A major minority problem
Every so often, drawn by the powerful allure of Fox News or the tourist attractions of Iowa, major Republican candidates for president show up at the same place.
It’s usually not as interesting as last Thursday, when they all didn’t show up at the same place.
At a debate at Morgan State University, a historically black college in Baltimore, four empty lecterns marked spaces reserved for former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, former Sen. Fred Thompson, of Tennessee, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and Sen. John McCain, of Arizona – the most highly favored, highly funded GOP candidates. The mostly black audience, at a debate intended to focus on issues important to African Americans, had to make do with hopefuls like Rep. Tom Tancredo, of Colorado, and Rep. Duncan Hunter, of California.
This is an example of why people say blacks still have it tougher.
Amazingly, all four front-runners had schedule conflicts: According to the Washington Post, they were all at fundraising events elsewhere.
It wasn’t exactly a big moment for the Big Tent view of the party.
“Frankly, I’m embarrassed,” said former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who did show up. “I’m embarrassed for our party and I’m embarrassed for those who did not come, because there’s long been a divide in this country, and it doesn’t get better when we don’t show up.”
The four front-runners, of course, did not respond.
As a moment of Republican outreach to African Americans, it ranked just behind Hurricane Katrina.
Still, black voters did better with the Republican candidates than Latino voters did. When Univision, the Spanish-language TV network, tried to set up a Latino-themed debate, only one GOP candidate, McCain, accepted the invitation. The rest looked up the Spanish phrase for “schedule conflicts.”
According to the Post, Romney, McCain and Giuliani also failed to show up at candidate events sponsored by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials and by the National Urban League.
Last week, the University of Miami offered the Republicans a second date for a Latino-themed debate, but since most of the GOP candidates are competing to see who can promise the taller wall with Mexico, it’s not clear how eager they will be to show up then, either.
(This would prevent an occasion that could be at least as interesting as the Democratic Latino-themed debate, when New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson was reproved for speaking Spanish, which was against the ground rules.)
Admittedly, nobody expects black and Latino voters to be a key in Republican presidential primaries, especially not in Iowa or New Hampshire. But it’s also hard to expect a promising future for a party that abandons interest in any voter darker than Dick Cheney.
Karl Rove had a grand strategy to make Republicans the majority party, partly by claiming a larger share of the rapidly growing Latino vote. In 2004, George Bush won between 35 percent and 40 percent, a considerable – and in the Southwest, crucial – improvement over previous GOP showings.
Rove may be nasty and manipulative, but nobody ever said he was stupid.
Now, with Republican candidates and congressmen pounding on the immigration issue, that possibility is vanishing. It hasn’t been a good time for Republicans: Latino voters are leaving and Larry Craig isn’t.
And the problem doesn’t stop there. In 2000, Bush ran well – and made active efforts – among the growing Muslim electorate, who objected to the Clinton administration’s Middle East policy. After seeing the Bush administration’s Middle East policy – and the USA Patriot Act – those voters are departing.
The position isn’t helped by comments from people like Rep. Peter King, R-N.Y., a Giuliani adviser, who warned last week there were “too many mosques” in the United States. Giuliani said soothingly that he understood King was talking about extremists, but it’s not going to make a great Republican bumper sticker.
So far in this campaign, and in Congress, you’ve got lots of Republicans operating as if the last letter in GOP stands for “Pale.”
In a country with a steadily increasing minority population, that’s going to leave some Republican seats as empty as those four lecterns at Morgan State University.