As caucus-goers began to trickle in yesterday at Mercer Island’s Republican caucus, Rev. Wayne Perryman sat alone at his precinct table, eating a sandwich and waiting for the caucus to begin.

Perryman had never been to a caucus before; however his deep concern about this year’s presidential election had him there early, spending a sunny Northwest afternoon in a middle school cafeteria.

While the Reverend said he has stronger ties in terms of values with Huckabee, yesterday he said he’d be caucusing for McCain.

“My preference would be Huckabee,” said Perryman, “but it’s obvious he’s not going to make it. It would be a waste of time…it would just be impossible for him to get it.”

Although he lives on Mercer Island, Perryman is a minister in the inner city of Seattle at Mt. Calvary Christian Center Church of God in Christ.

“African Americans as a whole really don’t get involved in the political process other than voting—I’d like to change that,” said Perryman.

Perryman hopes to see a McCain-Steele ticket and an African American as vice-president. Self described as a thorn in the flesh of the Republicans Party during this pre-election process, he said his mission yesterday was to stress that the Washington delegation be open-minded and put pressure on to get an African American running mate to go with McCain.

“We’ve got some sharp one’s out there,” he said, “and I think one of the sharpest one out there besides Condi Rice, Colin Powell and JC Watts is Michael Steele.”

Perryman compared Steele to Barack Obama arguing that although Steel hasn’t agreed with everything that Bush has done, audiences like him.

“The names that are coming up [for vice-president] and the different governors, they can’t reach African American voters,” said Perryman.

The Reverend said also that having Steele on the Republican ticket would help balance the scale with the Democrats. African Americans, he argued, have never had a Republican alternative. “Barack is a very sharp man and Blacks are always looking for an alternative,” he said. “That’s why they’re going to Barack rather than Hillary.”

Perryman furthered that the Republican Party is too white and too old. “They’re going to die and the Republican Party’s going to go in the grave,” he warned. “They don’t want to reach younger people and they don’t want to be inclusive.”

Rev. Perryman hopes to change this as he fears that Republicans are not reaching out to the population that they should in order to sustain the future of the party.

Perryman has written multiple books concerning African Americans, religion, politics and the media. Books which he said have brought many Black voters to the Republican Party.