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Estimate of White Audience at Republican Convention Off By a Whopping Six Percentage Points

September 6th, 2008
By DORIAN DE WIND

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In my post, “’Right’ Convention, Wrong Country?”, I commented on how the Republican attacks on Democrats—who make up about one-half of voting-age Americans—and their selected candidates, gave me the sensation that I was watching a political “revival” in some foreign country.

I also noted that,

My feelings that this convention was not being held in the U.S.A. were reinforced when the cameras scanned over a sea of faces supposed to represent the diversity, the kaleidoscope that is the United States of America, but, instead, was 99 percent white.

After reading a couple of articles, including one from the Dutch “De Telegraaf,” I have to admit that my impression that 99 percent of the Republican delegates were white, was somewhat overblown.

In “A White Convention,” in De Telegraaf, Jan-Kees Emmer writes (translation soon available on WatchingAmerica.com):

It had already attracted my attention in the Xcel Energy Center in St. Paul, where Republicans convened. The audience was noticeably whiter than the one at the Democratic Convention last week in Denver. On my way to Wasilla, I came across the numbers in the New York Times. And they don’t lie. Not only was the Republican Convention indeed much whiter than that of Democrats, but also when compared against previous Republican gatherings, the attendees have become considerably “one-sided.”

Then Emmer sets me straight: “93 percent of the Republican delegation is white.”

A whopping six percentage points less than what I had estimated!

Perhaps what led me to settle on that percentage was that the cameras of the TV channel I was watching the final night of the Republican National Convention consistently, unfailingly, and repeatedly (are there any other synonyms?) kept scanning back to the same, nice-looking, somewhat senior, black man on the Convention floor.

Since we are talking about statistics and since I have mentioned the New York Times, it may be interesting to see what Patrick Healy has to say about this subject in that newspaper.

In his “Two Conventions With No Shortage of Contrasts,” he notes such “overwhelmingly white” attendance at the Republican Convention, and says “…the contrast in racial and ethnic demographics is perhaps most visible to viewers of the conventions, being held this year on consecutive weeks…” and provides the following statistics:

According to polls of delegates conducted by The New York Times and CBS News, 93 percent of the Republican delegates are white (compared with 85 percent in 2004 and 89 percent in 2000), while 5 percent are Hispanic and 2 percent are black. The Democratic delegate pool in Denver, according to the survey, was 65 percent white, 23 percent black and 11 percent Hispanic, roughly the same as at other recent Democratic conventions.

Healy further comments:

Both the content of the messages and the color of the faces reflect a clear political reality. In 2000 and 2004, Mr. Bush and one of his top lieutenants, Ken Mehlman, worked explicitly to win more black and Hispanic votes. This year the Republicans are aggressively reaching out to the base of their party — white, male, conservative — while making a new appeal to women with the addition of Gov. Sarah Palin of Alaska to the ticket.

It appears that at least on this one issue—appealing to the white, male, conservative base, and ignoring minorities—John McCain, is definitely distancing himself from Bush.

The question is, will this particular attempt at separating himself from Bush turn out to be a wise “degree of separation?”

Finally, back to the observer from afar, Dutch journalist Jan-Kees Emmer. Emmer is on his way to Wasilla. It will be interesting to see what an independent journalist will report from the Big City. Will keep you posted here, and in WatchingAmerica.com.

UPDATE: For the translated Dutch article, “A White Convention,” click here



This entry was posted on Saturday, September 6th, 2008 at 7:32 pm and is filed under The New York Times, Republican Party, Newsweek Blogitics, John McCain, George W. Bush, Conservatives, Minorities, 2008 Elections. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

Viewing 20 Comments

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    The libertarian party was probably as white or whiters than the Repubican Party. The Green Party, before they lost their minds, was also very white.

    The real quesiton is can any conservative party appeal to non-whites when the average economic standings between whites on the one side and blacks and Hispanics on the other side is so large. I doubt that there is anyway to organize or crate a conservative party that would ever appeal to blacks or Hispanics.
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    Something caught my attention about this article, it seems to criticize Republicans for how few black delegates were at the convention, but I think such criticism misplaced, it is the Deocratic National Convention that seems to have far too few black delegates. Take a look at some data and my argument:

    http://people-press.org/report/?pageid=750

    64% of blacks describe themselves as Democrats, and another 21% say they lean toward the Democratic party.

