Reports last week suggesting that social conservative leaders would bolt the GOP nominated a pro-choice candidate (read: Rudy Giuliani) were met with defiant statements, not denials, from those same conservatives. Republicans, some social conservatives said, need to be sent a wake-up call, and while bolting the party would help a Democrat win the White House, they argue that the religious right needs to reassert itself as a driving force in the GOP.

But there's a hidden upside for Republicans, if not in the near term, then in the long run. By leaving Republicans and founding a party based solely on a social conservative agenda, the new team could help woo African American voters away from Democrats. Socially conservative African Americans, who have more in common with the white religious right but are loathe to cast a ballot for Republicans, are the targets of some early outreach, the Washington Times reports today.

African Americans are likely to feel more strongly against gay rights, more strongly pro-life and more strongly identified with a church. "As black conservative leaders, we would not be opposed to a third party that brings us together with our fellow Christians," Bishop Harry Jackson, who runs a mega-church near Washington, told the Times.

Still, socially conservative African Americans will need a lot of convincing to go with a candidate other than the Democratic nominee. Just 11% of African Americans voted for President Bush in 2004. Two other factors make life difficult for a socially conservative third party: First, African Americans remain hugely supportive of both Sens. Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton.

Second, both leading Democrats, and others running for the nomination, are talking more openly about faith. Obama gave a guest sermon at an African American mega-church in Greenville, South Carolina, this weekend. Obama, said former Ohio Republican Secretary of State Ken Blackwell who works at the Family Research Council, "hijacked the language" of African American evangelical leaders. But Obama, Clinton and others are less shy about discussing their faith, which could delay a third party's success.