Don Campbell Writes:

Why Ga. should be on GOP’s mind

ATLANTA — As Republican strategists ponder the road to resurrection after their party’s election debacle, I’d suggest they come to Atlanta to take a ride into the future, one that just might inject them with a dose of reality.

They should hire a tour bus and head northeast from Midtown Atlanta on Buford Highway, hard by Interstate 85, following it for several miles before turning south toward Stone Mountain on Jimmy Carter Boulevard. If they blocked out everything but the cantinas, taquerias, Asian flea markets, mercados, tofu houses, Thai video stores, dim sum diners, kimchi cafes and pawn shops, they might think they were in Queens, N.Y., or parts of Los Angeles. If they got lost and wandered into the parking lot of one of the largest Swaminarayan Hindu temples outside India, they might be even more confused. In fact, they would be in Gwinnett County, Ga.

GOP Not Feeling So Grand

Wedged between Atlanta’s close-in suburbs in DeKalb County, where the minority turned into the majority in the 1990s, and the leafy, sprawling enclaves of mini-mansions and estates to the north, Gwinnett County is one of the most diverse, polyglot jurisdictions in the country. More than 100 languages are spoken in county schools. A majority of students are minorities. But just 18 years ago, in the 1990 Census, Gwinnett was 90% white, rock-ribbed Republican and Exhibit A in the pantheon of suburban Sun Belt counties that supposedly would mold and sustain realignment to a permanent Republican majority.

Today, it is on the verge of becoming majority-minority, with Latinos, African Americans and Asians in near equal proportions, and the GOP vote is shriveling. Twenty years ago, George H.W. Bush got 75% of the presidential vote. Four years ago, George W. Bush got 66%. On Nov. 4, John McCain drew just 55%.

Taking the long view

“Enduring majorities” often turn out to be tenuous, but my bet is that Gwinnett County is not an anomaly. Twenty miles to the west, suburban Cobb County is undergoing the same transformation. McCain’s narrow win statewide in Georgia and his loss to Obama in Virginia and North Carolina are leading indicators for national population projections: In about three decades, whites will be a minority in the USA. In 15 years, a majority of children younger than 18 will be minorities.

So the Republicans, as I see it, have two options. The short-term — and shortsighted — response is to chalk 2008 up to a bad economy and an unpopular incumbent, repackage the same old political bromides and count on liberals to yank Barack Obama so far left that they’ll generate a voter backlash. Or they can take the long view and figure out how to survive and even thrive as the percentage of middle- and upper-class whites shrinks.

   White Christian BIGOTS [ Enlarge Pic ] —    Race Mixing is COMMUNISM! | In 2008: Obama is a SOCIALIST!
   – Ring a bell? 1950s & 60s McCarthyism is still alive in America!

Backlashes do occur. Bill Clinton and the Democrats experienced a sizeable one in 1994 after raising taxes and trying to force-feed nationalized health care. Four years later, House Speaker Newt Gingrich and Republicans faced a backlash of their own after Gingrich overplayed his hand in a budget showdown with Clinton by forcing a shutdown of the federal government.

I don’t dismiss philosophy or personality, but winning elections is a numbers game, and it’s foolish to think that even a revived party can thrive once its base becomes a minority.

Many years ago, I wrote stories about how Republicans were seriously committed to bringing blacks into their tent. The theory then was that blacks are conservative on issues such as gay rights and school choice. They are devout churchgoers. And as they moved into the middle class and out to the suburbs, African Americans would — chameleon-like — adopt the conservative economic philosophy of their new neighbors. It was a pipedream then, and it’s a pipedream now: Obama’s historic election has merely solidified the Democratic Party’s appeal to black voters.

An opportunity

Other large minority groups, especially Latinos and Asians, should be a more promising target for Republicans. Both groups are known for their close-knit family structures. Both have an incredible work ethic. Both thrive on entrepreneurship. If you doubt that, go to a Sam’s Club and observe who’s rolling out the flatbeds loaded with supplies to stock small shops and restaurants.

But the Republicans’ obsession with immigrants here illegally blinds them to the opportunity to craft a credible outreach strategy. McCain had a moderate approach to immigration reform but was nominated by a party of immigrant-bashers. He got just 31% of the Latino vote and only 35% of Asians.

It’s an absurd position for a party in decline. Most of the 10- or 11- or however-many-million illegal immigrants in this country aren’t going anywhere. Rather than whining that Democrats are protecting illegals because they see them as voters-in-waiting, the GOP should be fighting tooth and nail to get them legalized, to get every immigrant registered to vote, and to tirelessly recruit them to the Republican cause.

A political party on a collision course with demography has no choice but to embrace diversity. You can do the math, or you can eat, drink and shop your way up Buford Highway.

