RNC: The most White delegates since pre-1968

By Ali Gharib

WASHINGTON (IPS/GIN) — Despite the increase in the United States' minority population, the presence of people of color at the Republican National Convention (RNC) early this month dwindled. Of the 2,380 delegates, only 36 were Black, according to a report from the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies: a sharp decline from the 2004 convention, which boasted a record 167 Black delegates. This year's RNC was the “Whitest” in the 40 years since the Joint Center began tracking the information.
In 1968, Richard Nixon won in major part due to his "Southern strategy" — an effort to woo White Southerners who felt threatened by the civil rights movement supported by the Democrats. Since then, the party has played to the base it developed, often at the expense of the minority vote.
Political analyst Earl Ofari Hutchinson said the Southern strategy has worked well and has yielded four decades of Republican dominance of the executive branch. "To keep that, you cannot tilt in any way to minorities. It obliterates the strategy," Hutchinson said. "It's an ideological party with a very defined conservative base. To say it's a racist party misses the point. African Americans are not the heart and soul of the party, in terms of how they win elections. It's a political calculus … Making too overt of a racial pitch is essentially going to alienate the party's base."
Hutchinson, author of the new "How the GOP Can Keep the White House, How the Democrats Can Take it Back," also noted that there was a disconnect between African Americans and the Republican platform. He said the conservative heartland appeal of militarism and reduced government is unattractive to Blacks. African Americans have overwhelmingly opposed the war in Iraq and support social programs, which they generally see as benefiting their communities. "There's always a sense that the billions being spent on the Iraq war could be better spent on domestic social programs," Hutchinson said. "These are the types of programs that could have a great impact on the lives of African Americans."
In the mid-1990s and through the George W. Bush administration, Republicans made a strong pitch to minorities and were starting to reap the electoral benefits. But the 2008 RNC showed backsliding in this regard. In his nomination-acceptance speech, McCain reaffirmed his unflinching support for the war and called for the party to get back to its Reagan-era roots — low taxes and small government — that sharply cut social programs in the 1980s.
Dr. David Bositis of the Joint Center said the reasons for this were threefold. He said a nonincumbent nominee exerts less power over the convention, and Bush comes from a state with the third largest Black population in the country. "McCain, on the other hand … has no connection to African Americans whatsoever."
But perhaps the most important reason for McCain's lack of Black support is that his Democratic rival, Sen. Barack Obama, identifies as Black and is tremendously popular among African Americans.
Republican Latinos, among whom Bush made sharp gains in 2000 and 2004, also saw their numbers dwindle at the RNC. "Bush, in his second run at it, got close to half of the Latino vote," said Brent Wilkes, the executive director of League of Unified Latin-American Citizens. "I really do think it's very disappointing, especially [for] McCain. Perhaps he felt his more important priority was to bring in the base, the White Republican, than worry about the minority voter."
According to the League, 5 percent of the Republican delegates this year were Hispanic, the lowest since 1996. Bush made gains with Latino voters with wedge issues like opposing gay marriage and pressing his faith-based initiative, which religious Latinos were attracted to. But another wedge issue, a virulent anti-immigration plank used to galvanize the party base, could undo Republican efforts to court Latinos.
In the past, McCain has been viewed as a moderate on immigration. He cosponsored compromise immigration-reform legislation with Sen. Ted Kennedy (D) in 2005 and helped craft a 2007 update, both of which were defeated. But to placate the base, McCain backed away from his support for legalizing immigrants already in the U.S. and guest-worker permits for those wanting in.
About 12.5 percent of U.S. citizens are Black, and nearly 15 percent are Latino. A Census Bureau study said minorities will be the majority of the U.S. population in 34 years. According to the League, 11 percent of delegates to the Democratic National Convention in Denver were Latino. The Joint Center report, "Blacks and the 2008 Democratic National Convention," said 1,079 of the 4,418 Democratic delegates were Black.
While the count of Black Republican delegates dropped by 131, Democratic delegates increased by 208, the Joint Center said.