While waiting for the Republican All-American Presidential Forum at historically black Morgan State University in Baltimore, Md. to start, I struck up a conversation with the student sitting next to me. She had never really followed electoral politics before, and this seemed like as good a time as any to start, she said. Later, her friend asked whether she would have voted for George Bush. She quickly retorted, "Oh, no. George Bush hates black people."
An interesting remark to make as the candidates took the stage, flanked by four empty podiums. The podiums were reserved for the front-runners absent from this PBS forum hosted by journalist Tavis Smiley. (The Democrats had taken their turn with Smiley back in June at Howard University.) George W. Bush has seen his approval ratings fall to single digits among African Americans over the past several years, but many, like the students gathered for the Morgan debate, haven't yet written off the GOP. The problem is, the GOP appears to have written them off, at least in the primary season. But it will have to convince black and Latino voters that it cares about their issues if it wants to win the next presidential election -- and if the party wants to survive.
Accepted wisdom is that the Republican Party doesn't really care that much about minority voters, or the issues pertinent to them. For the most part, Republicans have accepted that blacks and Latinos will overwhelmingly vote Democratic, and would rather spend their time rallying their predominantly white, Christian, middle-class base, or so the argument goes.
But there is still a widespread sense of outrage that the GOP candidates have systematically avoided primary debates that focus on black and Latino voters. Sure, most of them skipped the Values Voters forum as well, but because of established relationships with the Christian right, the party isn't likely to lose potential voters due to that slight. But this was the fourth forum specifically organized for voters of color that the majority of Republican candidates have skipped, prompting even their own strategists to wonder whether they'll be able to convince these voters that their party isn't a whites-only section.
In June, Duncan Hunter was the lone GOP candidate to attend the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials convention. Only Tom "Miami is a Third World Country" Tancredo came out for the NAACP Annual Convention in July. They all skipped the Urban League's summit later that month, and in September, only John McCain agreed to take part in Univision's televised Spanish-language debate, leading the channel to cancel.
Spokespeople from the missing candidates' campaigns largely cited other commitments as the reason for the snub, but one came out more directly on the topic, telling a Washington Post reporter that their candidate didn't see a reason to show up at a forum where he'd "probably get booed." But if anything, voter trends in recent years have been turning in Republicans' favor.
"Anyone who suggests that the African American community is all of one mindset on issues doesn't know the African American community very well," said Hilary Shelton, director of the NAACP's Washington bureau. "This suggests that you have written off African American voters, and in the very least, this should be seen as an opportunity to gain support."
Ninety percent of black voters vote Democratic on any given Election Day, but there's a solid 10 percent that doesn't -- and that number has been creeping higher in recent years as savvy political strategists like former Republican National Committee Chair Ken Mehlman have made a real effort to reach minority voters, and as the party has moved toward "values voters" and "compassionate conservatism" appeals. In 2000, Bush claimed 8 percent of the ballots cast by black voters, the lowest of any Republican presidential candidate since 1964. But by 2004, his support had grown to 11 percent -- a small gain, but not insignificant in a tight election -- and he had doubled the percentage of votes he received from black voters in places like Ohio and Florida.
To assume that black voters would simply boo them offstage misses the changes underway among minority voters. According to the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, between 2000 and 2004, the percentage of blacks who identified as Republicans almost tripled, and nearly a quarter of black voters categorized themselves as independents. The number of black voters registered as Democrats fell by 11 percent. Among Latino voters, Bush pulled down 40 percent of the vote in 2004, up 9 percentage points from 2000 and double what Bob Dole received from Latinos in 1996. Republicans also garnered 30 percent of the Latino vote in last year's midterm elections.
The opening for Republicans among African American voters has been growing thanks in large part to rightward leanings on social issues like abortion, immigration, school vouchers, faith-based initiatives, and gay rights. "As more African Americans become educated, become middle class," said Dr. Max Hilaire, chair of the political science department at Morgan State, "they aspire to the same issues that one would expect from a middle class voter -- education, infrastructure, housing, public safety." Which are the same issues Republicans use to woo their white, middle-class base.
Republicans' viability among Latino voters is even worse given the party's anti-illegal immigration stance. Tancredo's "Third World country" remark hasn't done much to help his image among Latinos, and neither have other candidates' promises of building border walls, shunning amnesty, and sending people back to Mexico. But despite the fact that "values voters" appeals have a chance to fare just as well among this heavily Catholic group, a recent Gallup poll found that only a third of Latinos are backing Republican candidates this election, and only 11 percent of Latinos now identify as Republicans, down 8 percent since 2005. The number that identify as Democrats has jumped from 33 percent to 42 percent, and most cite immigration as the chief issue driving them away from the GOP.
What should really worry Republicans is that the number of eligible minority voters is growing. More than 16 million Latinos will be eligible to vote in 2004, a 20 percent increase from 2000, according to the Pew Research Center. And while only 47 percent of eligible Latino voters went to the polls in 2004, according to the Pew Hispanic Center, voter registration drives by organizations like the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials and galvanizing issues like immigration, are expected to increase those figures. Growth in African American eligible voters isn't as rapid, but it is still increasing faster than the number of eligible voters in the general population, and the number of African American voters who turned out on Election Day increased from 57 percent in 2000 to 60 percent in 2004.
By 2050, the Census Bureau projects that the U.S. population will be 23 percent Latino and 16 percent black. If the Republicans want to win, they'll have to start talking to these voters sometime soon.
Mehlman, who helped PBS set up last week's event, urged the candidates to "reconsider" their decisions. As chairman, one of Mehlman's missions has been to increase the number of African American voters who vote Republican in 2006 and 2008. Former Republican congressman Jack Kemp of New York bemoaned the slight to a Washington Post reporter: "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 Republican candidates who attended last Thursday's forum wasted no time in calling out the no-shows. "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," Mike Huckabee told the crowd in his opening remarks. "And it doesn't get better when we don't show up."
Granted, showing up doesn't guarantee that the candidates have a clue about the issues of interest to minority voters. There was the laughable moment at the Morgan State forum when Sam Brownback told the crowd that he "may be the only person up here on this stage that's spent a couple nights in jail," in response to a question about the Jena 6 and the disparate treatment African Americans receive in the criminal justice system. And the cringe-inducing moment when Duncan Hunter praised the death penalty's ability to deter potential Charles Mansons. But as the NAACP's Shelton pointed out, the point of these debates is both to inform the public about candidates' positions, and to educate the candidates about issues that these voters care about.
There aren't any more Republican forums focusing on minority voters scheduled before the primary. Most of the spokespeople from the Republican campaigns noted that voter forums like these are more likely to get attention post-primary. But at that point, voters who might have swung Republican may have already turned sour on the party.
"In the very least, this is an opportunity to gain support," Shelton said. "My understanding is that the reason you campaign is to get more voters."
