"Sir, 'The Shocker' is with your pinky, not your ring finger."Former Congressman, Bob Dole VP candidate, Buffalo Bills QB, and supply-sider Jack Kemp (R-NY) made either an astute or completely oblivious observation in last Wednesday's Washington Post. The article, "Debate No-Shows Worry GOP Leaders", addressed the refusal of leading Republican presidential candidates to attend debates targeted at primarily African-American and Latino voters. Rudolph Giuliani, Fred Thompson, Mitt "Way!" Romney, and John McCain have all begged off a debate hosted by talk show host Tavis Smiley to be held at Baltimore's Morgan State University and aired on PBS; all save for John McCain also skipped a similar forum broadcast on the Spanish-language network Univision. Concerned that the GOP could be sabotaging its future electoral prospects by essentially bricking itself off from the growing electoral influence of minority groups, Congressman Kemp said:
Kemp's criticism is particularly resonant because he is not the first Republican to evoke the Arcadian imagery of the country club to characterize the party's aloofness. In fact, "Country Club Republican" is the gentlemanly pejorative for practitioners of the socially moderate-cum-liberal, business-friendly but economically "responsible", non-ideological Republicanism practiced by the Dwight Eisenhowers, Nelson Rockefellers, and Tom Keans of the world. The movement conservatives who currently control the GOP came to power deriding these Mayflower-descended elites, sensing that they were not sufficiently dedicated to a socially conservative, anti-tax message - the message the party has used to successfully woo millions of working class whites into the GOP fold. The Country Club set has managed to retain control of the Republican Party across the Northeast, where the mainstream GOP message holds the least appeal, but their grip even here is tenuous; they are being squeezed into irrelevance by the increasing regional dominance of the Democratic Party, a development rank-and-file Republicans are attributing more and more to insufficient ideological purity amongst their leadership.
Kemp's argument is merely a logical extension of this viewpoint. Taking the place of patrician stuffed shirts is the burgeoning "if you're white, you're right" mentality of Republican leaders, reacting both to the hard line anti-illegal immigration positions of the rank-and-file, as well as an implicit anti-urbanism that is now virtually a plank in the party platform. Republican presidential candidates, concerned with appealing to primary voters, are under tremendous pressure to demonstrate their bona fides on the immigration issue. This manifests itself not only in a game of "see-if-you-can-top-this" vis-a-vis who's immigration plan is more draconian, but as a rhetorical firefight where no one (again, save John McCain, and even he's trying to change the subject) wants to be seen ceding a sliver of ground. Skipping the Univision debate was a short term tactical maneuver designed to avoid the appearance of pandering to an audience unschooled in the Mother tongue - a voting block unlikely to provide much support in, say, the Iowa caucuses.
Essentially Republicans find themselves straddling the fault line between the discontent of their traditional white base and the fact that Latinos represent the fastest growing segment of the American electorate. While GOP candidates are quick to differentiate between legal and illegal immigration, and swifter still to decry overt xenophobia or racism, the fact of the matter is that the ugly tenor of the debate is still audible through the static. Many Latinos who are either American citizens or reside here legally fear that the tremendous gains their community has made, economically and in terms of larger social acceptance, could be eradicated by a heavy handed enforcement-oriented approach towards illegal aliens. By identifying itself too strongly with anti-illegal immigration policies, the GOP could unintentionally signal to Latinos that it is either uninterested in their votes or actively working against their best interests - a perception mirroring the attitude of African-Americans towards the party. Unlike African-Americans, however, the GOP cannot concede the Latino vote to the Democrats without dealing a severe blow to the party's ability to compete, especially in swing states where Latino voters sometimes form a significant proportion of the electorate.
Kemp's concerns, however, are not merely a reaction to the arithmetic of political expediency. If the Republican party is to survive as a viable political organization deep into the 21st century, it is going to have to not only win a greater share of the minority vote, it is going to have to convert more minorities to Republicanism. President Bush, who carried 40% of the Latino vote in 2004, was attuned to this distinction, effectively highlighting the links between his governing philosophy and the traditional cultural conservatism and strong work ethic characterizing many Latino American households. He has also prioritized the placement of African-Americans and Latinos in positions of prominence in his administration: Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice as his Secretaries of State, ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and former Secretary of Education Rod Paige. One can characterize these appointments as mere tokenism, not indicative of the overall Bush track record, but it should be acknowledged that tokenism is certainly not confined solely to the Republican party, and that even token appointments can send a strong signal about a person or party's political values.
