The 2000 and 2002 elections demonstrate that the preferences of an
overwhelming majority of African Americans (85%–90%) and a clear
majority of Latinos1
Latinos or Hispanics
comprise of peoples with origins in many different Latin American countries.
According to the 2002 Current Population Survey, the 38.8 million Latinos
have origins from the following countries: Mexico 66.9%, Central-South
America 14.3%, Puerto Rico 8.6%, Cuba 3.7%, and other countries 6.5%.
Black-Hispanics comprise an estimated 2% of the Latino population in the
U.S. There is also considerable regional variation in the distribution of
these national origin groups across the country. Most people of Mexican
origin live in the Southwestern states although they are increasingly
moving to states in the South and Midwest. Puerto Ricans live primarily
in the Northeast and Chicago, although many are now moving to Florida.
Cubans live primarily in Florida and New Jersey. Latinos also vary by
citizenship and length of residence in the U.S. Puerto Ricans have had
birthright citizenship since 1917. Despite these differences, however,
Latinos/Hispanics have been consistently designated as a group by
the U.S. Census since 1970. They are designated as an identifiable
group in much legislation and litigation. Latino political elites have
also increasingly pursued pan-ethnic strategies of exercising political
influence. Most importantly for this essay, Latinos have increasingly
become a focus of attention by national parties and their
candidates.
(60%–80%) are not aligned with the
preferences of the electoral coalition that has provided the
Republicans with victories in the executive and legislative
branches.
2 These figures are based
upon CNN exit poll data for the 2000 presidential election. It is
understood that Cuban-origin voters in Florida are a consistent outlier
to this pattern. Gore received an estimated 54% of the Latino vote in
Texas and 58% of the Latino vote in New Jersey.
As a result,
the capacity of these ethnic-racial groups to influence the course of
much national policymaking is limited. How has the American nation come
to this reality at the same time the voter participation rates of
African Americans and Latinos have grown consistently since the passage
of the Voting Rights Act in 1965 and its extension and expansion to
include language minorities in 1975? Just as important, what are the
long-term implications of this current trend for the future political
incorporation of these communities in the national body politic?
In this essay we argue that this trend and its implications are best
understood within the context of evolving demographic and related
electoral changes in historically grounded American race-based
politics. Our argument proceeds as follows. First, we outline the
Downsian median voter theory that drives much electoral strategizing in
American national politics. The key element of this theory is that each
major party is compelled both to mobilize traditional core partisan
voters and to appeal simultaneously to a sufficient minimum
winning number of more independent, moderate swing voters. Second, we
model the median voter strategy developed by the Republican party,
especially in the post-civil rights era. Although the specifics of this
strategy have varied in each election cycle, its primary logic has been
consistent. Building on a solid base in Southern states among largely
White voters, the Republican Party works to secure swing voters in key
states outside of the South.
Third, we model the competitor strategy developed by the Democratic
Party as driven by the Democratic Leadership Council. Among the
elements of this strategy's logic is for Democrats to deracialize
consciously their campaign appeals in an attempt to be less vulnerable
to claims that they are primarily interested in promoting programs that
serve the interests of racially identified interest groups. Fourth, we
test these models with national electoral results from the 2000
election, related public opinion data, and full consideration of the
unique ways that Latinos fit into each party's race-informed
national campaign strategy.
We argue that the driving force in much national electoral politics
is still the Black-White racial divide in the South that provides the
necessary foundation to a nationally competitive Republican Party.
Relatedly, it is this same Black-White racial divide that pushes the
Democratic Party to deracialize its campaigns. Moreover, we argue that
Republican appeals to Latinos are largely driven by a strategy to
soften this Party's social conservatism in order to appeal to
moderate “swing” White voters. We term this strategy
symbolic mainstreaming. Appeals made by the Republican Party
have little to do with pursuing policies consistent with the overall
preferences of most Latino voters. Stated differently, the current
politics of race and ethnicity in national elections serve to
marginalize the interests of both African Americans and Latinos in
national politics. This is done, however, most effectively by the
Republican Party through a rhetorical message of racial and ethnic
inclusion, with a specific focus on Latinos.
We conclude that if the above-described trend of both major parties
continues to be pursued, the implications for racial and ethnic
politics in the U.S. will be dramatic. For example, to the extent that
Latino leaders and voters increase their support for the Republican
Party, and to the extent that this support leads to greater Republican
electoral success, this strategy further solidifies the exclusion of
African Americans in Southern and much national politics. It also does
little to serve the expressed policy preferences of a majority of
Latino voters. To the extent that the Democratic Party continues to
pursue a centrist strategy that largely deracializes its campaigns, and
it is successful, that systematically lowers the probability that, once
in power, Democratic officials can pursue policies consistent with the
preferences of Latino and African American segments of the electorate.
In either case, the continued effective political incorporation3
We define political incorporation as
“the extent to which self-identified group interests are
articulated, represented, and met in public policymaking” (Fraga and Ramírez, 2003, p. 304).
of African Americans and Latinos in national politics, and especially
in national policymaking, is far from guaranteed.
MEDIAN VOTER THEORY
The origins of the median voter theory lie with the work of Anthony
Downs (1957). When a normal distribution
characterizes voter preferences, parties in a two-party winner-take-all
system must at the same time mobilize their traditional core
supporters, who could be either on the left or the right of the
political spectrum, and attempt to secure sufficient numbers of
supporters from the center to construct majority coalitions. The
primacy to both parties of moderate voters in the middle is apparent.
See Figure 1.
Downs states that one result of such party incentives is that
“parties in a two-party system deliberately change their
platforms so that they resemble one another” (1957, p. 115). He continues,
Thus political rationality leads parties in a two-party
system to becloud their policies in a fog of ambiguity. True, their
tendency towards obscurity is limited by their desire to attract voters
to the polls, since citizens abstain if all parties seem identical or
no party makes testable promises. Nevertheless, competition forces both
parties to be much less than perfectly clear about what they stand for
(1957, p. 136).
Although this may lead to voters seeming to be irrational in their
electoral choices given ambiguity, parties have an incentive not to be
too ambiguous because they are constrained by the need of a sufficient
number of voters to be able to distinguish between the party and
related candidate choices.
