of the group cited as a role model for the GOP said Republicans shouldn't even try to get African-Americans to join the party. The fact that he's probably right is a pretty good sign of just how deep the GOP's problem really is.