"Republicans and Blacks"

Thomas Sowell makes an interesting point:

When Republicans from time to time try to reach out to blacks, they tend to do so ineptly, if not ridiculously. For reasons unknown, they seem to want to appeal to black voters in the same ways that Democrats appeal to black voters, by adopting a liberal stance.

Why would anyone who wants liberalism go for a Republican imitation when they can get the real thing from Democrats? Republicans do not have a snowball's chance in hell of winning the votes of liberal blacks.

Sowell is an ultraconservative economist, so it is not surprising that he would make this argument, but it is still something worth pondering.