Glazer, Grofman, and Owen (1998) model how
party incentives can be structured within a Downsian framework when
“group-oriented voting” intersects with “racial
cleavages” (p. 23). They argue that the “choices of some
voters [can] depend in part upon their expectations of each
candidates support coalition” (p. 24). They refer to the voters
who vote for candidates in this relational fashion as
“group-oriented voters” (p. 25). These voters make their
choices based on both a candidate's policy proximity and the
“proportion [of a candidate's] support coalition
[that] comes from members of [a] disliked class of
voters” (p. 25). Whether or not candidates will choose to
distance themselves from group-oriented voters or disliked voters
fundamentally depends on their relative contribution to a needed margin
of victory. When disliked voters are a minority of the electorate, and
an oppositional majority, comprised in part by group-oriented voters,
constitutes a majority winning coalition, the interests of the disliked
voters will be marginalized in the campaign.
Alternatively, when the disliked voters are a sufficient size of the
electorate to be a critical margin in a competitive election, their
interests are much more likely to be the focus of candidate campaigning
(Glazer et al., 1998, pp. 26–27). What
this research demonstrates is that the likely impact of a minority
segment of the electorate in any election very much depends upon its
position relative to other segments of the electorate. The key to a
minority segment having influence in an election is dependent on the
probability that a candidate can win without their votes.
Frymer (1999) applies the Downsian median
voter theory to the historical and contemporary role of race in
American national politics, discussing how African American voters have
often been the disliked voters referred to above. He argues that the
origin of the contemporary two-party system of Democrats and
Republicans lies in concerns with slavery and race. He states:
the behavior of party leaders reflects their belief that the
nation is divided along racial lines, and that the prominence of racial
issues is bound to disadvantage one of the parties in a system of
two-party competition… The stakes of the winner-take-all
electoral system only heighten this ambivalence [about promoting
Black interests], since it is crucial for party leaders to respond
to the opinions of the median voter. These concerns lead party leaders
to attempt to manipulate the two-party system in a manner that denies
the primacy of race, all the while confirming that very primacy (1999, p. 34).
Frymer concludes that the current Republican and Democratic parties
exhibit a fear of alienating White voters who might have concerns that
public policy not address African Americans interests at the cost of
White interests. He states:
Party leaders are generally unwilling to take chances by
promoting the interests of a group they perceive to be at odds with
broader coalition-building … As we know, party leaders respond
to what they perceive as strategic advantages and opportunities. On
issues such as race, the general perception of party leaders is that
actively promoting African American interests is not an optimal
electoral strategy (1999, p. 205).
Consistent with the model developed by Glazer, Grofman, and Owen
(1998) Frymer argues that the interests of
African American voters are rarely at the center of major national
candidate campaigns, despite their being the most durable element of
the core constituency of the Democratic Party. The Downsian median
voter theory demands that candidates be very cautious in aligning
themselves too closely with a disliked group when that alignment is
likely to lead to the alienation of necessary swing voters. What are
the primary similarities and differences in how median voter theory has
been utilized by Republicans and Democrats in recent major national
elections?
THE REPUBLICAN STRATEGY IN THE
“NEW” SOUTH4 A more concise
discussion of these issues appears in Fraga and Ramírez (2003–2004, pp. 79–80).
Race has always been one of the most defining dimensions of Southern
politics (Key 1949). Interestingly, the
strategic manipulation of race-informed campaign politics was fully
apparent during the Reconstruction Era (1865–1877) when African
Americans in the South first became sizeable segments of statewide
electorates (Foner, 1988 [2002],
pp. 281–345). Among the challenges confronted by the Radical
Republicans in the South was how to build a lasting electoral majority
that included both newly enfranchised African American voters
and sizeable numbers of White voters. Whites remained a clear
majority of the population in all but three states of the Confederacy:
South Carolina, Mississippi, and Louisiana. The Republican Party during
Reconstruction needed White votes to win office and especially to grow
as a major party in Southern states. Attaining this balance between
African American and White voters was not easy, however. Of special
concern was the need not to alienate too many White voters by being
perceived as primarily catering to the interests of African
Americans.
Foner quotes a Northerner as observing in 1866 that, “a party
sustained only by black votes will not grow old” (1988 [2002], p. 294). Georgia's first
Republican Governor referred to “the danger of negro suffrage”
in considering the need to minimize the alienation of White voters. Foner
also notes that although the Republican Party did well in the South in the
1867 elections, they lost massively in other parts of the country including
California, New York, and Ohio, because of Radical Republican support
in favor of equal rights for African Americans (1988
[2002] pp. 314–315). In 1867, a man from New York
stated in a letter to House Speaker Schuyler Colfax, “Judicious
[men must inform] the extreme radicals, thus far have we gone
with you, but we cannot go any further… you see the disasters which
have happened to our cause in the fall elections, from adopting your
views” (As quoted in Foner
1988[2002], p. 315). The demands of the
Downsian model were alive and well in the Reconstruction Era and
foreshadowed electoral strategizing in the post-war and especially
post-civil rights eras.
The South's distinctiveness in post-Second World War national
electoral politics as driven by race certainly appeared in the 1948
presidential election.5
For a fuller
discussion of the 1948 campaign see Mendelberg (2001, pp. 71–74).
In that election
Strom Thurmond from South Carolina headed the ticket of the
States' Rights Party whose platform was largely based on opposing
President Truman's desegregation of the armed forces. He received
more votes than any other candidate in four states: Louisiana,
Mississippi, Alabama, and South Carolina.
It has become commonplace to explain the rise of the national
Republican Party as directly tied to Lyndon Johnson's 1964
election and especially to the civil rights and Great Society
legislation that was enacted during his presidency. A number of
scholars and commentators have noted that the reaction of many White
Southern voters, who had traditionally identified and voted as
Democrats, was to look for a clear alternative to a Johnson presidency
that was perceived to embrace fully many of the policy interests of
African Americans (Black and Black, 2002;
Carmines and Stimson, 1989; Edsall and Edsall, 1992; Huckfeldt and Kohfeld, 1989; Mendelberg 2001).6
See
Abramowitz (1994) for a competing
view.
The Republican Party chose to provide this alternative.
In 1964, Republican nominee Barry Goldwater opposed the 1964 Civil
Rights Act. Although he lost to Johnson in a landslide, he won (in
addition to his home state of Arizona) the states of Louisiana,
Mississippi, Alabama, Georgia, and South Carolina. A majority of White
voters in these states voted for a Republican candidate.