About The Author: Don Campbell — teaches journalism at Emory University in Atlanta and is a member of USA TODAY’s board of contributors. Don Campbell’s 30-plus years in journalism included nearly two decades as a Washington reporter, editor and columnist for Gannett Newspapers and USA Today. He also served as director of the Washington Journalism Center and of a fellowship program for journalists newly assigned to Washington. He taught journalism at Northwestern University, the University of Oregon and Arizona State University before he coming to Emory. Author of “Inside the Beltway: A Guide to Washington Reporting,” Don is also a freelance writer.

References:

Popularity: 11% [?]

American politics is tribal.

Not in the sense of Kikuyu and Luo and Kalenjin and Kamba and all our competing ethnic groups, but racial and ethnic components do account for the differences in this richly diverse country.

At the most basic level in the nation of 305.3 million people, it is Black and White. Obama Versus McCain.

Then there are the Hispanics, a sizebable group with about 14 per cent of the population compared to about 13.3 per cent that is black.

There are the Asians, who are a distinct minority at five per cent, and the largely forgotten and ignored Native Americans, who make up about 1.5 per cent of the population.

Among the whites, things get very complicated, depending on how people chose to classify themselves in the census.

There are the majority White Anglo-Saxon Protestants. There are Catholics. There are Hispanic whites.

There are religious or ethnic groups like the Jews; and there are the various white ethnicities â?? Italian, Greek, German, Dutch, Irish and many more that went into the original melting pot.

Within the white community, for instance, political pollsters look not just at the above distinctions but also at sub-genres like education, sexual orientation, region, occupation, rural or urban, farming or industrial, new industry (IT) or old industry (mining, motorplants) and so on.

These are the Tribes of America for whose votes Barack Obama and John McCain are competing to win one of the most compelling presidential campaigns in US history.

Democratic candidate Barack Obama was in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on Saturday, the latest stop on a whirlwind tour between last Tuesday’s second presidential debate in Nashville, Tennessee and the final debate set for New York on Wednesday.

Before Philadelphia, Mr Obama made several stops in Ohio while his running mate Senator Joe Biden campaigned in Florida, another key state whose electoral vote could determine the outcome of the election.

Republican candidate John McCain and running mate Sarah Palin have been equally busy in the week or so between the two debates, covering, sometimes together and sometimes separately, Pennsylvania, Florida, Ohio and Winsconsin.

National opinion polls show Mr Obama increasing his lead over Mr McCain, reaching double-digit 11 percentage points — 52 percent to 41 per cent — according to the latest Gallup daily tracking poll at the end of the week.

The margin was mirrored in the latest Newsweek poll. But outside the major national events like the presidential debates, the campaign is being fought at the grassroots level, block by block, town by town and state by state.

   A pro-Obama campaign march in Nashville, Tennessee earlier this month

What matters in the American political system is not the national popular vote, but the state-by-state popular vote which determines the number of electoral votes through which the electoral college elects the president.

The outcome in some states can already be predicted — New York generally votes Democratic — so the candidates are concentrating their efforts on the so-called battleground states where the outcome is still uncertain.

There is no need, for instance, for Mr Obama to spend too much in California where he already commands nearly 54 per cent of the popular vote to Mr McCain’s 39 per cent.

The Republican candidate would not bother too much about the state’s 55 electoral votes because he has little chance of overturning Mr Obama’s majority.

The reverse holds true in another large state like Texas with its 34 electoral votes where Mr McCain holds an unassailable 51 per cent advantage over Mr Obama’s 38 per cent.

So the campaigns are almost over in California and Texas and in a large number of other states where solid red indicates support for the Republican candidate while solid blue shows support for the Democrat.

But then there are the states where the outcome is still too close to call; they are coloured light blue or pink depending which way they lean.

And there are some states where the candidates are virtually tied; they are marked with blue and red checks.

Almost all the polls now indicate that if the certain states for either candidate are counted, Mr Obama has a clear lead.

If he also captures the states leaning strongly towards him — those where he has more than a five per cent margin — then all the key pollsters including Reuters, Newsweek, Zogby, Gallup, give him an unassailable victory over Mr McCain in electoral votes.

Some estimates already give Mr Obama just over the 270 electoral votes needed to secure victory; most give him a clear margin of between 330 and 350 electoral votes compared to Mr McCain’s 190 to 210.

Mr Obama’s tremendous surge is being attributed to the way in which he has steadily eaten into the regional and demographic groups that have been supportive of McCain or of the Republican party in general.

States like Michigan, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Virginia, North Carolina, Missouri and quite a few others were just weeks ago solidly for McCain. Now they are seen as leaning towards Mr Obama or are too close to call.

According to the conventional wisdom of electoral demographics, Mr Obama’s key support comes from non-white groups including blacks and Hispanics; the youthful 18-29 age group; those with postgraduate educations; women; the urban poor, mostly black; and groups that are ambivalent towards religion.

Mr McCain’s strengths have been among whites, other than Hispanic; senior citizens over 65 years; the traditional white Anglo-Saxon Protestants (WASPS) and whites who attend church frequently or for whom religion is important.

