, reagan greeted the only black member of his cabinet, housing and urban development secretary samuel pierceg, how are you, mr. mayor? i'm glad to meet you. how are things in your city?" now, the reason reagan couldn't recognize his own hud secretary and the reason a republican presidential candidate might want to get rid of hud actually relates in an important way as to why mitt romney was leveling, again, for mitt romney, to the people he was speaking to at his palm beach fund-raiser. because the people at the fund-raiser are powerful people who support romney needs while the people who depend on hud are not. the people who depend on hud are largely urban dwellers, and urban dwellers are disproportionately nonwhite and the disproportionately democrats. so hud is an easy target for any republicans that comes to office. they can go after it, secure in the knowledge that most of the pain will be visited upon folks that don't have much power and don't vote for them anyway. this is part and parcel of the overall republican vision, as embodied in congressman paul ryan's budget to take a hatchet