In the 1968 election the White South again demonstrated its
distinctiveness. George Wallace, governor of Alabama and a strict
segregationist, ran as the candidate of the Independent Party and won
in Louisiana, Arkansas, Mississippi, Alabama, and Georgia. Richard
Nixon also did particularly well in other Southern states and won
sizeable numbers of votes from White ethnics in northern industrial
cities with his Law and Order campaign.
In his 1972 reelection campaign, Nixon used an explicit Southern
strategy that included focusing on law and order issues and especially
on opposition to school busing. He defeated the Democratic ticket by an
overwhelming margin in every state except Massachusetts and the
District of Columbia. The South again supported the Republican over the
Democrat, and a new pattern of Republican prominence in the South was
established.
Ronald Reagan solidified the presence of the Republican Party in the
South in 1980. His campaign associated the Democratic Party's
embrace of African American interests with the concerns of many
Southern Whites about the growth of an activist federal government. The
key linkage he made, however, was with taxes. Ronald Reagan and the GOP
linked “race, rights, and taxes” (Edsall
and Edsall, 1992). Reagan argued that the national government
had become so bloated that it no longer served the interests of most of
its hard-working, taxpaying, citizens. A plethora of government-funded
programs in areas like education, voting rights, employment, housing,
and social welfare were said to waste taxpayer money by providing
benefits to many non-deserving peoples. Perhaps the most famous phrase
of the campaign was that “Government was the problem, not the
solution.” This critique of the growth of the national government
in domestic policy on the surface was racially neutral, but Edsall and
Edsall (1992) argued that White Southerners
well understood the racial overtones of this message.
Reagan won every state in the South except Georgia, President Jimmy
Carter's home state, in the 1980 election.7
We are not suggesting that the size of the federal
government was the only issue of prominence in the 1980 election. The
Iran hostage crisis and high inflation were, of course, also important
factors.
Reagan was victorious in all Southern states in 1984.
George H. W. Bush was able to maintain this Republican advantage in the
1988 election when he won the entire South against Massachusetts
Governor Michael Dukakis.
The White South is now the cornerstone of the national
competitiveness of the Republican Party. Republican presidential
candidates cannot win the White House without an overwhelming majority
of Southern states. By the 1990s, Nixon's Southern strategy had
born fruit. As demonstrated in Figure 1, the
base of the Republican Party could now make the Democrats a clear
minority party in many parts of the country if not in the country as a
whole.
Interestingly, the transformation of the Republican Party in the
post-civil rights era also had a Latino component. In 1972, President
Nixon's campaign outlined a Hispanic strategy to attempt to
increase largely Mexican American support for the Republican Party.
This effort met with only limited success, but it set a precedent for
what is now accepted as the Republican affect for Latino voters.
Writer Tony Castro termed this strategy as an attempted
“Republicanization of Mexican America” (Castro 1974, p. 199). Nixon wanted to enhance his
competitiveness in the two states with the largest concentrations of
Mexican American voters, California and Texas. In 1971 he appointed
Henry M. Ramirez, an educator from Whittier, Ca., to revive the Cabinet
Committee on Opportunities for Spanish-Speaking People, an organization
that had originally been established under the Johnson Administration.
Nixon also appointed a Mexican American, Phillip V. Sanchez, another
Californian, to serve as the Director of the Office of Economic
Opportunity, an agency that had been a central component of President
Johnson's War on Poverty. He also appointed a Mexican American
California woman, Romana A. Bañuelos, to the largely symbolic
position of Treasurer of the United States. Castro reports that by 1972
there were at last fifty mid- to senior-level administrative appointees
who were Hispanic (1974, pp. 200–201).
Nixon also targeted federal monies for Latino specific projects in both
California and Texas. By one estimate, his administration provided 20
million in projects to California and another 17 million in Texas (1974, p. 211).
Nixon's landslide defeat of Senator George McGovern in the 1972
campaign suggests that Latino votes were not critical to his victory.
Interestingly, soon after the election, Nixon decided to dismantle the
Office of Economic Opportunity and a number of the recent Latinos
appointed to administrative positions did not keep their jobs. Although
this appeal to expand the Republican base did not ultimately produce
long-lasting gains for Latino communities, Castro writes that it
perhaps did “produce … a remarkable transformation in the
politics of Mexican-Americans from a predictable, homogeneous bloc into
a fluid, ticket-splitting electorate.” (1974, p. 214).
THE DEMOCRATIC LEADERSHIP COUNCIL'S
THIRD WAY8 This discussion relies heavily
on the excellent analysis of the Democratic Party by Baer (2000). See also Frymer (1999), especially pp. 112–119. This section
builds considerably on Fraga and Ramírez (2003–2004, pp. 78–79).
The origins of the Democratic Party's efforts to transform
itself from the party of liberalism to a party based centrally in the
traditional middle-class American mainstream lie squarely with the
institutional reforms of 1972 that led the party to minimize the
influence of traditional party leaders and enhance the representation
of important subgroups of Democrats including women, ethnic and racial
minorities, gays and lesbians, and others. The dramatic defeat of
George McGovern in 1972 and especially the defeat of President Jimmy
Carter in his reelection bid in 1980 led to a group of influential
Democrats beginning to forge a new image for the party. This effort was
also centrally driven by the demands of median voter theory.
Under the leadership of Al From and Rep. Gillis Long (LA), a group of
young, aspiring congressmen including William Gray (PA), Tim Wirth
(CO), Al Gore (TN), and Richard Gephardt (MO) met as part of the
Democratic Caucus's Committee on Party Effectiveness (CPE) (Baer 2000, p. 39). In 1982, the CPE published a
monograph entitled “Rebuilding the Road to Opportunity.” In
this monograph the public philosophy of the proposed “new”
Democratic Party was outlined: “In these papers, we renew our
commitment to the fundamental principles of the Democratic
Party—to equal opportunity, to economic growth and full
employment, and to a strong national defense” (as quoted in Baer 2000, p. 43). This approach was intended to
realign the Democratic Party with the middle class and White ethnic
blue-collar workers, especially those who were members of unions. It
was explicitly designed to distance the Democratic Party from the image
it had gained in the minds of many voters as the party of
counter-cultural, liberal, and entitlement-oriented interest groups. In
1985 these efforts culminated in the establishment of the Democratic
Leadership Council comprising a group of Democratic elected officials.
