That's right, I said it. And mean it.

The GOP as a whole is completely scared of black voters, and the actions of the frontrunners for the party's 2008 nomination show that they are continuing the same silly political games the party has played for years.

Oh, don't bother tossing out the appointments of Colin Powell and Condoleezza Rice as secretary of state by Bush. Yes, they are black. But I'm speaking of the party.

Ever since Richard Nixon ran for the White House, the GOP has run on a "Southern strategy," meant to alienate blacks in an effort to garner white voters. They've worked the strategy to perfection. When he was head of the Republican National Committee, Ken Mehlman apologized for that strategy as he sought to make inroads among black voters.

Republicans will tell you they are the party of Abraham Lincoln, who signed the Emancipation Proclamation, but their outreach to black voters is lacking.

Oh, yes, I know. Democrats have a stranglehold on the black vote, receiving upward of 90 percent in national elections. A significant part of that is a result of the party seeing blacks as the backbone of the party. But the reality is that when you have only one party that truly makes a play for those voters, of course you will see such disparities!

That's why it's dumb, dumb and dumber that the leading candidates skipped Thursday's debate hosted by Tavis Smiley and aired on PBS.

Mitt Romney, Rudy Giuliani, Fred Thompson and Sen. John McCain all cited "scheduling conflicts" as the reason for their lack of attendance to debate at Morgan State University in Baltimore, even though Smiley personnel tell me that they first began discussions with then-RNC head Mehlman in February 2006. When the debate was announced earlier this year, along with a Democratic forum held in June at Howard University, the RNC promised their candidates would speak.

But those of us who follow politics knew that wasn't going to happen.

This summer, all of the Republican candidates, save Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado, skipped the NAACP and the National Urban League conventions. OK, I get the former, but the Urban League? President Bush has spoken there several times as president!

The GOP keeps blowing a big opportunity by ignoring blacks. And look at the Univision debate! Only McCain accepted their invite.

Today's generation of blacks and Hispanics shouldn't be seen as the same as their parents. An increasing number of people are refusing to identify themselves with a party and are looking at issues. Hispanics have been a huge part of the Republican outreach, but the immigration debate is turning that in a different direction.

Why should the GOP talk to black voters, and what would they talk about? First, I can tell you that immigration is huge in the black community, and it gets folks riled up in a hurry (you ought to see my talk show lines when this comes up). Education and health care are also major. And every GOP debate has been about faith in the public square, and we know that plays well with black voters, especially on gay marriage.

Now, when it comes to the war in Iraq, the GOP can forget that tune. No one is listening. And they are completely uneven on the issue of civil rights.

Here is an example that further explains the GOP's stupidity on this topic: Several years ago, a Republican in the Dallas-Fort Worth area was trying to unseat then-Rep. Martin Frost, a heavily entrenched Democrat. That summer, a series of black churches was being burned. My good friend, Michael Williams, a third-generation black Republican, was planning to host a fundraiser at his home for the GOP candidate. He called the campaign and said it would be a good idea for the candidate to make a statement on the burnings, condemning them and saying it didn't make sense. The campaign said no. Michael called back and made the suggestion again, and the response was they didn't want to seem as if they were pandering to the black community. He laughed at that because the campaign was bringing then-Rep. J.C. Watts of Oklahoma in to visit black churches with the candidate. Hello! That's pandering. So Michael told his wife what the candidate said. Donna replied, "Any man who is such a coward that he can't speak against churches being burned is not welcome in my home." The fundraiser was called off.

Here was a simple opportunity to show that you actually care, but the candidate was so scared to say something, he turned off a campaign donor.

Will speaking at one debate turn around decades of black support for the Democrats? Nope. But not speaking will just mean business as usual, and the

GOP needs less of that.

Roland S. Martin is an award-winning CNN contributor and the author of "Listening to the Spirit Within: 50 Perspectives on Faith." Please visit his Web site at www.rolandsmartin.com. To find out more about Roland S. Martin and read his past columns, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

COPYRIGHT 2007 CREATORS SYNDICATE INC.