Is The GOP Writing Off Hispanic And Black Voters?
It’s getting to the point now where anyone interested in political science has to ask: does the Republican Party have a political death wish when it comes to black and Hispanic voters?
Is the big tent shrinking to a pup tent?
Former Tennessee Senator Fred Thompson has become the fourth leading GOP presidential candidate to shun the PBS debate this month at a historically black college in Baltimore, the Huffington Post has learned.
The debates, moderated by Tavis Smiley, will go on as planned, despite the absence of Thompson, former mayor Rudy Giuliani, former governor Mitt Romney, and Sen. John McCain. Each campaign cited scheduling issues as the reason for their absence. Nevertheless, the rejections underscore the consistent absence of GOP candidates at minority voter forums.
“There is a pattern here,” Smiley told the Huffington Post. “When you tell every black and brown request that you get throughout the primary process that ‘no, there’s a scheduling problem.’ That’s a pattern… Are we really supposed to believe that all four of these guys couldn’t make it because of scheduling?”
The Republican front-runners’ snubbing of Smiley and PBS comes on the heels of their rejection of a debate sponsored by the Spanish-language network Univision (McCain was the only GOP candidate to accept that invitation). This past June, only one Republican presidential candidate, California Rep. Duncan Hunter, showed up at the convention of the National Association of Latino Elected & Appointed Officials.“It’s not just that they are not coming. It’s that some of them are visibly insulting us,” Cecilia Munoz, vice president of NCLR, told the Politico.
It’s getting to be a matter of mathematics now.
If the GOP is essentially not trying to woo (and therefore actually irking)
–black voters
–Hispanic voters
–independent and moderate voters
–moderate Republicans (those that still exist)
then what blocs of voters are they going to REPLACE them with?
Is the Republican majority — you know, the one that helped the GOP win control of both houses of Congress in 2006 — so solid that they can decide to snub voters who do not fit the profile of the party’s base?
19 Responses to “Is The GOP Writing Off Hispanic And Black Voters?”
The Republicans are trapped as the minority party with no way to gain voters. Any panderings that they do to gain a few blacks or Hispanics voters will cost more white voters than it gains. Just look at the Bush Administration’s porposed immigration policy changes. Karl Rove thought he could use it to appeal to Hispanic voters. All it did was alienate large blocks of Republican voters and contribution while at the same time as alienating Hispanic voters. The same thing would happen with any Republican appeal to black voters.
As demographics change in the U.S. the Republicans will eventually get to a pont of being unable to win most elections no matter what they do. Of course, virtually all pundits was so locked into the conventional wisdom that they fail to carry out the trends to their natural conclusion. Part of that is that the Democaratic leadership would probably like to keep around an empty shell of the Republican party to be able to manipulate blacks and hispanic voters.
The Republican Party really needs to evolve (or intelligently design) a new platform that actually reflects the modern world and not some bizarre bigoted fantasy of the 1950′s.
I totally agree with Amanda. Today’s GOP not only is alienating Hispanics and African-Americans, but moderates, independents, atheists, gay and lesbians, veterans, educators, environmentalists , suburban women , blue collar workers, libertarians and fiscal conservatives.
They have voted against measures that a vast majority of Americans approve of- increasing the minimum wage, voting rights for DC residents, federal funding for stem cell research, expanding health insurance coverage for poor and lower middle class children, lowering costs for student loan programs, veterans benefits, etc.
The GOP platform has become a narrow-minded, ultra-conservative, homophobic, flag-waving , uber-patriotic agenda for Christian whites only. It is their rigid ideology plus the demographic trends that will assign them to their newly permanent minority status.
Yeah, but I still saw some dude here in East Tennessee with a W sticker on his pickup truck the other day. He also had a Confederate flag sticker (and for those who don’t know, East Tennessee was decidedly Unionist during the Civil War)…
krit,
If people wanted you proposed they can vote for Democrats.