Its stated philosophy was exactly the same as that of the CPE, and the
emphasis was “sustained economic growth, equal and expanding
opportunity, and the aggressive defense of freedom with the promotion
of democratic values abroad” (Baer 2000,
p. 68). The Third Way was well on its way.
The vision of the DLC was further outlined by William Galston and
Elaine Kamarck in the short monograph entitled The Politics of
Evasion: Democrats and the Presidency (1989).
In this piece the authors argued that many Democrats remained misguided by
three myths: the myth of mobilization, the myth of liberal fundamentalism,
and the myth of the congressional bastion. In their view, each of these
myths prevented the party from making the necessary commitment to win back
the “heart” of the Democratic Party, “northern
ethnics and southern Protestants” (Baer 2000,
p. 130). Not surprisingly, this view was not well received by all Democrats
and was especially questioned by Jesse Jackson. However, with the
establishment of the Progressive Policy Institute (PPI) in 1988 as the think
tank behind the DLC and the defeat of Michael Dukakis in that same year, the
DLC was primed to become a major player in the 1992 election.
The nomination of Arkansas Governor William Jefferson
“Bill” Clinton in 1992 was the first major victory of the
DLC and at the same time the first major test of its campaign
philosophy. Clinton had been an early and consistent participant in the
DLC, and he confidently pursued the centrist strategies of the DLC.
When Clinton selected another moderate Southerner as his
vice-presidential running mate, Senator Al Gore of Tennessee (who was
also an early and consistent DLC member), the Democratic ticket was
fully positioned to make a play for the votes of middle America.
Among the earliest and most surprising policy positions taken by
Clinton-Gore were those on the economy and need-based social welfare
programs. Clinton not only expressed concern for workers and families
who were hurt by the then current economic downturn, but he also
publicly advocated a strategy to promote economic growth that was based
upon reigning in government spending and providing targeted tax breaks
to selected businesses.
He also championed the need for the country to commit itself to
“reform welfare as we know it.” This position was contrary
to any past position of a major Democratic candidate. Need-based social
welfare programs were understood by many as the heart of Johnson's
Great Society programs, and more important, critical to the survival of
some of America's poorest citizens. Clinton was not hesitant to
promote his plans for economic growth and welfare reform across the
entire country. As indicated in Figure 1, the
New Democrats were clearly attempting to expand the party base by
appealing explicitly to moderate voters.
The marginalization of the interests of African Americans and Latinos
was of great concern to a number of Democrats. Frymer states that the
1992 Democratic Party platform did not mention “redressing racial
justice” for the first time in thirty years. Clinton and
Gore's book Putting People First (1992) mentioned race only once, and this was to
highlight their opposition to racial quotas in employment and
education. Frymer also notes that a chapter focusing on urban issues
did not discuss the unique challenges of inner city areas such as
racial segregation, and “the chapter on civil rights devoted more
space to people with physical disabilities than to African
Americans” (Frymer 1999, p. 5).
Clinton distanced himself from African Americans in three other ways.
In January 2002 he “refused to issue an order of executive
clemency” to stop the execution of a mentally retarded Black man
who was convicted of two murders, including that of a policeman. After
one of the murders the man shot himself and damaged his brain, thereby
leaving him very impaired (Applebomes 1992,
p. 8). Clinton also publicly denounced the language and imagery of
rapper Sista Souljah, characterizing her work as filled with racial
hatred and animus toward Whites (Perales 1992,
p. H32; Rule 1992, p. A1; Waters 1992, p. A22). Lastly, Clinton
spoke critically of Jesse Jackson, the most visible spokesperson on
behalf of African Americans (Ifill 1992a, pp.
1–2; Ifill 1992b, p. A1; Ifill 1992c, p. A14). Again, in contrast to the
traditional position of Democratic candidates making explicit appeals
to African American voters, Clinton developed a campaign image in 1992
that was distinct.
The 1992 election results demonstrated that Clinton's divergence
from what had become the Democratic norm did not hurt him.9
It is important to also remember that the
candidacy of Ross Perot also helped Clinton beat incumbent President
George H. W. Bush in several key states.
The DLC-based
strategy of Clinton-Gore broadened the electoral base of the Democratic
Party in the South. The 1992 Democratic ticket won in Louisiana,
Arkansas, Georgia, Tennessee, and West Virginia.
This centrist strategy was again pursued by Clinton in 1996. Most
indicative of his willingness to take positions that placed him
squarely in the center-right of the Democratic Party, Clinton shocked
many of his strongest supporters when he signed the 1996 Welfare Reform
Bill, and the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity
Reconciliation Act, that placed a time limit on the receipt of welfare
benefits, required recipients to work a minimum number of hours to
continue to receive benefits, eliminated eligibility for legal
immigrants, and did not include substantial funding for daycare or
transportation to help support parents who received welfare benefits.
In the 1996 election, Clinton-Gore again won in Louisiana, Arkansas,
Tennessee, West Virginia, and, perhaps most surprisingly, in
Florida.
This discussion of the Republican Southern Strategy and the
Democratic Leadership Council's Third Way leads us to conclude
that the electoral strategizing of both the contemporary Republican and
Democratic parties directly serves to marginalize the interests of
racial and ethnic voters in national party politics. From the
Republican perspective, the marginalization is perhaps greatest for
African Americans, as the Republican strategy is based on receiving
substantial support from White voters who have either defected from the
Democratic Party or new voters who see their interests best served by
the Republicans. Absolutely no evidence exists that these voters have
any interest in the policy concerns of African Americans. The
Democratic Party must also distance itself from being perceived as
primarily the party of special interests including women, gays and
lesbians, unions, and members of ethnic and racial minority groups.
Cleary, each party has an overwhelming incentive to cater to the
interests of moderate, largely White voters in the middle of the
distribution of policy preferences.
It is now time to examine the most recent manifestation of the median
voter theory. What impact does the nation's increasing racial and
ethnic diversity have on the strategic positions taken by both
Republicans and Democrats within the parameters of median voter theory?
Do their strategic choices again serve to marginalize the interests of
the two largest ethnic-racial segments of the American population,
Latinos and African Americans?