    ...
    Just 7% of African Americans identify themselves as Republicans (another 3% lean Republican).


    Given those figures wouldn't we expect that for every 1 black republican delegate we would have about 10 black democratic delegates? Yet the ratio is only about 3 to 1. While the Democratic party surely favored by black voters, one has to wonder why they haven't given more delegate positions to blacks. The Republican party seems to have done a much better job at representing the black community in its selection of delegates, even if it hasn't done as well convincing black voters to support the GOP.
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    Leonidas says:

    "64% of blacks describe themselves as Democrats, and another 21% say they lean toward the Democratic party.

    ...
    Just 7% of African Americans identify themselves as Republicans (another 3% lean Republican)."


    That is exactly the point, Leonidas. Why aren't more minorities in the Republican party?

    If there were more blacks and latinos in the Party, then it would logically follow that there would be more black and latino delegates at the convention.

    But, apparently John McCain doesn't care (read the post)...he is gunning for the lily- white, evangelical, conservative base, and his selection of Sarah Palin proves it.
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    Good to see you correcting that. We can't have these 6% errors hanging out in perpetuity.
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    To pick up Leonidas thought about black representation among the delegates....

    In Dorian's posting, Healey of the NY Times said, "93 percent of the Republican delegates are white (compared with 85 percent in 2004 and 89 percent in 2000), while 5 percent are Hispanic and 2 percent are black. The Democratic delegate pool in Denver, according to the survey, was 65 percent white, 23 percent black and 11 percent Hispanic"

    If we look at demographics in the US, whites make up 80% of the population, blacks, 12.8% and hispanics make up 15.1%.

    So the GOP is disproportionately white (delegates), while the Dems have almost twice as many black delegates as the US population as a whole. Hispanics seem to be underrepresented in both parties as a percentage of the US population, but then I think that many of the illegal immigrants (included in the US population total) are hispanics, so it's not surprising to see hispanics underrepresented based on population percentage.

    I don't understand Leonidas's argument that with 7% of blacks identifying themselves as Republican and another 3% leaning Republican, that somehow the Dems are doing worse than the Republicans in having black delegates....

    Whether one uses 7% black Republicans or 10% (with the three % of blacks leaning Republican), the Republican convention only had 2% black delegates...

    As I noted above, the Dems have 23% black delegates, nearly twice as many blacks as the percentage of blacks in the US population.

    I got my US population figures from Wikipedia:

    http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/United_states_of_a...
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    Dorian, concerning your comment about the camera panning to the same senior black man on the convention floor the last night of the convention...

    Earlier in the week (I think it was Tuesday, it might have been Monday when the GOP was all mushy mushy on the "all American" theme... I noticed quite a diverse crowd in the convention. The station I watched (don't ask me which one, I don't recall what I watched that night) seemed to emphasize the "rainbow coalition" :) by focusing in on non-whites..... The few wide shot glimpses I got seemed to show an audience of mostly whites, though I couldn't be sure...

    But on subsequent nights the cameras seemed to show mostly whites.

    I did not watch Fox, but I did watch C-Span, MSNBC and CNN. I don't think I watched any other networks during the convention.
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    I think Superdestroyer has made this point many times before. The Republican Party is doomed if the 93% white ratio does not change rapidly. This country is becoming less white every year. If the GOP does not figure out a way to win large numbers of non-whites, it is literally headed for oblivion.

    Karl Rove understood this, which is why he pushed for a comprehensive immigration policy. But the white base revolted and now the Hispanic population is more Democratic than ever.
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    I'll have to Google, but wasn't the Republicans more represented by blacks from Reconstruction until FDR. This changed dramatically with the Nixon stradegy, which welcomed the Dixiecrats.
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    I hope I don't offend anyone by this, as that isn't my intention, but whites, as a whole, are more educated than minorities. And this is where I'm concerned about offending, but they also have a stronger work ethic than blacks do. This is not opinion, but something factual that can be verified in any sociology textbook. It's actually a real problem among black communities, especially with black men. Having said this, I believe it is this mentality of minorities to not want to go after "the American Dream," as so many whites do. I'm concerned that too many of them are looking for handouts, and because of this, they turn to the democrats, who are enabling their behavior even further and hindering them from living to their full potential. It's really a sad picture. Does anyone else agree on this?