What sped up the collapse of the Republican party is the inability of President Bush, Speaker Hastert, and Senator Frist to actual govern as conservatives. They have alienated much of their own base while handing dominate control to the Democrats.
The Democrats also have a huge advantage in being able to function as several different parties under the same name. The Democratic candidate for Baltimore Mayor has almost nothing in common with the Kossites but they are parts of core Democratic groups.
SD- I disagree. The reason that the GOP is folding is that they tried to govern as social conservatives but not fiscal conservatives. They were out of step with the majority of the country, who don’t have the same views or priorities. That’s why you keep getting poll numbers saying the country is going in the wrong direction. They might have held onto more of their voting bloc if they had tried to govern more from the center, instead of appeasing the far right.
Their far-right agenda, wide-spread corruption and Bush’s poor performance have caused them to lose districts and states in the NE, where Republicans tend to be more moderate on social issues, and now only have the Bible- belt South and some states in the West like Wyoming and Idaho that never vote for Democrats. It won’t be enough. They rely on fear of terrorism, liberal expansion of government programs, activist judges and the “Mexican invasion” instead of offering practical solutions to the problems facing the middle and lower classes.
krit,
There is no way that you can argue that the expansion of the government to perform social engineering is a conservative idea. What the big government Republicans and the big government Democrats are arguing over is what type of social engieering needs to take place and how the government should make it happen. Look at the overwhelming support by Democrats for social engineering in the Louisville and Seattle Schools. It is no different than the social engineering proposed by the big government Republicans.
The real question is how can a massive expansion of entitlement programs, an open border program, andmassive limitations on the private sector help the middle class. Look at how the core Democratic Party supporters are proposing to lay off millions of workers in the health insurance and health care industry. How does that help the middle class?
SD-It helps the 47 million uninsured. It will also help those who are waiting in ER’s that are clogged up with uninsured patients.
And after 7 years of government deregulation, we have massive abuses in the private sector, to the point where industry executives are writing the policy that is supposed to govern them. An example of industry abuses would be the current sub-prime mortgage crisis which is bringing us a recession and wrecking the housing market and our energy policy which was written by oil execs, in the absence of environmentalist interests. We are also seeing multiple mining accidents, because the owners have lobbied GOP members of Congress to keep safety regulations and enforcement lax. The GOP has not looked out for consumers who have received terrible service from the airlines, and has not waived regulations in New Orleans that would allow the city to rebuild.
I like the honesty, at the least. I dislike what they represent, but I like the honesty.
“What the big government Republicans and the big government Democrats are arguing over is what type of social engieering needs to take place and how the government should make it happen.”
Well yea, thats what gov’ts do. Everything is social engineering, from crimnal law to putting down roads. All gov’t action stems from a need of the people to be organized on a large scale when commercial interests are too small or unable to do so.
Krit’s point about the deregulation is spot on. Everytime the GOP gets a win on deregulation the consumer takes it up the a**. From the S&L’s in the 80′s, to CA power companies in late 90′s, to the healtcare business now. Healthcare now has been foisted onto the corporate sector, being both a drain upon that and simultaneously shutting out most americans.
Oh, got sidetracked there. The reason the GOP is losing out on blacks and hispanics is because they are racists. Please look up the comments of any number of top selling right wing pundits for evidence, they say some of the most insulting things about minorities and don’t bat an eye. Take Rush Limbaugh’s infamous 10 minutes as a sportscaster. Any number of things by Ann Coulter. I’m not talking about minor players in the right wing theatre, I’m talking about hugely popular ones.
Believe me, I’ve got a whole lot of Rush and Hannity fans in my family. I know of what I speak.
Sam, I suggest you go look up the history of the Interstate Commerce Commission or any number of public utility commissions. Do you think that the cell phone industry or the modern logistics systems would have been allowed under government regulation?
