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Tavis: To help us break down the winners and losers from last night's Republican All-American Forum, I'm pleased to be joined by this distinguished panel. First up, Ray Suarez of "The NewsHour with Jim Lehrer," of course, right here on PBS. Ray did a terrific job last night as one of the journalists asking the questions of the candidates.

Next up, Hazel Trice Edney, editor-in-chief of the National Newspapers Association, a consortium of over two hundred Black-owned newspapers.

And Michael Fauntroy, a professor at George Mason University and author of the book, "Republicans and the Black Vote." Nice to have you all here.

Hazel Trice Edney: Thank you.

Tavis: Ray, let me start with you. You were on the panel last night asking questions. How do you think they did in responding to the questions that you asked?

Ray Suarez: Well, Tavis, they tended to fall into the talking points that they've been using throughout their campaign and just sort of fit them to the situation.

So if you asked a specific question about how Black and Brown Americans differ from Americans as a whole in one particular part of our common life, they chose - if you were Ron Paul, you answered it from basically a libertarian point of view. If you were Tom Tancredo, you did a riff on immigration. If you were Mike Huckabee, you did compassionate conservative. They just at points could have really grasped the nettle and they didn't.

Several times, they rejected the premise that there was something different about being Black in America, about being Latino in America, and said, "Look, I don't want to divide people. I just want to answer about how I'd fix this problem." Well, there is something different and they had a hard time with that.

Tavis: Michael, my hope was in organizing these two debates, the Democrats back in June at Howard and the Republicans, of course, last night at Morgan State, my feeling was that the candidates' answers might depend on who was asking the questions, back to Ray's point.

When you formed the question, when you gave the question a different treatment, I was hopeful that their answers might depend on who, that is to say, journalists of color, were asking the questions. Did my theory work out or did I flunk?

Michael Fauntroy: Well, I think the problem with the theory, that thesis, is that, as Ray mentioned, the candidates have been campaigning for a long time. They get caught up in these sound bites and they try to fit these round pegs in the square holes.

So while the questions were great and the questions were necessary and there were some questions that would never be asked in another forum of this kind by other journalists, I just think that they're so comfortable with speaking the language they speak that they won't do very much to change to get away from that even if the journalists really try to push them to do it.

Tavis: Before I play a couple of clips here I want to play, Hazel, let me ask you since you are the editor-in-chief of an organization of over two hundred Black-owned newspapers whether or not you think that there was value last night in having three journalists of color including, of course, Ray Suarez, ask these white Republicans the questions that they did ask last night.

Edney: There was value. However, what I notice most about the candidates is what's not said, like on the Jena 6 issue. For example, there was great reference to the young white male who was kicked, but no reference to the nooses. No reference to the white tree.

There was a lot of talk about the - you know, I think that Governor Huckabee did an excellent job at talking about the inequities in the criminal justice system and the fact that he stayed in a jail was quite impressive. But those were the things that, you know, he adlibbed to, he talked about.

But the Republican candidates who are members of Congress, they get asked consistently on the NAACP report card, so they obviously talk about those things that they're comfortable with. Those things that are not said are things that African Americans really want to hear, regardless of who's asking the questions.

Tavis: Before I get mail about this, unless I miss this, Huckabee did talk powerfully and persuasively about the criminal justice system -

Edney: - he absolutely did.

Tavis: - but it was Brownback who spent the night in jail and not Huckabee.

Edney: Oh, I'm sorry.

Tavis: They'll call me and cuss me out for that, so I'd better correct that (laughter).

Edney: Thank you.

Tavis: Of course, one of the big story lines - let's be honest about it. The big story line of last night was the story of who did not show up last night, the four presumptive frontrunners. Mr. Giuliani, Mr. Romney, Mr. McCain, Mr. Thompson chose not to show up. I want to ask a few questions about that in a moment, but first a clip of these Republicans who were here last night sounding off on what they thought about those four guys not showing up.

Sam Brownback: "You know, you grow political parties by expanding your base, by reaching out to people and getting more people. What they're doing is sending a message of narrowing the base and that's not the right way to go. It's not good for the Republican Party; it's not good for the country. I'm sorry. I'm sorry to you and I'm sorry to those watching that they're not here."

Mike Huckabee: "I want to be President of the United States, not just president of the Republican Party. Frankly, I'm embarrassed. I'm embarrassed for our party and I'm embarrassed for those who did not come because there's long been a divide in this country. It doesn't get better when we don't show up."

Tavis: Ray Suarez, I think it was Ronald Reagan who once said - I'm paraphrasing here - that "the Eleventh Commandment was thou shalt not speak ill of another Republican." I think Congressman Duncan Hunter made the point and told the joke last night that, when you have a family reunion, not everybody shows up and you talk about the folk who didn't show up.

