Don't Forget What Happened to Pete Wilson in California

GOP determined to avoid minority voters?
Republicans are passing up opportunities right and left
by Carl Leubsdorf:
06:58 AM CDT on Thursday, September 20, 2007
Dallas Morning News

Nothing has more significance for America's long-term political evolution than the demographic changes that are diversifying a mostly white nation.

But you'd never know it from the Republican presidential race.

Not only is the GOP field all white and male – in a year that Democratic contenders include an African-American senator, a Hispanic governor and a woman – but its candidates seem determined to avoid many of the nation's more diverse groups.

So far, most Republicans have bypassed three chances to woo the fastest-growing, most tempting minority, Hispanics. They also turned down a chance to appear before a leading group of gays and lesbians and have avoided some unions, where Republicans poll a significant minority.

...Their actions defy warnings that their party needs to expand its share of minority votes or doom itself to minority status. After 2000, President Bush's strategists said he'd lose in 2004 unless he increased his share of the Hispanic vote to 40 percent.

He did – and he won.

Last year, after most leading Republicans denounced his immigration plan providing a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants already here, the party's share of the Hispanic vote dropped sharply.

Just last week, The Wall Street Journal, a pillar of conservatism, contrasted how the parties approached issues of concern to Hispanics in recent debates and warned of more trouble ahead.

"While GOP candidates debated the urgency of erecting a fence from California to Texas along the Mexican border, Democrats debated in Spanish on Univision," it said.

"Tone matters in politics," it added, noting Latino support for the California GOP skidded when Gov. Pete Wilson sought to deny education and health care benefits to the children of illegal aliens.

...Last week, Univision, the leading Spanish-language television network, canceled a GOP debate aimed at Hispanic voters when only Mr. McCain accepted.

A Sept. 9 Democratic debate on Univision drew the full field and more than 2 million viewers.

The canceled GOP debate, which sponsors say they hope to reschedule, was the third time in three months that most Republicans passed up a chance to discuss issues of concern to Hispanics...



Carl P. Leubsdorf is Washington Bureau chief of The Dallas Morning News. His e-mail address is cleubsdorf@dallasnews.com.

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