I think there's a lot of potential for discussion of how much the GOP is actually ignoring minorities and their issues in this political cycle (when they're not outright offending them with their positions on immigration and other issues). This piece raises several points that I think could go places.


http://www.dailykos.com/storyonly/2007/9/20/13148/5644

"Republicans don't talk to minority groups"
by MissLaura
Thu Sep 20, 2007 at 10:14:54 AM MST

After all of the top Republican candidates have decided to skip the Tavis Smiley-organized debate originally planned for next week at the historically black Morgan State University, and all the major candidates other than John McCain (and does he even count as major anymore?) declined to participate in the Univision Spanish-language debate, it's finally occurring to a couple of prominent Republicans to be concerned that their presidential candidates are completely unwilling to face questions of interest to black and Latino voters.

Jack Kemp:



Newt Gingrich:




There's an awful lot to address here, but first let's stop to just marvel at the notion that Newt Gingrich is saying "we are in this cycle where Republicans don't talk to minority groups" and that's ok. Yes, he's being critical of that, and yes, the Washington Post and the Boston Globe are doing articles on the failure, but still! You get the feeling that if Newt Gingrich and Jack Kemp were not willing to criticize the candidates, the fact that Republican candidates are not willing to talk to black people would be a non-story.

The Carpetbagger Report gets at one crucial point in the traditional media treatment of Republican debate-skippage:



But equally important is a point Josh Marshall made repeatedly about three years ago: the way the black vote is viewed, not just by Republicans afraid to face tough questions at a debate, but in interpreting electoral mandates. As best I can tell, this was Marshall's first foray into the issue:



He came back to it here and here, and, most importantly, dealt with a truly moronic attempt to refute the claim:



So yes, what we see in the Republican candidates' refusal to attend a black-organized debate or a Spanish-language debate can be understood as a failure to "reach out" in some kind of symbolic way. But there's good reason to see it as something more fundamental, not just not wanting to face a hostile audience or even to avoid particular questions, but a total disinterest in or even hostility to the broader issues raised, or the very imperative of speaking to people of color. To these candidates, it probably would be quite all right to just meet in a country club - if only they could win elections that way.

For Giuliani, at least, skipping these events is totally consistent with his history. As New York mayor he refused to meet with black leaders and on several occasions exploited racial tensions or used racially coded language. And he is on the one hand the national front-runner in the Republican race and on the other the guy whose big liability is supposed to be his liberalism on some social issues.

So that's where this country is: on the one hand you have the Republicans, who feel no need to talk to black people, and on the other hand, you have the traditional media, which thinks that for a party to get its winning margins from black voters as opposed to from homophobes (or, as they like to call them, "values voters") is vaguely illegitimate. Then there are Democrats, who for their understanding and embrace of issues of importance to non-white Americans (however partial and inadequate it may be) occasionally get to hear their wins derided as not quite real.

Hey, at least their women aren't out there talking smack about the other candidates. Those are real men.

what percentage of african americans of voting age actually go to the polls?

How many are going to vote republican no matter what they say? The Democratic candidates dont spend a lot of time in the Bible belt rural areas?

Could they get more votes if they bothered to campaign to the minority groups? Yeah, probably... enough to make any difference in an election either way? Probably not.

That is the attitude that lost the 2004 election. Howard Dean as DNC Chairman instituted a "50 State Strategy" to build grassroots Democratic Party support in all areas of the country. They've decided that even if you can't win in the reddest of areas, just having a legitimate presence goes a long way towards getting your message out to everyone. When you beleive that your message has universal appeal, as the Democrats do, then you want to reach out to everyone you can. This strategy resulted in the Democratic victories in 2006, including Senate gains in Montana, Virginia, Missouri and Pennsylvania, and electing Democratic governors in such red states as Arizona, Wyoming, Kansas, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and pickups in red states like Colorado, Arkansas and Ohio.

Democrats have learned their lesson.

yeah, they are just going to ignore top 15 states that move their primaries ahead of Iowa and New Hampshire.

That makes no sense. Do you really think people in Florida are going to vote Republican in the general election because the DNC decided to enforce their rules and throw out Florida's delegates to the convention? The RNC did the same to them, BTW, and even if they hadn't, I think a lot of Dems in Florida know that the reason they ended up getting shut out was because the GOP dominated legislature in Florida did this. This is not going to affect any votes in the general election, I guarantee it.

I was actually talking about michigan... where the mayor of traditionally democratic detroit has said that he will not back a candidate if they choose to ignore michigan for the primaries... so even though he is corrupt as fuck, some people still vote based on who "backs" a candidate...

There were actually a couple interesting articles about Reps reaching out to Hispanic (read: Cuban) voters. One was an actual article, the other was an editorial, written by a die hard Conservative, who pretty well articulated the need of the GOP to not forget about, or take for granted, these voters.

Democrats have Puerto Ricans and Mexicans largely in their camp, and while the GOP has long had strong Cuban support, that is eroding as second generation Cuban-Americans who aren't die hard Republicans because they hate JFK realize that the party has really made no effort to reach out to them lately. They can no longer simply count on support of Cuban-Americans as they once were able to. The Democrats seeing this, pounced on this golden opportunity to possibly gain key inroads to winning Florida, (see the Univision spanish debate). I'm sure the GOP will wake up soon and the battle over the Hispanic vote should be interesting in the coming year or so.

