By Whitney Cheshire
The ethnic and gender “Diversity Factor” of presidential campaign ’08: Should Republicans even try to defend ourselves, or just admit, “OK, you got us?”
I had a good laugh when I read this article about diversity in the presidential campaign. It’s a pretty sad-sack attempt to spin the Republican field of presidential candidates – in all of its male, Anglo, wonder – as being just as diverse as the Democratic field of hopefuls.
But I didn’t laugh for long.
Why do the Democrats have a white woman, a white man, a Hispanic man and a black man filling out their top four spots in the presidential contest while the Republicans have, well, four white men?
Please, please tell me why…
The standby response among Republicans appears to be “Well, that’s who wanted to run this year. Luck of the draw. Alan Keyes ran in 2000.”
More thoughtful explanations are those that go into specifics. Top notchers Condoleezza Rice and Colin Powell are too damaged by the Iraq War. Alberto Gonzales is just damaged. Sen. Mel Martinez is chairing the RNC. And then there’s… umm…
That’s where the discussion trails off.
This is, after all, a percentages game with a pyramiding effect. If you don’t have the right proportion of women serving at the local level, you’ll have less at the state and federal levels.
Now, it’s not like the Democrats are completely overrun with excessive representation from minority groups in the highest offices. They’re not. They’re just doing much better than the Republicans are. And this year, they turned out a presidential campaign Class of 2008 of which they should be very, very, proud, at least when it comes to gender and ethnic diversity.
Conservatives don’t like talking about race, gender
But all of this begs the next question. Why aren’t there more Republican minorities and women holding elected office?
Deep breath, heavy sigh, my honest answer…
Conservatives don’t like talking about race, and they don’t like talking about gender. We’re mostly comfortable talking about God, family and our Second-Amendment rights.
But environmental justice? Most Republicans don’t even know what that means. And they’re afraid if they hold the discussion, they’re going to end up doing what Bill Richardson did at a gay forum recently – screw up and insult someone.
In a nutshell, we’re afraid we’re going to be called racist or sexist. For the most part, we assume we’re not going to be a match on policy, so we don’t even talk.
And we alienate huge constituencies because we’re uncomfortable.
For all of you Republicans who are getting ready to send me nasty e-mails, consider this:
There are 43 black members of Congress, and all of them are Democrats. Of the 26 Hispanics in Congress, 20 are Democrats. Of the 81 women serving in Congress, 53 are Democrats.
There is hope for Republicans
OK – Do Republicans even care about this? I would say some could care less and others probably lose sleep over it.
Let’s take George W. Bush, for example. And Karl Rove.
Did anyone notice how many of those minorities-who-could-have-been-president I listed above were presidential appointees? Not only has President Bush appointed more women and minorities to the federal courts than any other president in history, he’s also appointed more Hispanics to top positions in the federal government.
This president’s policies, and that fact that he’ll talk with minorities about minorities, resulted in big leaps of support from the Hispanic community in 2004. Nationwide, Bush increased his support among Hispanics by 9 percent. In the south, he saw a 29 percent increase, and right here in
Speaking of
It’s no big secret that Rove understood the need to make the GOP more inclusive for minorities. That’s apparent in Bush’s appointments, and more recently in the RNC chairmanship of
And like
And to his credit, state GOP Chairman Allen Weh has offered unprecedented levels of support for Hispanic candidates during his tenure. And he should. Right now, there are only three Republican members of the state House of Representatives who can speak Spanish.
Focus on their issues
Here’s the final catcher. You can’t just walk out and get someone to run on your ticket without talking to them. And I don’t mean showing up at candidate debates two months before an election. I mean real, grassroots work where party officials and conservative activists start talking about those issues identified by different constituencies as important.
The NAACP’s Web site lists obesity rates as one serious issue facing its constituency that it would like leaders to tackle. La Raza talks about improving dropout rates among English learners. These are just two examples of where conservatives and liberals can work together for a common good.
The Republican Party should never become “big tent” by changing its values and philosophy. The party is strong because its values are strong. But like any business or public entity, if it wants to be a good neighbor in the community, it needs to look like a good neighbor.
The Republican Party is not a party of racists and sexists. But if we’re not careful, that’s exactly what we’re going to look like.
Republicans, get comfortable. Start talking. Because Democrats, you got us on this one. Congratulations.