Besdies, the California energy regulation scheme was not deregulation but a bizarre regulatory scheme meant to put a couple of nuclear power plants out of business. Why else do you think that the California system forbid long term constant price contracts?
Look up the history of Interstate Commerce Commision for what exactly? You want me to peruse its entirety until I find something that back you up? I’m talking about specific instances where large scale lobbying efforts produced legislation in their favor that translated into a direct screwing of the public.
Everytime I hear someone talk about letting big business run free and wild all I think of is higher bills, power outages, gov’t bailouts and 12 year old children working 16 hour days in coal mines.
Sam,
the idea of child labor was endorsed by the government in Britian in the 1800′s. They thought it would be good for the children.
The Interstate commerce commission regulated trucking to the point that the routes traveled and the prices charged were set by the government. It is an example of regulatory take over much like what the utilities did to utlity commissions. The industries use the government to set high prices, limit competition, and protect their position. It was the same with the phone company. Liberals accuse the NRC of having been taken over by the nuclear power industry today.
If you want to see high prices, look at what long distance cost in 1970 and move it forward in time.
Huh? Are you implying that neither was or is regulated?? Ever heard of the FCC, the FMC, and now more so than ever in the case of our “modern logistics systems” the Dept. of Homeland Security?
Getting new clients in the logistics industry is made extremely complex for instance, thanks to the TSA’s Known Shipper Program.
Davebo,
The interstate commerce commission would have have allowed the modern distribution center systems used by retailers like Wal-Mart, Target, etc. The same goes for the just in time manufacturing. When the government closely regulated the practice of interstate trucking, things moved much slower.
Not going to Tavis Smiley’s black Dem-fest (not friendly to blacks who stray off the Dem Party Plantation) is in no way unusual, much less wrong, for the GOP candidates to do any more than it would be for them to decline going to an ACLU convention, etc..
“The industries use the government to set high prices, limit competition, and protect their position.”
Thats just flat out wrong. The reason the gov’t gets involved is because its one area of business where a monopoly on an area is unavoidable. You don’t want competitors setting up two different distribution grids, two sets of power plants etc… for each area. Its a utility, like sewage, and only one set of costly physical infrastructure is needed. For it to be maintained properly and not devolve into price gouging the gov’t needs to monitor this.
Read up on the entire thing.
http://www.psiru.org/reports/2001-02-E-Calif.doc
When the generation was sold off to outside power exchange companies(Enron was one of them), they immediately set about rigging the system to screw people. The one exception to the rule was the LA Municiple power system which was not part of the deregulation deal. It was entirely unaffected by the CA power crisis.
Trucking is not a utility, and is an industry where market forces and competition can work as they are supposed to. Apples to apples. Under the CA management of power prices and production of power were fine and measured by a local board to ensure profitablity for the utilities as well as keeping prices and costs low.
Not only are Democrats are known for entitlements, but middle-class entitlements (particularly the two largest welfare programs, Social Security and Medicare) are the most popular and most strongly defended. Once a program becomes universal (Medicare is to the elderly already), there’s no going back. The taxes harm the middle class (and entitlement programs are harmful in other ways as well, not only economically), but the benefits, the spending helps the beneficiaries and the economy. This has bought votes for decades, including middle class votes. (In the case of the GOP, the frequent slanderous stereotyping of it by the Left, as we even have seen on this thread, and other shameful tricks also win votes, given the nature of the Democrats’ “ignorance bloc” contingent.) All the things you listed are bad, but people perceive the entitlements as a good thing, helpful and desireable to them.
Our population is aging, and with age, experience, and wisdom also comes a tendency for people to become more conservative. The GOP cannot be written off yet, particularly if the Democrats try to move too far left or otherwise engage in failed conduct in the future. But the establishment of entitlements, especially middle-class entitlements, is the Democratic Party’s advantage. To me it dwarfs any appeals they make to baser instincts, or exploit tragedy or criminal conduct, to engage in additional interventionism (which saner people normally reject).