And this is news how?

Republican's will never get these voting blocks. And Democrats should make due with it.

These groups, when compared with Asians and whites, are largely uneducated, and low income. These are the victims that have been created by Democrats over the last decades, and Republicans will never get these votes because they don't whore themselves out like Democrat's. They're against increases in welfare, and increases in medicare and medicaid, they wanted to privatize social security, they are generally against the sort of thing that stupid poor people want. Republicans are the evil, hateful, enemy, that wants old people to eat dog food, and poor people to starve or freeze to death. Democrats can shamelessly bait these people into voting for them for decades, with just slight increases in government handouts, but nothing that really fixes their condition, or their childrens condition (this is particularly true for black's). Slight increases here and there, gradually they encompass more people through more encompassing programs, make them feel victimized and as if they are owed something to the government, most importantly, they make them dependent. Couple that with a monopoly on the school system, and you have a perfect base to create a revolving door, a constant supply of dependent poor people that believe Democrats are actually helping them out.

Without these people, the Democrats would be sunk, and with more of them, they'd probably win more elections. The Democrats rely, very heavily, on these types of people. Cleveland, Phili, Buffalo, DC, all Democrat strongholds, all very poor, with very high unemployment, with very large minority populations. And they feel as if they are entitled something. Democrats fill this void.

These people will absolutely never vote for Republican's despite the actual results that their Democrat politicians have given them. Detroit, Phili, and Buffalo have been run into the ground over the course of decades now, and will these people ever open their minds to alternative thought and conservative ideology? Probably not. Buffalo will most likely continue to decay.

The Uncle Toms that vote for Republicans will vote for Republicans regardless of whether Republican's go to minority events or not. It's not necessary.

There is jut about nothing for Republican's to gain from attending these events. "I wanna cut welfare, privatize social security, and cut back on government healthcare," is something that will probably get you shot in DC. There's no sense in trying to change the votes that already have their mind made up. Edwards might as well start campaigning at the H3 club. Or Hillary talking to a cowboy convention.

As for Democrat gains in red states, how many of those Democrats were Blue Dog Democrats David?

Little Wing knows how to read the minds of poor people and minorities.

The biggest appeal Republicans probably have for these groups is the anti-gay marriage / anti-abortion vote from religious/ 'socially conservative' folk. To LW's point, these issues probably aren't strong enough to overcome the conflicting economic priorities of Republicans and minority voters, but hey, they're already illogical positions to begin with.

All of that is just a bullshit excuse to totally keep these people out of the political process. Pure and fucking simple. If they need to be on welfare or can't afford to pay the bills, they aren't worth a shit anyway.

The thing is, I didn't know it was possible for one person to read the minds of an entire demographic of voters and expect it to be accurate or contain any truth. It's a worthless rant from an idiot, but it never fails to completely amaze me.

I for one feel strongly that the resources allocated to disenfranchising minorities would be far better spent disenfranchising retirees.

But seriously, I can't stress enough that the mentality behind LW's post is exactly why conservatives don't get minority votes. It's because they write off an entire segment of the population as simply being too stupid and worthless to get off government-assisted money. As if living off government-cheese is the only thing that keeps these people going. As if their political interests were so one dimensional. How could anybody blame them for not voting Republican?

You aren't on board with my position that "The gays are coming!!!" has universal appeal with bigots of every race and creed?

Sad but true.

Nope. Doesn't deserve a response.

What would we have to do to disgust you so much that you'd stop posting here? Your "alternative" opinion is no longer of any value to anyone.

Have you tried the "Flock of Eagles" board, or whatever they were called. They'd dig you.

They don't get Latino votes because of their policies on immigration. Why should they try to get that segment when it's going to alienate the large racist part of their voters (not to say that people who support immigration laws are racist, but I think one could argue that a decent percentage of them are)? They don't get African American votes because they (rightly) oppose affirmative action programs. Why target them if they know they're not going to get them? It would be like the green party making it a focus to get the logging companies' votes, or the libertarian party targeting a communist youth organization.

I think that's basically the point teh author of teh original piece was making. GOP policies don't favor minorities, therefore they don't make teh effort to get their votes, and there's the underlying implication that if teh GOP did try to get minority votes, they'd alienate some in their base.

Personally, I think that if the GOP made any attempt, even a failed attempt, to appeal to minority voters, even if it's on core GOP issues, not welfare or immigration or other issues the GOP have consciously made divisive in order to satisfy the redneck caucus, that some more minority voters would be courted to vote for teh GOP. If the GOP treated minorities as if they were just VOTERS, just like they treat white people, maybe some minority VOTERS would vote for the GOP.

But this is the GOP of Karl Rove, where 50.1% is all you need, and fuck everyone else. It was stupid for Democrats to write off the South and the Plains for the last two general elections, and it is stupid for the GOP to write off minorities. A few more minority votes in a place like Ohio, Wisconsin, Florida, or Virginia could be the difference between victory and defeat in your average election year.

I mean could the outcome for the GOP candidates have been any worse if they actually showed up to some of these events they've "had scheduling conflicts with" in the past few months? Couldn't possibly, as far as I can tell.