Republican Reformation - The Minority-Majority Approaches

[HAnnA MArin County]

I don't really buy into that whole notion of identity politics. The Republicans did this after Obama's election with Michael Steele running the RNC and ironically got rid of him for Reince Priebus when under Steele's leadership, Republicans took control of the House and under Priebus they lost seats. They also tried it in 2008 with McCain's selection of Palin as VP in hopes of closing the gender gap and getting some disgruntled Hillary voters. As someone who did vote for Hillary, I didn't vote for her because she's a woman; I voted for her because I thought she would be the better President.

I do agree, though, that when we start considering candidates' demographics over their qualifications and experience that is a disservice to democracy, but I don't think it's fair to classify liberals as racist just because Democrats are the minorities party. It's not the skin color of Democratic candidates that gets them elected; it's their ideas. African Americans have been a solid Democratic voting bloc since the passage of the civil rights legislation in the 1960s. Most African Americans (and Native Americans) live in impoverished conditions so naturally they are more susceptible to voting for a party that advocated social welfare programs versus a party that wants to slash government from all areas outside of a woman's womb or in the privacy of one's bedroom. The Republicans' recent hard-line approach on immigration probably explains their dwindling numbers with Latinos. Bush was a "compassionate conservative" and received over 40 percent of the Latino vote in 2004. Romney's talk of self-deportation probably did not do him well with Latinos this election. Asian Americans are another quickly growing minority bloc and they generally tend to measure success in terms of high educational attainment, so they probably do not want to support an anti-illectualism party. I don't even have to go into details of the Republicans' problem with women or LGBT voters.

These are just my opinions. Democrats are doing well with minorities not because of the candidates they run but because of their candidates' ideas.