ABSTRACT
This chapter explains how Michael Steele defied the odds at the 2006 campaign for Maryland's open US Senate seat by making the contest competitive in a decidedly blue state and by picking up 25 percent of the black vote despite high national anti-Republican sentiment. It pays particular attention to how Steele spoke about black empowerment, black racial consciousness and synergies between the three constructs, in ways that were unanticipated by the Democrats. The chapter addresses how Steele capitalized on black angst over the substantive and descriptive dividends received from Democratic allegiance. The 2006 campaign for Maryland's open United States Senate seat reveals the need to modify the deracialization construct for examining the nuances of partisan and racial politics in twenty-first-century America. The construct is therefore akin to the black utility heuristic construct— where individual actions are structured by perceptions of how well blacks are doing and would do under alternative policy regimes.