Fascinatingly, Bush's most ambitious attempt to enhance Republican prestige with Latinos was his plan to dispose with the illegal immigration issue once and for all - the very same plan that all of the Republicans hoping to succeed him (again, save John McCain) are defining themselves in opposition to. The President proposed an amnesty program that would offer the estimated 12 million illegal aliens residing in the United States a path to citizenship and would establish a temporary guest worker program, permitting migrant laborers to enter and exit the U.S. legally. It's a powerful idea; by enacting such an amnesty, Bush could essentially have his own Lyndon Johnson moment, enfranchising a significant new bloc of voters while demonstrating to Latino community that the Republican Party is capable of advancing its interests. It's not precisely analogous to 1964; after all, the Democrats are unlikely to try and exploit an amnesty's polarizing effects, as the Republican Party did with the Civil Rights movement in developing the so-called "Southern Strategy." However, it would play a big role in maintaining the GOP's viability with Latino voters, preventing the Democrats from gaining an immutable political advantage. An amnesty would be a practical demonstration of the Republicans' vaunted commitment to hard work and economic opportunity; what could be better than allowing more people a shot at owning a piece of the American dream?
Bush's amnesty is, of course, dead at the hands of his fellow Republicans. Certainly I don't wish to characterize the President's plan as flawless or perhaps even the best course of action, but the policy's fate was not arrived at based upon its merits anyway. The GOP's base revolted against the very concept of an amnesty, and Republican leaders, already reeling from Iraq and scandal after scandal, decided that backing any version of the President's plan was too costly. The primary circus, with its demands for demonstrations of fidelity to the mainstream Republican program, is only serving to exacerbate the situation.
Queried about the front-runners' apparent unwillingness to address Latino and African-American audiences, one unnamed adviser to a GOP presidential candidate retorted, as only an anonymous hack can, "What's the win?" The moral response: having a presidential candidate demonstrate that he won't totally ignore roughly a quarter of the American people, a figure sure to have grown since the 2000 Census. The cynical response: you won't join the Whigs in the history books by 2050.
We sound like we don't want immigration; we sound like we don't want black people to vote for us. What are we going to do -- meet in a country club in the suburbs one day? If we're going to be competitive with people of color, we've got to ask them for their vote.The cheap laugh here is obviously the idea that Republicans don't already meet in a country club in the suburbs. Arguably, a not insignificant reason for the Democrats' 2006 victories was that voters in swing districts and states perceived their representatives to be out of touch, pigging out on the tabs of K Street lobbyists instead of addressing their constituents' needs and concerns. The GOP, which had swept into Washington in 1994 with a mandate to purge the excesses of Democrat's nearly 40 year reign, left town twelve years later as the lap dog of America's wealthy corporate elite.
Kemp's criticism is particularly resonant because he is not the first Republican to evoke the Arcadian imagery of the country club to characterize the party's aloofness. In fact, "Country Club Republican" is the gentlemanly pejorative for practitioners of the socially moderate-cum-liberal, business-friendly but economically "responsible", non-ideological Republicanism practiced by the Dwight Eisenhowers, Nelson Rockefellers, and Tom Keans of the world. The movement conservatives who currently control the GOP came to power deriding these Mayflower-descended elites, sensing that they were not sufficiently dedicated to a socially conservative, anti-tax message - the message the party has used to successfully woo millions of working class whites into the GOP fold. The Country Club set has managed to retain control of the Republican Party across the Northeast, where the mainstream GOP message holds the least appeal, but their grip even here is tenuous; they are being squeezed into irrelevance by the increasing regional dominance of the Democratic Party, a development rank-and-file Republicans are attributing more and more to insufficient ideological purity amongst their leadership.
Kemp's argument is merely a logical extension of this viewpoint. Taking the place of patrician stuffed shirts is the burgeoning "if you're white, you're right" mentality of Republican leaders, reacting both to the hard line anti-illegal immigration positions of the rank-and-file, as well as an implicit anti-urbanism that is now virtually a plank in the party platform. Republican presidential candidates, concerned with appealing to primary voters, are under tremendous pressure to demonstrate their bona fides on the immigration issue. This manifests itself not only in a game of "see-if-you-can-top-this" vis-a-vis who's immigration plan is more draconian, but as a rhetorical firefight where no one (again, save John McCain, and even he's trying to change the subject) wants to be seen ceding a sliver of ground. Skipping the Univision debate was a short term tactical maneuver designed to avoid the appearance of pandering to an audience unschooled in the Mother tongue - a voting block unlikely to provide much support in, say, the Iowa caucuses.