MEDIAN VOTER THEORY IN A MULTICULTURAL
ELECTORATE: ELECTION 200010 For a related
discussion see Fraga and Ramírez (2003–2004, pp. 81–82).
The 2000 presidential election again manifested the strategizing
discussed above, although the campaign had a twist that median voter
theory could not predict. For the first time in the history of American
presidential politics, one of the candidates identified Latinos as his
preferred ethnic-racial minority group.11
We are grateful to Professor Fernando Guerra, Loyola
Marymount University, for this insight.
That is, the candidate
consistently referred to this group as a focus of his attention, as an
example of the inclusive multicultural society America was at its best,
and consistently spoke Spanish to demonstrate his own cultural respect
and empathy for this group. What was most surprising, however, was that
this candidate was not the Democrat but the Republican, George W. Bush.
Why would Governor Bush do this? How consistent is this effort with the
requisites of median voter theory?
At least two explanations can be offered for why Bush chose to make
his Spanish-speaking ability,12
While
there is much criticism of the President's Spanish-speaking
ability, he is the only major party presidential candidate who has
displayed a consistent willingness to speak Spanish throughout his
campaign and throughout his presidency.
his relationship to
Latino voters in his home state of Texas, and his biracial nephew such
significant parts of his 2000 campaign.
13 George P. Bush is the son of Jeb Bush, governor of
Florida, and Columba Bush, who was born and raised in Mexico.
“George P.”, who has many Latino physical features, made a
number of campaign appearances and commercials on behalf of his
uncle.
The first is based upon the growing number of Latinos
in the overall population and as critical voters in key states. All
Census projections have Latinos growing at the fastest rate of any
other major racial ethnic segment of the population. This year the
Census Bureau reported that according to their Current Population
Survey, Latinos were growing at a rate of 9.8%, whereas Asians were
growing at 9%, African Americans at 3.1%, and the nation at 2.5%.
Projections estimate that by 2050 Latinos will comprise at least 24% of
the U.S. population and in 2100 they will comprise 33%.
14 We are well aware that one must be cautious
in using such projections. They are based on assumptions of current
birth rates, death rates, and immigration rates. Increasing rates of
interracial marriage can also affect these projections. However, few
question that Whites are declining as a percentage of the American
population or that Latinos and Asians continue to grow at rates that
far outpace those of both African Americans and especially
Whites.
By contrast, Whites will comprise barely half of the
U.S. population in 2050 at 52.8% and only 40.3% by 2100. Of special
note is that African Americans are estimated to remain a constant
12%–13% of the national population throughout the next century.
(See
Figure 2.)
Population Growth 2000–2100
Although it is well known that Latino voter participation does not
equal that of African Americans or Caucasians, their votes can still be
crucial contributors to the winning margin of victory for any
statewide, and therefore, presidential candidate. For example, Latino
voters have been primary contributors to the winning margins of
Democratic candidates in California in seven of the last thirteen
statewide races for governor, U.S. senator, and president. Bill Clinton
would not have won California in 1996 without the Latino vote. Neither
would U.S. Senator Barbara Boxer in 1992 and 1998, and U.S. Senator
Diane Feinstein in 1994 (Fraga and Ramírez,
2003). In addition, Latinos split their votes about two to one
in favor of Democrats. That is, a minimum of 20–35% of Latino
voters in each state consistently support Republican candidates
statewide. This pattern is different from the overwhelming majority of
African Americans voters who tend to vote for Democrats at rates of
85–90%. This explanation argues that in 2000 the Republican
Party, in catering to Latinos, was simply acknowledging their potential
electoral influence in key states and giving itself an opportunity to
tap into the largest and fastest growing ethnic-racial segment of the
population.
Bush did receive a higher percentage of Latino votes (35%) than did
his father in 1992 (24%) or Bob Dole in 1996 (21%; see de la Garza and
DeSipio, 1999, p. 8). But as we know, while overall popular vote is
indicative of voter preferences, it is far from determinative in
presidential elections. More important is determining in which states
the Latino vote was critical to determining the outcome of the
election. Using a technique developed by Fraga and Ramírez that
estimates candidate support taking into account exit poll findings and
the Latino percent of the electorate,15
The specific percent of the vote attributed to each
candidate is determined by simply multiplying the % support reported by
exit polls by the % that each group is estimated to represent of the
statewide electorate in the election: candidate support from a specific
ethnic/racial group = % exit poll support × % group of
statewide electorate.
we find that the Latino vote was
critical to President Bush's margin of victory only in the state
of Florida, a state where Cuban-origin voters traditionally support
Republicans (see
Figure 3). Only in New
Mexico did the Latino vote come close to giving President Bush a margin
of victory, but it was not sufficient in the end. The sizeable Latino
support of 43% that Bush received in his home state of Texas is often
noted in the press. However, as demonstrated in
Figure 3, this vote was not a crucial contributor
to his victory in Texas. He received such an overwhelming percentage of
the White vote in Texas (73%) that he did not need any Latino votes to
win his state.
The Vote for Gore and Bush, 2000
The second explanation is much more strategic and fits precisely with
the previous discussion of the Republican Southern strategy within
median voter theory. It is imperative that a Republican presidential
candidate win a sizeable majority of Southern states if he or she wants
to guarantee victory. As stated previously, Reagan won every state in
the South except for Georgia in 1980; he won every Southern state in
1984, and George H.W. Bush won every Southern state in 1988.
Clinton's success in winning a number of Southern states gave him
the necessary margin of victory in the Electoral College. If the
Black-White racial divide—whether explicit in expressed racial
animus or coded as an element of socially conservative opposition to
government social welfare policy—is still a primary basis for how
many Whites cast their votes in the South, Republican candidates have
great incentive to play “the race card” in the South (Mendelberg 2001). However, such posturing runs the
risk of alienating moderate White voters outside the South, whose votes
are critical for a Republican candidate winning enough electoral votes
to be president. Based on the 2000 election, such states outside the
South might include Ohio, Missouri, and Iowa.
