This morning Politico.con ran a story highlighting a problem that many of us suspect will keep getting worse before it can hope to get better: There aren’t any minorities running as Republicans in ’08.
Just a few years after the Republican Party launched a highly publicized diversity effort, the GOP is heading into the 2008 election without a single minority candidate with a plausible chance of winning a campaign for the House, the Senate or governor.
At a time when Democrats are poised to knock down a historic racial barrier with their presidential nominee, the GOP is fielding only a handful of minority candidates for Congress or statehouses — none of whom seem to have a prayer of victory. [Link]
Ouch. Amit Singh isn’t going to like hearing that he “doesn’t have a prayer,” but in my personal opinion (which I believe to be objective in this case) his resume is pretty thin for a candidate vying for a seat that the Democrats have held since 1991. The problem is that Republicans don’t attempt to recruit minorities in any visible way. In fact, when you can hold up Rush Limbaugh as an example of a Republican who sings the praises of a minority Republican as President (he’s a huge Jindal fan), you know you are in trouble.
Jack Kemp, the former Republican congressman and vice presidential nominee, says the culprit is clear: a “pitiful” recruitment effort by his party. “I don’t see much of an outreach,” he said. “I don’t see much of a reason to run.”<
p>A former black GOP candidate who declined to be identified by name offered a slightly more charitable explanation. He said the party is so broke and distracted that wooing strong minority candidates is a luxury it simply cannot afford right now. [Link]
And then there are the “defections.” Ashwin Madia, who is running in Minnesota, used to be a Republican in college, but now has a real good shot at being elected to Congress as a Democrat. Another problem is that among Asian American minorities, the majority of Republican inroads are among the first generation immigrant population. Vietnamese Americans for example, usually vote Republican in high percentages because of post-Vietnam War politics. It is doubtful that this trend will hold with their children. Limited exit polling data has shown that young South Asians overwhelmingly vote Democrat, and thus will be more likely to run as a Democrat if they enter politics. No doubt that eight years of Bush probably has something to do with the recruitment efforts in ’08 as well. Arnold and Newt may be right. Before the Republicans can recruit minorities they may need to change their brand.
The problem is straightforward: today’s Republican party makes peace with bigots and racists.
Before the Civil Rights movement, Southern states were nearly uniformly Democratic, with their elected officials pursuing segregationist policies under the umbrella of State’s rights. After LBJ’s support of Civil Rights legislation, the Republican party jumped in and grabbed the deeply dissatisfied white vote, locking up the South since.
In broad terms, this is what the Republican party is composed of today: capitalists, evangelicals and racists. Although no one would overtly identify themselves as racist.
Minorities, large numbers of are still closer to the bottom of the economic ladder do not identify with capitalists, may sympathize with the evangelicals, and are frightened by the racists. It isn’t surprising that the party has trouble recruiting minorities.
Personally, I relate strongly with the ideal of capitalists. But I am so repulsed by the anti-science bent of evangelicals (evolution, stem cells, etc.) and just thrown aback by the racists, that I cannot possibly imagine joining the party. And I have trouble understanding the motivations of minorities that do.
This is rich. You’ve got the democrat party running THE MOST racially divisive primary campaign ever. All the black people line up over here and all the white people line up over there. I think you’d better stop worrying about republican outreach and worry about the race war in the democrat party. At least Jindal could get a few rural white votes.
But West Virginia had a lot of bigots and racists (as judged by exit polls) that recently voted Democrat.
The bigots and racists in West Virginia voted for the democratic white candidate, and they voted democratic because they still can’t identify with the capitalist values of the republican party, people who have nothing, generally can’t relate to people that have too much. And no, Bobby Jindal would not gain a few votes from rural whites because for as much as we don’t like to admit it, racists and bigots doesn’t tend to differentiate between brown and black the way we do, to them all shades of brown ranging from the lightest to the darkest is still not white.
But a lot of people who had nothing voted for Bush, no? It sure wasn’t cause he was smart. They thought they could relate to him an have a beer with him whereas the smarter Al Gore got hosed for the same reason even though his values were more in line with the working class.