But he was going to resist doing that last night. Huckabee and Brownback didn't hold back in that regard. What did you make of their criticism of those four presumptive frontrunners who did not come on this stage last night?

Suarez: I was a little surprised that they went as far as "ashamed," "embarrassed." They really didn't gloss over what they saw as a big mistake on the part of their opponents. But at the same time, they got a lot more attention and those four frontrunners, as they're called, breath up a lot of the oxygen in the room when they're around.

Not having them around gave the other candidates a lot more chance to speak. So they may thank their lucky stars. They get a couple of news cycles of negative publicity for the guys they're running behind and also some good publicity for themselves and a chance to walk in the sun a little bit.

Tavis: Michael, the story has already started to advance. Today every media outlet who I saw covering this was really trying to advance the conversation to talk about what happens next.

That is to say, will Black folk and Brown folk remember this? Has it been forgotten already since last night? How will they be held accountable? Will they be made to pay? Was there any real down side? They can win the nomination without Black and Brown voters anyway? So what's the takeaway from last night for those guys who didn't show up?

Fauntroy: Well, I think the takeaway is two parts. First, they're not going to pay very much of a price during the primary because the people who vote in Republican primaries don't look like us, so they don't pay a price there. The price will be paid in the general election where, for some of those candidates, the eleven percent President Bush received from Black America in 2004 is going to look like a lofty goal.

Because when you factor in immigration, Iraq, what the Republican Party is doing in terms of immigration, I just think that the Republicans are going to have a very hard time reaching out and winning significant amounts of African American votes.

And Senator Brownback talked about the need to expand the party to win elections, but in reality, the Republican Party's rise over the course of the last generation or so has been about consolidating and has been about turning away from Black and Brown voters. So the Republicans are going to have to have a sort of "come to Jesus" moment with their own constituents about how they go forward and try to win elections.

Tavis: You spoke specifically about the drama they're going to have to deal with where Black voters are concerned and you mentioned the eleven percent number that Bush got in the last election. He got forty-four percent of the Hispanic vote in the last election. Did these guys help themselves at all with regard to the Hispanic vote? I want to get Ray's take on that in a moment.

Fauntroy: Well, you know, I don't follow that very closely, but it's my guess that, given the damage that's been done with immigration, it's difficult to see any of them getting anywhere close to forty-four percent next year.

Tavis: Ray, do you agree or disagree with that?

Suarez: Well, in the debate itself last night, there was an attempt to tie low wages for Black working men and women to immigration that was right out there. You know, often there's an attempt to not speak ill in front of one group about another and so on, but making the economic case about immigration, several of the candidates basically said to a largely Black audience, "It's because those people are coming in that you are earning low wages." It was an interesting and perhaps risky gambit.

Tavis: Risky in what regard?

Suarez: Risky in that, well, in the age of YouTube, there's no such thing as saying something in a closed room. This was on television, after all, and it's going to be recycled and reheard. For some of the candidates, it's a fairly low-risk proposition. They're running on anger about immigration to begin with. For some of them, it's maybe not where they wanted to go.

Tavis: Hazel, if in fact this story is not going to die, if this drama created last night by these four frontrunners of Giuliani, Romney, McCain and Thompson not showing up, if that thing lives, it's going to live, one can argue, because Black media allows it to live. They're going to make it a breathing, growing organism. If it works, it's going to be because Black media said, "You didn't come see us in October; don't look for us in November."

The question is whether or not our memories are so short that that will ultimately not be the case between now - November's a long way off. We're not talking about this November. We're talking, of course, about November of 2008.

Edney: It doesn't matter. It doesn't matter. African American people are not going to vote in great numbers for Republicans anyway. It's because we look at the record. We look at what has been done and not what has been said. Tonight was a great moment to stage and to posture and to look good, but we know what was on those NAACP report cards.

The people who read Black newspapers know the record of African American people pertaining to Republicans. Even Mr. Tancredo who showed up for the NAACP debate and was really excited and boasting about that tonight. Then in the same breath, he aligned himself with Ronald Reagan.

Everybody knows in the Black community that Ronald Reagan even opposed the Martin Luther King holiday among the other ills and sins against the Black community. So we know the record. The Black community has read Black newspapers and there's no sense in even remembering. They're not going to go to the polls and vote for Republicans.

Tavis: And yet, that point notwithstanding, they really don't need - to the point that Michael made earlier, they don't need the Black and Brown vote to win the primary. But if in fact Black and Brown voters are motivated by the Democratic party between now and next November, if the footage of those four empty podiums becomes a television commercial as I suspect it will for the Democratic party and for the Democratic nominee, if the troops really get rallied, they could in fact deny whoever the Republican nominee is going to be, they could in fact deny that person the White House.