Is it not possible that Bush's catering to Latino voters serves
the purpose of softening the clear position of social conservatism that
is so critical to mobilizing his base of support in the South? Speaking
Spanish, talking about his relations with “Hispanics” in
his home state, and developing Latino-focused campaign ads can all
serve to soften this Southern-focused social conservatism. We are not
suggesting that Bush was disingenuous in his demonstrated understanding
and respect for cultural practices and other aspects of Latino
communities. Such demonstrations of understanding and respect were
unique among presidential candidates. We are suggesting, however, that
there can be systematic electoral gains for Republican candidates by
using Latinos as a way to soften their image as social conservatives
and therefore become more palatable to moderate White voters in
non-Southern states. We term this effort to appear responsive to Latino
communities as symbolic mainstreaming.
There are explicit dimensions to symbolic mainstreaming. The first,
mainstreaming, occurs because Latinos are placed at the center
of elements of national political reporting and at the center of
decision-making for some moderate White voters. For example, it was
very common for news coverage to refer frequently to President
Bush's ability to speak Spanish and to the Republican Party's
efforts to secure the support of Latino voters. Moreover, it was often
reported that the Democrats were facing a new challenge with the Bush
campaign, which was spending millions of dollars on Spanish-language
advertising. Latinos, in other words, were characterized as potentially
important to the outcome of the presidential campaign.
The second dimension is symbolic. Although mainstreaming
occurs, there is rarely any reference to specific policy proposals that
are supported by majorities of Latino voters. There are demonstrations
of understanding and respect for Latinos and their communities.
However, the material interests of many of these voters, such as for
English language training, long-term immigration reform, increased
access to adequate health insurance, and greater opportunities for home
ownership, are rarely mentioned, if at all. When they are mentioned,
such as with early descriptions of educational reform resulting in the
No Child Left Behind Act and the need to rethink temporary guest worker
programs, the details of funding and implementation are not specified.
All candidates make symbolic appeals to many distinct constituencies.
The 2000 campaign revealed that Latinos were certainly a distinct group
to whom such appeals were made, especially by the Republican
candidate.
This strategy of symbolic mainstreaming is very different from the
traditional Democratic strategy of making campaign appeals to Latino
voters. Democratic presidential candidates have targeted Latino voters
in key states such as California and Texas at least since 1960. In the
type of symbolic mainstreaming that occurred in 2000, George W.
Bush's focus on Latinos was not just an attempt to secure their
votes, but it was also, and perhaps primarily, an attempt to position
himself as a candidate who truly believed in racial and ethnic
inclusion. This was done to soften his image as a social conservative
in the minds of moderate White voters. Additionally, unlike the
Democratic candidate, Bush's Latino focus became a major part of
the campaign image he wanted to portray to both Latino and
non-Latino voters.
TESTING SYMBOLIC MAINSTREAMING
In order to investigate best the topics raised by this paper, we
would need a battery of questions that have not been asked in any
publicly available survey. For instance, we would want to know how the
American public viewed the parties, prominent party candidates, and
elected officials in terms of their relationships with both Latinos and
African Americans. We would also want to ask this question over a
period of years because assessing changes would be useful. We might
also study those Whites who now vote for Republican candidates, but who
previously voted for Democrats or split their tickets. Another part of
a comprehensive research design would directly ask respondents whether
they felt the Republican Party had moderated its racial stances in
recent years, and whether they perceived a Bush outreach to Latino
communities. We would want to investigate these issues in key swing
states. Focus groups might be particularly helpful in this regard. No
such comprehensive data exist, however.
Evaluating White Opinion: Views of the
Parties and Latinos
Nonetheless, we can gain some purchase on these issues by examining
results from several datasets that include questions about Latinos and
politics. The first dataset we use is the 1999 Washington
Post/Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation/Harvard University
National Survey on Latinos in America (NSLA). This is a nationally
representative sample of 4614 respondents, including 1802 Whites and
2417 Latinos. This survey is important because very few polls include
large samples of both populations, and few ask questions that involve
Latinos and the political system.
Most importantly, the NSLA asked the following question: “Which
party do you think has more concern for Latinos—the Democratic
Party, the Republican Party, or is there no difference?” As Table 1 indicates, the most common response for
Whites is “no difference (51%), with a significant minority
responding “Democratic” (29%), and the remainder answering
“don't know” (13%) or “Republican” (7
percent). These answers are very different from those given by Latinos
themselves as well as by African-Americans. Respondents from these
minority groups are more likely to identify the Democratic Party as the
most concerned with Latinos although African Americans are more likely
to do so than are Latinos. This White-Minority differential suggests
that many Whites view the Republican Party through a relatively
positive lens, even though most observers believe the parties have
staked out clear differences on questions involving race and
ethnicity.
“Which party do you think has more concern for
Latinos?”
We might then ask whether opinions about this question are associated
with support for the candidates in the 2000 presidential elections. If
so, it would suggest that (1) Whites see concern about Latinos as a
positive political attribute, and (2) Whites use their opinions about
this question to influence candidate evaluation.
We therefore create a regression for White respondents where the
dependent variable is anticipated support for Gore versus Bush in 1999
(Gore = 1, Bush = 0). We then specify the question about which party
has the most concerns for Latino interests as 2 = Democrats, 1 = no
difference, and 0 = Republicans. We also control for factors including
age, income, gender, education, and ideology. As shown in Table 2, this variable is positively associated
with support for Gore.
Logit model of Anglo-anticipated Presidential Candidate Support for
2000 (Gore = 1, Bush = 0)
In addition to the statistical significance of this factor and the
other variables, we also need to know their substantive significance.
By using the program Clarify (King et al.,
1999), we are able to list in each table the effect on the
dependent variable of a change in each independent variable from its
minimum to maximum while holding the other variables constant at their
mean.16
The substantive effects of the
Latino/Party variables are large, which suggests that voter
evaluations of this issue are central to their electoral decisions.
This is consistent with our argument that Republicans understand they
must convince moderate Anglo swing voters about the GOP's racial
tolerance in order to become the majority party. The large substantive
significance could be due to voters dichotomously evaluating the GOP in
this regard: either the party is seen as tolerant and embracing a new
“compassionate conservative” approach toward minorities, or
it is seen as intolerant and acting in the mode of traditional racial
conservatives. Many Anglos may be reluctant to support the GOP unless
they perceive it has met a minimum threshold of tolerance, especially
for moderate Anglos who see themselves as financially conservative but
socially liberal.
It is also possible that responses to this question capture additional
racial and other attitudes. For instance, those who believe that the
Democrats are more supportive of Latinos may also believe that the Democrats
are more tolerant toward all minorities, or are more generally tolerant
toward civil rights and perhaps civil liberties. The substantive impact of
evaluations about partisan outreach specifically to Latinos may
therefore be less than indicated by the above findings, but it will
take additional research to disentangle such attitudes.