Defending the transparently polarizing attempts of Hillary Clinton is beyond me. And it is true that Obama is hoovering up minority votes to the obvious fear of whites in Southern states. CNN is currently reporting Clinton winning with 65% vs 35% for Obama in Kentucky. Whereas Obama is winning Oregon with 61% vs. 39%. Clearly there are Democrats for whom race matters a great deal.
Republicans on the other hand are whole another story. Their Southern Strategy” after LBJ still lives on today.
If everyone always voted rationally with their own economic best interests first, we’d have a vastly different country.
You mean we’d have an imaginary country 🙂
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I did not defend Hillary Clinton and her shameful tactics of encouraging voters to display their bigotry at the polls, and there will always be people that vote their prejudices rather than reason, and they voted for HRC. The fact the Obama is
the minority vote I think has less to do with racism than it does with representation, African Americans are voting for him overwhelming because for the first time in American history there is a viable African American candidate. I’m sure that any other minority group with a history of underrepresentation would react in much the same fashion. Also, more younger voters have turned out for Obama than they have for any other candidate in this election season, what shall we chalk that up to?
That was a campaign run on a platform of fear and in that climate it worked, fear-mongering won out over reason. The public seems to be tired of fear if on were to look at the tactics of the HRC’s campaign which don’t seem to be working so well at the moment. Or perhaps the fact that he wasn’t that smart appealed to the average voter?
The public is never tired of fear. Any politician that doesn’t acknowledge that can’t win.
And yet she has almost as many total votes as Obama and trounced him in Kentucky tonight. I think the Hillary haters are seeing what they want to see.
It’s late, I’m at work, excuse the typos
While I agree with that, it’s really the only reason that I can come up with why people follow Obama like the pied piper. He is a junior senator with very little experience, yet when he speaks people tend to listen because his words inspire hope, something even a cynic like myself can appreciate.
Ouch. Amit Singh isn’t going to like hearing that he isn’t a minority. 🙂
Going back to the topic of the post, there are really only two racial minority groups that have any significant political mass: african americans and hispanics. The history of black disenchantment with Republicans starts and stops in the South. It is unlikely to change anytime soon.
Hispanics are another story. Many chose to immigrate for the capitalistic opportunities presented by America. Many are also deeply religious. Karl Rove and GWB tried their hardest to convince their coalition of capitalists, evangelicals and closet racists to embrace the rising hispanic population into the Republican fold. As we know, they ran right into a wall and exposed deep fissures within the party. The closet racists did not want to hear the arguments of cheaper labor, hard working, tax paying citizens, fellow Christians, etc. They saw the immigrants on their street corners and did not want them there. Not only did the efforts of Rove fail to produce results, they actively undermined the bridges that had been built to the hispanic population.
I’m with Gopal in #2–does anyone really think the Democrats are somehow free of racism themselves? I am as (or more!!) self-interested as/than the next guy, but, really, let’s not let idealism cloud our eyes, whatever our political views!
Abhi, are you calling me a hillary hater…ouch, that kinda smarts. I don’t hate her or even dislike her, I just don’t agree with the tactics her campaign resorted to when she realised she may not be the heir apparent.
15 · rob said
In the absolute sense, your argument is true: of course the Democratic party isn’t free of racism. But your argument does not release the Republican party from its embrace of racists. The Southern Strategy of Nixon was explicitly formulated to bring disenchanted whites into the Republican fold. When Reagan spoke of States Rights in Mississippi, it was clear to his white audience where he stood.
1) minorities have trended sharply away from republicans in the past generation. by minorities, i really mean asian americans, who voted majority for bush I in ’92 (see ‘almanac of american politics’), but shifted to the democrats after that. a few groups, like vietnamese and koreans trend republican, but most other groups are trending democrat.
2) supply is a problem. how are you going to recruit black candidates when 90% of blacks vote democratic? you could nominate them in mostly white districts (jc watts, gary franks), but there aren’t many black politicians in mostly white districts by definition. and black republicans in black districts no they’ll lose so recruitment is a problem. since latinos are closer to 65-35 dem vs. repub, it’s easier to recruit latino politicians who are republican (and cubans, as is well known, tilt republican).
