On Sept. 27, PBS put on a debate that was held at Morgan State University, a historically black university in Baltimore, to give Republican presidential candidates an opportunity to speak about concerns of black voters. But only some of the Republican presidential candidates attended; four of the candidates, including front-runner Rudy Giuliani, declined to attend.

In addition to former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former U.S. Senator and actor Fred Thompson, Sen. John McCain of Arizona, former Governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney and Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado also decided not to attend the debate. Some of them have stated publicly that the reason they did not attend is because they believed the environment would have been “hostile and unresponsive.” What this shows is that they do not care about the issues concerning blacks, and they feel no need to respond to them.

In 2005, hip-hop artist Kanye West received criticism for his remarks regarding President Bush. During a national telethon to raise funds for victims of Hurricane Katrina, West said “George Bush doesn’t care about black people.” After being ridiculed for what some people described as an “unwarranted” and “unsupported” statement, West later apologized for what he had said. But how untrue was West’s comment?

According to the strategies of Republican presidential candidates, politicians only have a responsibility to their past and potential supporters. Because 85 percent of black voters vote democratic, it is not too unbelievable to think George Bush, a Republican, would not care about a group of people who did not (and most likely would not) vote for him. So maybe a more appropriate statement is “Republicans don’t care about people who vote overwhelmingly democratic and therefore don’t care about most minorities.” These recent events only further support this idea.

Now, some of you might say that the Republicans who did not attend the debate had more important things to do like campaigning in places where there is a larger scope of potential voters to persuade. For instance, Mitt Romney was seen campaigning in California at an IHOP restaurant. Obviously, a presidential candidate can reach many more people at an IHOP, which at capacity might have 100 people in it, than through a nationally televised debate, where millions could be watching in an arena full of thousands of people. What this is really saying is that those Republicans do not care the problems that plague the black community, like the poor status of inner city public schools.

But blacks should not feel too ostracized; Republican presidential candidates do not care about gays, lesbians or Latinos either. Most of the candidates did not attend a debate to address the troubles of gays and lesbians, and none of them attended a debate, hosted by Univision, to address the problems of Latinos.

In a representative democracy, a candidate runs to represent all the constituents of his delegated region. For a president that means the entire country is his delegated region, and he does his best to represent all the groups within the country. Political parties were created, in part, to create an organized consensus of solutions to problems within the nation.

The solutions for each problem vary depending on the party. For example, America has a problem with its dependency on oil. Liberals might propose a solution that invests in technology which uses different forms of energy. Conservatives might propose a solution to invade a small third world country full of oil. Both parties acknowledge the problem and both present a solution. It is up to you, the voter, to determine which one you prefer.

Political parties are not supposed to only represent the people who vote for them. They are supposed to represent everyone but have different ways in running the government. When politicians start determining who they will help and who they will not, a lot of Americans will be neglected, and a lot of problems will not get answered and thus grow worse.