But the point we are making is that Bush's tactics are meant to
reassure Whites that Republicans are not too far to the right on race
issues. We should therefore be particularly interested in those Whites
who see no differences between the parties or who think Republicans
care the most about Latinos. Perhaps these White respondents have been
the most influenced by the Bush outreach efforts. We therefore create
two new dummy variables: (1) 1 = Republicans, 0 = Democrats or no
difference, and (2) 1 = no difference, 0 = Democrats or Republicans.
Table 3 contains the models with the two
new independent variables. We see that both variables are statistically
significant and negatively associated with Gore support, even after
controlling for age, income, gender, education, and ideology.
Logit models of Anglo-anticipated presidential candidate support for
2000 (Gore = 1, Bush = 0)
For the first model, one possible response is that Whites who like
Bush are simply predisposed to give him high marks for promoting the
interests of Latinos and many other groups in America. In that case,
the causal arrow runs in the opposite direction.
The above argument does assume, however, that such Whites think that
helping Latinos is a positive political attribute—and presumably
such Whites do not think Bush would or should help all groups and all
peoples. Is it likely that Whites who think the Republican Party is
more sympathetic to categories of people such as “welfare
recipients,” for example, are more likely to vote for Bush? This
is unlikely, as Republicans have traditionally been critical of such
groups. We might tentatively conclude, therefore, that Whites who like
Bush have internalized the message that helping Latinos is good.
The next question is why do they think this way? Is this concern for
Latinos among White Bush supporters a spontaneous development, or was
it promoted in a top-down political process? The latter is more likely,
as previous elections cycles in recent memory saw campaigns and
candidates that often disparaged immigrants and thereby Latinos. It is
unlikely that Whites who saw the Republicans as the most sympathetic to
Latinos in 1992, for instance, would have been especially likely to
vote for George H. W. Bush—or that such Whites would have been
more likely to vote for Pete Wilson for governor of California in 1994.
This change may be due to George W. Bush and the significant media
publicity that portrayed him as interested in and respectful of
Latinos.
What is needed is a time series for the question, which would allow
us to see if Whites over the last four years increasingly see no
difference between the parties on this question. We would also need an
additional set of questions asking respondents which party is most
sympathetic to a wide variety of social groups.
We are also interested in the second model in Table 3, which shows greater Bush support among
Whites who see no partisan differences. While it would have been
interesting to see if these respondents also see no party as more
concerned for the interests of African Americans, this question was not
asked. Nevertheless, we might tentatively conclude that race may have
been “taken off the table” for these respondents. The other
regressions suggest that if they saw Democrats or Republicans as more
concerned for Latinos, they would be more likely to support that
party's candidate for president. Because those who perceive no
differences are more likely to support Bush than Gore, it suggests that
a mental obstacle to White Republican voting was removed. Such Whites
can now vote Republican based on economic or other interests and need
not worry that they are voting for a race-baiting party.
It would be particularly interesting to know whether the number of
people in the above categories had changed over the last few years. If
the question had been asked in surveys in 1996, we could see whether
there were increases in the percentage of people who see no party
differences or who see Republicans as most concerned for Latinos. If
so, the result would likely benefit GOP candidates, as there would be
fewer voters worried that tax cuts and tolerance were in conflict.
White Views of Latinos and African
Americans: Did Bush Choose the “Right” Group?
Are Whites less concerned about Latinos than African Americans? This
would make outreach to Latinos less politically risky than outreach to
African Americans. To see whether this is the case, we look at both
national and state data concerning White attitudes toward these two
groups.
The NSLA asked White respondents to indicate how much they had in
common with Latinos and African-Americans. The responses are generally
positive and indicate few differences between groups. When there are
differences, Whites report slightly more commonalities with African
Americans than with Latinos. Overall, 72% of Whites reported “a
lot” or “a fair amount” of commonality with Latinos
and 75% with African Americans.
The 2000 and 1996 National Election Study (NES) asked Whites to
evaluate African Americans and Latinos on a one hundred point feeling
thermometer. There are only single-digit differences in White
evaluations of these two groups, and these differences indicate
slightly more affinity for African Americans. This pattern holds for
Democrats, Republicans, and Independents.
One difficulty with the above data is that such direct questions
about racial opinions do not necessarily elicit honest answers. Many
respondents understand that the expression of true opinions may not be
socially acceptable, and they may not be willing to admit their
feelings to unknown surveyors. Additionally, racial attitudes are
complex and cannot be readily deduced from one or two questions.17
See the excellent discussion of the
complexity of racial attitudes in Schuman et al. (1997).
A more indirect question was asked by a 2002 statewide telephone
survey of 1200 White, Latino, and African American registered voters in
Texas. The question asked Whites whether Latinos and African Americans
had too much influence.18
The questions
were: “What about Hispanics, or Latinos? Would you say they have
too much influence, just about the right amount of influence, or too
little influence?” and “What about African Americans? Would
you say they have too much influence, just about the right amount of
influence, or too little influence?”
Whites were more
likely to think that African Americans had too much influence (13%)
than to evaluate Latinos similarly (9%), although Latinos vastly
outnumber African Americans in Texas.
The same pattern holds true for those respondents, regardless of
stated partisanship, who reported feeling “much closer” or
“somewhat closer” to the Republican Party in recent years.
9% claim that Latinos have too much influence, while 14% claim that
African Americans have too much influence. Independents, whom party
candidates particularly wish to attract, exhibit similar patterns. 10%
of independents think that Latinos have too much influence, whereas 15%
of independents think that African Americans have too much
influence.
Although these figures are not large in absolute terms, we should
keep in mind that people are reluctant to admit anti-minority feelings
on surveys. It is therefore the relative differences of the responses that
are important.
We might also ask whether the 2000 NES White feeling thermometer
evaluations of Latinos and African Americans are related to Anglo
reported partisanship. This is another way to understand whether the
Republican Party and Bush were correct to emphasize outreach to Latinos
instead of African Americans. To maximize independent White support,
the GOP should choose the racial/ethnic group least connected to
partisanship. This least-partisan focus would suggest that evaluations
are more evenly distributed across the partisan range, which in turn
suggests that key independent Whites have relatively more positive
feelings toward that group. Outreach to a group that is highly linked
to partisanship also entails some risk. Assuming that Democrats are
generally more positive toward minorities than are Republicans, a
Republican candidate might risk alienating his or her party base by
conducting outreach to a group associated with Democratic
partisanship.