On the demographic map, therefore, Mr McCain’s support base has been in the traditional Republican strongholds, the middle and central United States that are largely agricultural bastions of conservatism; while Mr Obama’s support has been in the big cities on the densely populated East and West coasts.

His support among whites has been limited, as described above, to young, modern, well-educated urbanites.

That is what has changed. I was at an Obama campaign march in Nashville, Tennessee, last Tuesday on the same day the two presidential candidates had their second debate.

Nashville is the home of country music.

Tennessee as a whole is a very white and conservative state; guns, church and ranching are the defining characteristics. It is a solid red state where the 11 electoral votes are all but assured for Mr McCain.

But observing the Obama march around Belmont University, one could hardly have believed it.

The participants were mostly white, as would be expected of Nashville. But they were not just the young, educated and modern white generation generally seen to side with Mr Obama.

The chanting crowd included middle-aged to elderly white men and women of the type that instinctively would be fearful of and hostile to the prospects of an Obama presidency.

That is the demographic that Obama is stealing from McCain in states around the country and the one that might secure him victory.

Article — Originally posted in The Daily Nation on 10/11/08

Popularity: 11% [?]

Early on in the presidential campaign my loyalties were divided between Governor Bill Richardson and Sen. Barack Obama. Obama was the Young Turk with the gift of eloquence and the message of hope, and Richardson was the seasoned politician with the Mother of all Resumes.

Richardson is supremely qualified to be president, he has a resume that few can match: Governor of New Mexico, Congressman, Chairman of the 2004 Democratic National Convention, Chairman of the Democratic Governors Association in 2005 and 2006, United States Secretary of Energy and United States Ambassador to the United Nations.

But to be honest it wasn’t Richardson’s impressive credentials that captured my interest — it was his ethnicity. Unfortunately, when many Americans see a Latino, they imagine he’s a landscaper, carpenter, field worker or dishwasher. Richardson is an extremely successful Hispanic who has shattered all the stereotypes. I yearned for Richardson to be the next president of the United States because of what it would mean for Hispanics in particular and for race relations in general.

This Latino columnist would have been delighted if Richardson had secured the Democratic nomination. Richardson’s campaign never caught fire, he had the credentials, but he didn’t have the charisma. Americans want a president they can imagine themselves having a beer with. The Average Joe doesn’t care if his accountant is a socially awkward nerd, as long as he is a whiz at solving financial problems. But we want a president who is eloquent, charismatic and likeable.

Richardson didn’t even make an impression in the Hispanic community, probably because of his Anglo surname. I had a hard time convincing some of my friends and family members that Richardson is a Latino. Oh well, I hope Obama considers Richardson as a running mate.

In the Virginia primary I voted for Sen. Barack Obama; and I am doing everything I can to advance his candidacy. One day when I’m in a rest home, I want to be able to tell youngsters who come and visit me that in my own little way, I helped elect the first African American president.

I can understand why Obama has captured the imagination of the American people, — the senator from Illinois represents change and hope. Obama is one of those rare politicians who transcends party affiliations and even race.

But I can especially understand why African Americans are solidly behind Obama. Jim Crow laws, that prohibited blacks from using “whites only” restrooms and other public accommodations were still in place as late as 1965. For an African American who as a youngster was forced to drink from a “colored” drinking fountain, a black president represents a quantum leap forward.

If most blacks had the attitude “I’m for Obama because he’s black, regardless of his stand on the issues”, who are we to say that’s not right? “I’m for Obama because he’s black”, might not be the politically correct posture, but when you have suffered discrimination sometimes you think with your gut.

But it’s important to note that at the start of this long and bitter presidential campaign, Hillary and Obama were splitting the black vote. It wasn’t until Hillary staring losing some contests, that she got desperate and played the race card. Bill Clinton’s infamous race-baiting comments after the South Carolina primary caused, blacks to desert Hillary in droves, and Obama now garners about 90% of the black vote.

It would be a tragedy if the Jeremiah Wright controversy derails Obama’s presidential aspirations. The Whitey-hating Wright is the antithesis of everything that Obama holds dear: Inclusiveness and racial harmony. I hope blue-collar whites will forgive Obama for his mistake in not repudiating Wright months ago, and vote for Obama, the one candidate who can unite Americans of all races.

I still expect Obama to win the Democratic nomination and the general election. When Obama is inaugurated as the next president of the United States, it will be a momentous occasion and a time of rejoicing for African Americans, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans, Whites and Americans of all other enthnicities.

A controversial examination of how our political system, despite “get out the vote” rhetoric, works to suppress the vote–especially the votes of African Americans.

“Karl Rove began to impress upon leading Republicans…that…one way to address the party’s electoral problem…was to suppress black and Hispanic turnout–a task that would become far easier if the airwaves were buzzing with news of voter-fraud indictments.”–Harold Meyerson, The Washington Post

Popularity: 27% [?]