Essentially Republicans find themselves straddling the fault line between the discontent of their traditional white base and the fact that Latinos represent the fastest growing segment of the American electorate. While GOP candidates are quick to differentiate between legal and illegal immigration, and swifter still to decry overt xenophobia or racism, the fact of the matter is that the ugly tenor of the debate is still audible through the static. Many Latinos who are either American citizens or reside here legally fear that the tremendous gains their community has made, economically and in terms of larger social acceptance, could be eradicated by a heavy handed enforcement-oriented approach towards illegal aliens. By identifying itself too strongly with anti-illegal immigration policies, the GOP could unintentionally signal to Latinos that it is either uninterested in their votes or actively working against their best interests - a perception mirroring the attitude of African-Americans towards the party. Unlike African-Americans, however, the GOP cannot concede the Latino vote to the Democrats without dealing a severe blow to the party's ability to compete, especially in swing states where Latino voters sometimes form a significant proportion of the electorate.
Kemp's concerns, however, are not merely a reaction to the arithmetic of political expediency. If the Republican party is to survive as a viable political organization deep into the 21st century, it is going to have to not only win a greater share of the minority vote, it is going to have to convert more minorities to Republicanism. President Bush, who carried 40% of the Latino vote in 2004, was attuned to this distinction, effectively highlighting the links between his governing philosophy and the traditional cultural conservatism and strong work ethic characterizing many Latino American households. He has also prioritized the placement of African-Americans and Latinos in positions of prominence in his administration: Colin Powell and Condoleeza Rice as his Secretaries of State, ex-Attorney General Alberto Gonzales, and former Secretary of Education Rod Paige. One can characterize these appointments as mere tokenism, not indicative of the overall Bush track record, but it should be acknowledged that tokenism is certainly not confined solely to the Republican party, and that even token appointments can send a strong signal about a person or party's political values.
Fascinatingly, Bush's most ambitious attempt to enhance Republican prestige with Latinos was his plan to dispose with the illegal immigration issue once and for all - the very same plan that all of the Republicans hoping to succeed him (again, save John McCain) are defining themselves in opposition to. The President proposed an amnesty program that would offer the estimated 12 million illegal aliens residing in the United States a path to citizenship and would establish a temporary guest worker program, permitting migrant laborers to enter and exit the U.S. legally. It's a powerful idea; by enacting such an amnesty, Bush could essentially have his own Lyndon Johnson moment, enfranchising a significant new bloc of voters while demonstrating to Latino community that the Republican Party is capable of advancing its interests. It's not precisely analogous to 1964; after all, the Democrats are unlikely to try and exploit an amnesty's polarizing effects, as the Republican Party did with the Civil Rights movement in developing the so-called "Southern Strategy." However, it would play a big role in maintaining the GOP's viability with Latino voters, preventing the Democrats from gaining an immutable political advantage. An amnesty would be a practical demonstration of the Republicans' vaunted commitment to hard work and economic opportunity; what could be better than allowing more people a shot at owning a piece of the American dream?
Bush's amnesty is, of course, dead at the hands of his fellow Republicans. Certainly I don't wish to characterize the President's plan as flawless or perhaps even the best course of action, but the policy's fate was not arrived at based upon its merits anyway. The GOP's base revolted against the very concept of an amnesty, and Republican leaders, already reeling from Iraq and scandal after scandal, decided that backing any version of the President's plan was too costly. The primary circus, with its demands for demonstrations of fidelity to the mainstream Republican program, is only serving to exacerbate the situation.
Queried about the front-runners' apparent unwillingness to address Latino and African-American audiences, one unnamed adviser to a GOP presidential candidate retorted, as only an anonymous hack can, "What's the win?" The moral response: having a presidential candidate demonstrate that he won't totally ignore roughly a quarter of the American people, a figure sure to have grown since the 2000 Census. The cynical response: you won't join the Whigs in the history books by 2050.