We therefore conducted χ2 tests on reported Anglo
partisanship and thermometers for both groups. The results show that
the relationship between partisanship and African Americans is stronger
than the relationship between partisanship and Latinos. This suggests,
as noted above, that the Bush outreach strategy to Latinos is more
likely to appeal to independents than an outreach effort to African
Americans. A Latino outreach strategy is also less likely to alienate
members of the Republican base.
THE FUTURE OF RACE AND ETHNICITY IN
NATIONAL PARTY POLITICS
Our previous discussion clearly shows that the salience of race and
ethnicity to national party politics will continue in the foreseeable
future. What is less clear is how that salience will be
manifested. Least clear is whose interests will be served by
the continuing evolution of race and ethnicity in our national body
politic.
Research by Schuman, Steeh, Bobo, and Krysan finds that a
“great normative shift” (1997, p.
312) has occurred in much of the United States regarding race
relations. Overt expressions of racial hostility and discrimination are
tolerated much less in the United States today than they were just five
decades ago. As these authors state, “the normative definition of
appropriate relations between blacks and whites … has
changed” (1997, p. 311). However, as these
authors also note, this has not led to an identifiable commitment of many
Whites to support necessary public policies to “drastically
reduc[e] economic and social inequality” that may be
necessary to expand opportunities for many African Americans (1997, p. 327).
Mendelberg (2001) terms this change in
White attitudes toward African Americans as a change in the “norm
of racial equality” (2001, p. 28). However
her research demonstrates how vulnerable many Whites still are to
“implicit [racial] appeals” (2001, p. 67) such as when candidates refer to
states' rights, busing, or affirmative action.19
We are not convinced that Mendelberg's distinction
between “explicit” and “implicit” racial appeals
is as clear as she argues. If “implicit” appeals are known by
candidates to be understood by White voters though a racial lens, such as
in the South where the racial implications of a politician's stands
are unambiguous when he criticizes busing, affirmative action, or welfare,
it may be that little has changed in campaigning other than
rhetoric.
These scholars' findings demonstrate that race still matters
greatly in American public opinion, with significant implications for
national electoral politics. Shifts in norms may have led to changes in
campaign rhetoric, but not to meaningful changes in substantive policy
discourse. It is certainly the case that the optimal campaign
strategies available to both Democrats and Republicans through median
voter theory are quite distinct.
Our analysis reveals that the Democratic Party is in a very difficult
position. The requisites of median voter theory and its embodiment in
the strategies of the Democratic Leadership Council demand that its
presidential and other major candidates do all they can to avoid being
linked to the perceived interests of African Americans. Only in this
way can Democratic presidential candidates have any chance of being
competitive in the South, a necessary contributor to all recent
successful Democratic candidates. Being perceived as catering to Latino
interests carries similar risks, particularly in some states where they
comprise sizeable percentages of the population and electorate. Yet,
this avoidance may only increasingly lead to the dysfunctional
consequence Frymer describes as “electoral capture” where a
“group has no choice but to remain in [one]
party” because the other party sees no benefit in addressing that
group's interests (1999, p. 8).
In contrast, it is also clear that Democratic presidential candidates
cannot win in key states without overwhelming support from African
American voters. In the 2000 election, Gore would not have won in
Delaware, Illinois, Maryland, Michigan, and Pennsylvania had it not
been for the African American vote in these states. A Democrat also
cannot compete in Florida without a solid African American block
vote.
The Republican Party, by contrast, is in a much stronger position to
benefit from a strategy that promotes the symbolic
mainstreaming of Latinos. By focusing on Latinos the Republican
candidate does little to weaken his base with socially conservative
voters in the South. Although Latinos are increasingly moving to states
such as North Carolina and Georgia, many of these Latinos are
non-citizens and therefore cannot vote. It is also the case that many
Southern employers welcome Latino immigrants because they work hard for
low pay and are less likely than African Americans to advocate for
their rights as employees.
The focus on Latinos may also have the benefit of softening a
Republican candidate who is perceived as socially conservative, as
President Bush has done so effectively, and thus complying with
shifting norms of race relations and racial equality. Open expressions
of cultural respect, such as speaking Spanish, can go a long way to
allowing some swing voters to feel comfortable supporting a candidate
who takes consistently conservative stands on many domestic and
international issues. The importance for a Republican candidate to
appear tolerant of difference, including race and ethnicity, may be
critical to winning over sufficient numbers of swing, suburban,
middle-class voters.20
See the discussion
of the importance of “tolerance” to many middle-class
voters in Wolfe (1998) and Himmelfarb (1999).
Our analysis suggests that a number
of potential White swing voters may be influenced by such appeals.
What we see as the greatest risk of the symbolic
mainstreaming of Latinos is that to the extent that this group
increasingly supports the Republican Party, and Republican candidates
win office, the specific policy concerns of working class Latinos, such
as for increased public commitment to expanding health, educational
opportunity, and home ownership, may be less and less likely to be
enacted. Of perhaps greater concern is the reality that to the extent
some Latinos respond favorably to Republican symbolic mainstreaming,
this will assuredly serve to marginalize further the interests of many
African Americans, and especially African Americans in the South.
Latino inclusion within the Republican Party may come at the direct
cost of African American and Latino exclusion from much
substantive national policy benefits.
What is very clear is that it is the Republican Party under George W.
Bush that is primarily in control of the nation's discourse on
race and ethnicity. The entire strategy of the Democratic Leadership
Council is in response to what the Republicans have done and are likely
to do in the near future. Although there is renewed interest within the
Democratic Party about ensuring that both Latinos and African Americans
perceive themselves to be served fully by the party, such public
posturing may be a high-risk strategy. Median voter theory would
certainly suggest this. Our examination of how median voter theory
affects race and ethnicity in national party politics puts the
Republican Party under George W. Bush in the driver's seat. Where
both African Americans and Latinos will land at the end of this trip is
strikingly unclear, but there is little reason to think where they land
will be anywhere near a place that most members of either group wish to
be.
