Social Issues Wont Win Minorities For Gop

As a transplanted Californian living in Virginia, I have kept one eye open the past few weeks on the goings on in my old home state. While most of the media focused on the tax increases shepherded through the state legislature with the help of State Senator Abel Maldonado (who essentially traded his vote in favor of a chance for California to implement a Louisiana style jungle primary), the California Republican convention took place last weekend in Sacramento.

Among the topics discussed by attendees at the convention was the future of the party and its ability to outreach to minorities and younger voters. While some, such as State Senator Tony Strickland sounded the old "it's not the issues, it's how we communicate the issues" meme; others such as California Republican strategist Wayne Johnson argued that the future lay in an alliance with African-American and Latino voters over charter schools and gay marriage bans.

Frankly, basing the future of the Republican Party's outreach to blacks and Hispanics on gay marriage is not, as Mr. Johnson suggested, "the future."

Let's look at the black vote first, and put aside whether or not large portions of an ethnic group with a median income that is barely over half of that of white Americans (and shows historical antipathy to the GOP) could be swung on moral issues.

First of all, while it is true that blacks came out very heavily in favor of Proposition 8 (70 percent), they also had no problem voting heavily for President Obama (McCain only winning 5 percent). On the issue of Proposition 8, Obama made it very clear during the campaign that he opposed it; McCain made it just as clear that he favored it. As of now, there is simply no evidence that this issue has the potential to move significant numbers of black voters into the red column. Even if it did, younger African-Americans are somewhat more likely to embrace gay marriage than their elders. According to a 2007 study by the University of Chicago, 58 percent of black youth were opposed to same-sex marriage.

As for forging an electoral coalition with Latinos over gay marriage, this seems far less likely. Whites and Hispanics had little difference in their support for Proposition 8 (49 percent for whites, 53 percent for Latinos), and the Chicago study indicates that younger voters in both groups are moving away from opposing same-sex marriage at the same pace (35 percent of whites and 36 percent of Hispanics).

For years, conservatives have entertained this fantasy that the GOP could woo over ethnic minorities by appealing to "religious" or "cultural" values, particularly on the issue of gay marriage, without having to change any other aspects of the pachyderm appeal. This is an urban legend to retire to the Snopes page. In recent years, Hispanics have very conclusively shown that their political allegiance is tied to other issues, particularly immigration (it would be foolhardy not to note that the last two extremely successful Republican candidates to win Hispanics at a national level, Reagan and George W. Bush, both openly supported some form of amnesty). Successful Republicans who have won the black vote, such as Arkansas Governor Mike Huckabee, did so by engaging in a constant, heart-felt dialogue with black groups and churches, and addressing the poverty question head-on. As he once noted to an audience at an event I attended, he came at the issue from the angle "Just because you were born in a crummy neighborhood doesn't mean your children have to go to a crummy school." (In this sense, perhaps half of Mr. Johnson's observation, regarding GOP support for urban charter schools, shows more promise.)

The election of Michael Steele as chairman of the Republican National Committee seems to have turned a new page in direct dialogue and communication between the increasingly white Republican Party and the rest of an increasingly browning nation. Let's hope this means that Republicans will look to innovative ideas and commitments as the way to bring minorities in the new majority, and not by simply bringing the culture wars to minority churches.