That's what I'm trying to get at. Whether or not the story can stay alive long enough between now and November to rally the Democratic base to deny one of these guys the White House. That's the question I'm asking.

Edney: Yes, absolutely. Absolutely it can. African American people can get so excited that we would go out and vote against the Republicans by voting for Democrats and I believe that's about to happen.

Tavis: Black folk got short memories, though, Michael. Let's be honest about it.

Fauntroy: Well, yeah, but all of Americans have short memories, so that's not the big issue. I would add, though, not only the Black press, but also Black bloggers. There's this growing universe of Black bloggers who are speaking out forcefully on political issues and I think that they will take steps and make sure this isn't forgotten.

Tavis: Ronald Reagan's name came up a moment ago, Ray, thanks to Hazel. Let me just go a little deeper in this conversation now politically. So this so-called southern strategy has worked rather well for the Republicans for quite some time now.

Let's just go back to talking about Reagan to 1980. Reagan goes to Philadelphia, Mississippi, the place where Goodman, Schwerner and Chaney, those three civil rights workers, were murdered. He opens his campaign saying, "I support state's rights. I'm running for president. I want your support."

It's been working rather well for then. That was back in 1980. Here we are in 2007 and that southern strategy is still working for them. Assess for me, based upon what we saw tonight and the media attention swirling around the fact that they did not show up, is that southern strategy in jeopardy as we go forward in 2008?

Suarez: The short answer is, I guess, it doesn't look like it yet. The states of the old confederacy from Texas all the way up to Virginia, only a few of them are in play. Maybe Arkansas, maybe Virginia, possibly Florida, if Latino voters are alienated enough.

But that hardcore sort of middle of the line there, Georgia, Alabama, Mississippi, Texas, those are going to be Republican states for a long time because the forces that put states like that in play aren't being felt yet.

But, you know, there's nibbling at the edges. Virginia is going to have a very competitive United States Senate race next year with the retirement of John Warner and the entry into the race of the former Democratic governor, Mark Warner. Florida is a place that suddenly is looking purple instead of solid red.

So I don't know. The southern strategy, you have to think of it as something that appeals far beyond the boundaries of the south. There are white suburban voters in white flight suburbs, places that were built to take the flow out of the cities in the 1950s and the 1960s where the ethnic profile, the social profile, the political sentiments profile isn't all that different from what you see in the suburbs outside Atlanta.

You know, that's the reason why they're building NASCAR tracks in New England and the upper Midwest. There is a southernization of American culture that means the southern strategy isn't just confined to those eleven states.

Tavis: Michael, your assessment of the southern strategy going forward?

Fauntroy: Well, I think 2004 might be the last year in which the southern strategy, as we know it, actually succeeds. Here's why. Ray, you mentioned Virginia. The southern strategy doesn't have to collapse everywhere for it to collapse at all.

If Virginia goes to the Democrats, given the close proximity of recent presidential elections, then that will give the election to the Democratic nominee. So you just need, as you mentioned, the nibbling. You just need a nibbling in one place. If that's Virginia or Florida, for example, then that brings down the whole house.

Tavis: Maybe this is an impossible question, Hazel, but I'm going to ask it anyway. Assess for me, to the best of your ability, if you are a Black or Hispanic Republican voter, how you viewed what happened here last night.

Edney: Okay. It is impossible, but I'm going to give my best shot at it. I had a conversation recently with former Congressman, J.C. Watts. The question was, "Do Republicans really hate Black people?" He said to me that one might think that they do.

He outlined how it is that Republican candidates rarely have any Black insiders who actually advise them. He talked about how Republican candidates will speak of affirmative action saying that they are against affirmative action, but at the same time, do tax cuts based upon giving things to the rich and the wealthy.

So it just appears to me that, if I'm a Black Republican or Hispanic Republican, I would begin to see those things as J.C. Watts sees them. America now appears to be re-segregating and I believe that what just happened in Jena, Louisiana is a wakeup call to even the most conservative who are watching these. No matter what they're saying, they're feeling a stirring in the United States.

So I'm believing that the southern strategy is going to change not because of the strategies of the Republican parties and so forth, but the strategy is going to change because of the mood and no one wants to go backwards in this country. So even Black Republicans and Hispanic Republicans are going to sense to feel that and it's going to spread.

Tavis: Ray, you were on the panel last night. Again, perhaps a bit of an unfair question to ask you, but I want to get your take on it. Because I do this for a living every day on radio and television, I've come to accept the fact that I'm not always going to get the kinds of answers that I want to the questions that I ask.