3) i think racism is surely an issue, but the two parties are coalitions. like it or not, “oddballs” are democrats. the republican party has become the white christian party, like it or not. jews vote mostly democratic despite their wealth, but if you look at the survey data jews who follow the christian religion (that is, born jewish, convert to christianity) are much more republican. jews might be white & wealthy, but they’re non-christian. so they vote democrat. i think this explains brownz; most of us are not not christian, and so why would we feel comfortable in an operationally christian party? that explains bobby jindal i think, as he is christian. he might not be white, but he is a brother in christ. last time a bobby jindal thread popped up a few christian commenters said they knew plenty of brown republicans in their churches.
Yes, yes–you are right–I’m definitely not trying to (1) excuse the Republicans nor (2) claim that the two parties are equivalent on the racism issue; I am saying that (most of us) need to hold our noses on some aspects of either party, to the extent we affiliate with it.
17 · SweetHomeAmbala said
Well, the point is, we are currently witnessing an example of the southern strategy:
ergo, bubba’s jesse jackson comment, which followed a series of racially divisive comments coming from the clinton camp (bob johnson’s smear and a drug dealer accusation for example) including a dogwhistle from, bubba himself when he referred to obama as a kid. the point was to get obama to overreact, like al sharpton would, and then label him the “black” candidate, solidify his black base, and lead to a white backlash. it almost worked. in fact, when obama did not overreact, clinton himself (as well as the all to obvious gerry ferraro) went ahead and accused obama of playing the race card on him anyway, which is exactly where he wanted him to be.
of course in all of this there is plausible denial and many of the dogwhstles are in fact legit subjects, but that’s the real beauty of the southern strategy, as the quote above indicates. its not obvious, like voter suppression. (in fact, charges of voter suppression are often a reverse southern strategy, as Ramesh Ponnuru reveals. ).
Razib, I don’t agree with your #3, specifically the “despite their wealth” part. You’re ignoring the wealthy white people in America’s cities that vote Democratic. Education has more to do with it than wealth
probably this explains why I am more comfortable with dog whistling Liberals than the Loony Labor. A non-practising Catholic one though.
Sikhs & bayou Punjabi ex-Hindus like Jindal are Scytho-American as are the Scots-Irish by way of the Alani garrisoned in the British Isles 2000 years ago. The Scots-Irish, and by extension Scytho-Americans, have had as many presidents as the Anglo-Americans. So it is fair to say that Amit Singh, as a Scytho-American,is not an under-represented minority. Barack’s failure to win in Appalachia is the result of age old Scythian vs. Nubio-Lemurian conflict
Razib, I don’t agree with your #3, specifically the “despite their wealth” part. You’re ignoring the wealthy white people in America’s cities that vote Democratic. Education has more to do with it than wealth
1) generalizations by their nature ignore the variance around the distribution, right?
2) so the key is what is the central tendency?
3) re: wealth & voting behavior, it’s actually complicated. e.g.: Among voters [2006 exit polls] earning less than $100,000 (78 percent of voters), 55 percent said they voted Democratic, 43 percent Republican. Among those earning $100,000 or more, 47 percent voted Democratic and 52 percent Republican.
see andrew gelman‘s work for how geography confounds the issue. ceteris paribus wealth predicts increasing republican voting patterns. let me bring this home for some readers: Upper East Side is one of few areas of Manhattan where Republicans constitute more than 20% of the electorate. In the southwestern part of the neighborhood Republican voters equal Democratic voters (only such area in Manhattan), whereas in the rest of the neighborhood Republicans are between 20 and 40% of the registered voters.
The Upper East Side is also notable as a significant location of political fundraising in the United States. Four of the top five zip codes in the nation for political contributions are in Manhattan. The top ZIP Code, 10021, is on the Upper East Side and generated the most money for the 2004 presidential campaigns of both George W. Bush and John Kerry.
a friend of mine likes to joke that red state republicans vote the economic interests of blue state republicans 😉
When did the GOP launch their “highly publicized diversity effort”?
Even if it goes back to the 1990s, it’s still too early to write off the effort as a failure or something that indicates that the GOP is inherently incapable of pushing racial minority candidates.
by the way, thanks Razib for throwing that Upper East Side statistic. Anyone know of any papers that eviscerate the Thomas Frank thesis (voting against one’s economic interest)?