Sometimes there is value, great value, significant value, just in asking the question, particularly when you're live in prime time on PBS seen by millions. Just the question being asked and never mind their answer empowers people. It puts it out there. Assess for me, then, your sense of the range of questions that you and your colleagues, Juan Williams and Cynthia Tucker, got to ask on this stage last night.

Suarez: Well, I think a lot of those questions are not what you would have heard in a standard Republican candidates' forum as they've been taking their show around the country and speaking in various primary states.

Iraq has so dominated this political season that talking about differential access to health care, differential treatment in the criminal justice system, those are questions that they just don't get to. They run out of time before they ask them and, frankly, they're just not the kind of questions that Republicans have been asked.

So I think there was great value, even though some of the answers were not all they might have been. Not because I'm suggesting that they were dissembling or lying or anything, but that they were so immersed in their talking points that they couldn't stretch to say, "No, this is a different crowd that I have to give a different kind of answer to."

When I asked them if the president could address the difference in the health care access of different groups of Americans, they just started talking about their health care plans. A natural reaction, I think, but one they did not want to take on, did not want to do battle with the idea that, if you're Hispanic, you're two and a half times more likely to be uninsured.

Not one of them decided to take that on. If you think about all the hospitals that have closed, all the clinics that have closed, the waits for doctors, it is different being in these different communities around the country from the normal run of Americans. They didn't want to take that on. Maybe they will down the road. This is perhaps a work in progress.

Tavis: Michael, let me ask you. Ray mentioned the audience. Let me talk about the audience for just a second. This place holds twenty-two or twenty-three hundred people or something like that. We distributed a significant number of tickets to the Republican Party to be given to Black and Hispanic Republicans.

I wanted to make sure that I did not get accused of stacking the audience with a bunch of Black leftists (laughter), so I wanted to make sure that they had a chance to pass those tickets out to whoever they wanted to give them to to make sure that there was a good representation of Black and Brown Republicans in the audience last night.

There were also, secondly, a lot of white Americans here who work, of course, on the campaign staff of these candidates. Every candidate was given, I think, fifty tickets to give to whoever they wanted to give to, so a lot of white folk in this audience last night.

I'm saying that because this was not the audience of all Black Democrats that we had at Howard in June of this year. So you have to take with a grain of salt the applause that you heard throughout the evening. Yet, I ask you whether or not there were moments where some of these answers did connect with Black folk in this audience who happen not to be Republican, who are staunch Democrats?

I looked out last night and I saw Dr. Cornel West in the audience. On a couple of occasions, I even saw him applauding. A couple of things that were said last night, did they do anything last night to connect with Black folk who are not Republican voters?

Fauntroy: I'm going to say that, in the case of Mike Huckabee, yes, and he did it very early. The question on the legacy of race and his presidency. He talked about health care and the need for access to health care and the importance of health care. Well, as you know, Mike Huckabee has lost a hundred ten pounds or something like that and he understands acutely the impact of good health on your overall well-being.

In African American communities, with obesity being the issue that it is, I think for some who sat and watched it not just in this room, but also at home, they may have sort of felt a connection to him on that question because it seemed more sincere than just a standard talking point.

Tavis: Ron Paul said very clearly that he'd changed his mind as a Republican about the death penalty. He used to be for it and now totally against it. At any point in the evening last night, Hazel, did you think that any of these guys connected with Black folk watching at home or in this audience who are not Republicans?

Edney: Again, it was Governor Huckabee. I have to give it to him. He was outstanding on the question of unequal justice. He was outstanding in expressing his disdain for those candidates who were not here. He reminded me of Clinton, in a sense, in the way he presented himself, in the way he projected himself.

Tavis: Must be something in the Arkansas water (laughter).

Edney: (Laughter) It must have been. It was just a warmth. I believe that, if there was declared a winner from a Black Democrat standpoint, it would have been him.

Tavis: Agree or disagree with that, Ray, number one? Number two, did they say anything to connect with Hispanic viewers last night?

Suarez: Well, I guess when they would talk about values, family, about how family disintegration has a lot of other follow-on effects that really bring down communities, there was a lot of applause from all the different kinds of members of the audience, not just from one group or another. Winners or losers? I don't know. I'll leave that to others because that's a little beyond my job description.

Tavis: Michael, taken altogether, what do you make of whether or not the effort that we put into - I'm not looking for you to give me Brownie points. I want your honest answer. What's your take on whether or not last night had any real value at all for America?

Fauntroy: I think anytime you can have conversations like this, there's real value.

Tavis: Thank you, Ray; thank you, Hazel; thank you, Michael, for being here and being part of this conversation.

Edney: Thank you.

Tavis: That's our show for tonight from Baltimore.