26 · No von Mises said
the best paper that eviscerates obama’s ignorant-racist-godandgunclinging-bubba condescension, within a month of his typical-white-racist-grandma remark is bartels’ 2005 paper.
Anyone know of any papers that eviscerate the Thomas Frank thesis (voting against one’s economic interest)?
you don’t need a paper. look at the 2004 exit poll for president: http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html. jump down to income. here’s a sample: Under $15,000 bush = 36% kerry = 63% $200,000 or More bush = 63% kerry = 35%
the trend is almost monotonic. frank got confused by the geographic distribution. pundits, not particularly enamored of quantitative data simply ignored stuff they could have looked up in 15 seconds. obviously the regression doesn’t work out perfectly, and pooling the whole population ignores substructure across the nation in regards to shifts. see gelman paper above.
That wasn’t directed at you. It was just a general comment based on anti-Hillary comments I’ve seen on websites and in emails.
Hispanics (obviously the largest minority) vote as democrats. I don’t know how the Republicans can reach out to them. The Republicans don’t need Asians (small population).
30 · Rahul S said
They can follow the democrat practice. Entice them to vote democratic with welfare programs that enslave them for generations.
Chandu writes:>>Entice them to vote democratic with welfare programs that enslave them for generations.
Chandu! People don’t say these things out loud…
M. Nam
The Repubs get Hispanics using the Christian/family values thing. Also the small business owner thing. But they do desire affirmative action and increased spending for schools/health to support larger families which puts them outside of the Repub mainstream and within grasp of Dems. It definitely is a numbers game, see how labor unions are against illegals but love their US born children who are a large part of their working class constituency.
31 · Chandu said
You mean forever.
Bush & Rove had long tried to woo hispanics using abortion, family values, religion, creationism, anti-castoism, and open-borders. Bush was fairly successful with this in Texas but the last issue blew up his plans, even though, for all practical purposes, he remains an open borders guy despite the rhetoric.
Bill O’Reilly is right on one thing. In 50 years or so, the GOP is going to vanish. Mexicans are going to take over, and become Democrats.
One attitude I’ve found in Americans of all sorts is the point of view that any money one pays as taxes one should see as a direct return or investment in one’s self. Sounds complicated, leads to situations as people who refuse to support generalised welfare programs/pension/government insurance because these programs don’t directly benefit them. I personally find it rather bizarre and appalling at the same time. Over here, people take it for granted that you pay taxes to benefit for the common good, so that the government can support people in time of need. Most of the quibbling occurs about the amount of money involved, and almost no one, even most libertarians I’ve come across feel any desire for American situations. Can anyone clarify this for me? Why should you feel that no one else but you should benefit from the taxes that you pay?
I don’t think the argument is that the Democrats are free from racism and the Republicans are the only racists on the block. The major difference is that the Democrats have been running (legitimate) POC candidates for a longer period of time, and while they certainly haven’t always been the best, the fact that they embrace a platform that includes diversity/civil rights is meaningful and significant.
I actually think there are a lot of POC communities, particularly the politically-moderate church/masjid-going crowd (read: African Americans, Latinos, and Arab American and non-black Muslims), that would break for the traditional “values” of the GOP — economic moderation, limited government, family values — if the GOP could just get a handle on its cracked out foreign policy and the racist contingent of the party (which, let’s be real, is where many Dixiecrats ended up when they switched parties post-1960s); e.g., Lou Dobbs talking about infestations of Latinos, etc. Frankly, I think a little competition might be better for POC electorates anyway, because (in my opinion) the Dems take them largely for granted, anyway. The only exception to this, in the current race, has been Obama, and to a lesser extent Clinton with the Latino vote.
I think the comment re: West Virginia/Kentucky is relatively pointless. These are both states that tend to come out as staunchly Republican in general elections, so it’s really not instructive to try to parse out Clinton v. Obama as somehow illustrative of a broader voting trend. West Virginia is also the state whose senior Senator (a Democrat) used to head up the statewide KKK.
It’s limited to think that welfare programs, alone, “buy” minority support for programs. As we’ve already discussed in the past, the majority of people using “social benefit” programs (i.e., TANF, food stamps, etc.) are poor white people. For many people, a single issue can be the issue that changes your party affiliation — for many POC communities, that issues revolve around diversity and immigration policies.
The one beef I have with welfare is that people abuse the system. If people are working and are still in economic despair, then fine. I don’t like it when poor people use welfare money for cigarettes or booze. Pisses me off!!!!!!!!!!!!
I actually think there are a lot of POC communities, particularly the politically-moderate church/masjid-going crowd (read: African Americans, Latinos, and Arab American and non-black Muslims), that would break for the traditional “values” of the GOP — economic moderation, limited government, family values — if the GOP could just get a handle on its cracked out foreign policy and the racist contingent of the party (which, let’s be real, is where many Dixiecrats ended up when they switched parties post-1960s); e.g., Lou Dobbs talking about infestations of Latinos, etc. Frankly, I think a little competition might be better for POC electorates anyway, because (in my opinion) the Dems take them largely for granted, anyway. The only exception to this, in the current race, has been Obama, and to a lesser extent Clinton with the Latino vote.
blacks don’t vote their religious conservatism. latinos do have a tendency to vote like thomas frank wants people to vote. a survey i saw of muslim americans shows a “latino” pattern; a tilt toward democrats because of economic liberalism despite social conservatism. i think the data that poor whites still vote for democrats despite their greater religious traditionalism, on the aggregate, than rich whites, suggests that economics is still the major major variable.
this does not deny the salience of cultural issues; but, i wonder if the media elite bias toward cultural liberalism and fiscal moderation has skewed perceptions (democratic party elites support free trade, like republican party elites, it’s the masses who oppose this). by this, i mean that affluent democrats don’t vote democrat because of pocketbook issues, they can “afford” taxes and what not, they vote democrat because of abortion rights, civil liberties and church-state separation. one might wonder if the assumption that people vote on social issues is simple projection of the media elite’s own voting habits (washingtin DC journalists might not be wealthy, but they’re not “working class”).
Any Government sponsored system anywhere exists solely to encourage people who can game the system and abuse it.
That’s a lot like saying: If everyone posted their views on blogs instead of others’ views, then we’d end up with imaginary blogs.
Being a libertarian, he’s probably not going to like even more that he is considered a minority.
M. Nam
38 · Camille said
Bill Clinton won Kentuky and W.Virginia.
razib’s post (#40) reminded me of this book, reviewed on a libertarian website (i actually remember taking a class taught by the reviewer, michael munger of duke, who if i recall correctly is a libertarian in the classical sense, i.e. unlike a section of the current so-called pro-corporate/anti-market-competition/pro-warfare state “libertarians”). The book is by Thomas Ferguson and called “Golden Rule: The Investment Theory of Party Competition and the Logic of Money-Driven Political Systems”.
I think the comment re: West Virginia/Kentucky is relatively pointless. These are both states that tend to come out as staunchly Republican in general elections
West Virginia has had Democratic candidate win more than Republican in Presidential elections: 20 out 36, and even post-1968, more times.
However, Kentucky is a traditionally Republican state nowadays (only since 1950s) but Jimmy Carter and Bill Clinton won there.
Also, California has traditionally been mostly a Republican state, and only in last 4 elections, it has consistently voted for a Democratic candidate in Presidential elections.
45 · Kush Tandon said
Three reasons (1) Mexicans, (2) Asians, (3) Environmental Nuts. California will never vote Republican in a general election for a long time.
46 · Rahul S said
re: the Southern Strategy and “it’s all about coddling racists”; there is an alternative view on what exactly happened in the 1960s that flipped the South from Dem to GOP. Interestingly, Lieberman (D – although some would say ‘in name only’) has an OpEd on that topic today –
The 60s, many argue, was the birth of Punitive Liberalism. And the South – for whatever set of reasons – is/was generally the most patriotic part of the country and thus the most turned off by such arguments.
37 · Meena said
theda skocpol, a political scientist who sometimes writes about the public’s perception of anti-poverty/welfare/redistribution/public policies writes here:
<
blockquote> Vietnamese Americans for example, usually vote Republican in high percentages because of post-Vietnam War politics. It is doubtful that this trend will hold with their children. Limited exit polling data has shown that young South Asians overwhelmingly vote Democrat, and thus will be more likely to run as a Democrat if they enter politics
So by the following argument taken from a recent newsweek article, most second generation desi are generally less happy ?