GOP problem: 'Their voters are white, aging and dying off'

[Reginald Hudlin]

CNN:

GOP problem: 'Their voters are white, aging and dying off'
By Halimah Abdullah, CNN
updated 10:13 AM EDT, Mon May 21, 2012


Washington (CNN) -- When presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney appears before Latino small-business owners in Washington on Wednesday, he'll address a group whose explosive birth rates foreshadow a seismic political shift in GOP strongholds in the Deep South and Southwest.

"The Republicans' problem is their voters are white, aging and dying off," said David Bositis, a senior research associate at the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies, who studies minority political engagement.

"There will come a time when they suffer catastrophic losses with the realization of the population changes."

Over the next several generations, the wave of minority voters -- who, according to U.S. Census figures released this week, now represent more than half of the nation's population born in the past year -- will become more of a power base in places like Alabama, Mississippi and Georgia. That hold will extend across the Southwest all the way to California, experts say.

The coming political revolution could result in a massive changing of the guard on nearly every level of government, potential cultural clashes, and the type of political alliances that are now considered rare.

In Georgia, those rumblings are already being felt.

It is a state that depends heavily on immigrant labor to pick peaches and peanuts and work in poultry plants. So when Georgia -- like its Southern sister states of Alabama, Louisiana, Mississippi, Tennessee and South Carolina -- passed a tough anti-immigration bill that also penalizes businesses, Hispanic groups and farmers alike pushed back.
 
"This election cycle Latinos in Georgia are upset about (the law)," said Jerry Gonzalez, executive director of GALEO, a nonprofit and nonpartisan group geared toward Georgia's growing Latino population. "That's going to spur more galvanization than we've ever seen before."

According to the Pew Hispanic Center, Southeastern states such as Alabama, Arkansas, Kentucky, Mississippi, North Carolina, South Carolina and Tennessee boast some of the greatest percentage increases in Latino population growth. They are also states where the percentage of Hispanics roughly doubled.

And, according to Pew, the Latino population boom helped Arizona, Florida, Georgia, Nevada, South Carolina, Texas, Utah and Washington net additional congressional seats.

Though Georgia's Latino population has mushroomed over the past ten years, according to Pew, roughly 23% of that group is eligible to vote, compared to roughly 76.2% of whites and just over 69% of African-Americans.

Still, activists like Gonzalez are hopeful that lawmakers will see the trends and recognize "Latinos merit a seat at the table as well."

So far, Republican efforts to offer Latinos a place at the table have fallen short.

The nation's Hispanics tend to vote Democratic, and overwhelmingly supported Barack Obama and Joe Biden in 2008.

Romney in particular has stumbled with this critical voting bloc, after his comments suggesting that making the economic landscape tough for illegal immigrants will force them to "self deport."

Even Republican Hispanic lawmakers, such as Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Florida, have urged the GOP to soften its language when discussing immigration and such proposals as the House-passed version of the Violence Against Women Act, which killed expanded coverage for illegal immigrants and Native Americans who are victims of domestic abuse, and the failed DREAM Act, which would have given U.S. residency to immigrant kids with high school diplomas.

The GOP is trying to clean up its image with Hispanic voters, with an eye toward the demographic's looming political clout.
Romney is slated to speak at the Latino Coalition's Annual Economic Summit in Washington on Wednesday. Last week, his campaign released "Dia Uno," a Spanish-language version of an ad underscoring Romney's mission for the first day he assumes the presidency.

If Republicans continue to struggle to appeal to Latino voters, Spanish-language ads may not stave off a change that experts like Bositis see coming in the not too distant future, when states such as Georgia go purple and eventually blue.

"There'll be a tipping point where you've got the Republicans in charge, but you'll get to the point when the population becomes minority," Bositis said. "When that happens the statewide offices will fall. Republican governors will fall. Things will change."

This announcement on birth rates "should be a wake-up call to everyone running for political office from this day forward," said Lionel Sosa, a veteran Latino GOP strategist who has helped advise candidates since 1980. "Latinos should no longer be considered minorities. In many crucial electoral states, this 'former minority' is fast becoming the deciding vote. The candidate who reaches out most effectively will win their support."

"Token efforts, such as tamale parties, will no longer work. Winning will require more than outreach. It will require inclusion," Sosa said. "Latinos, African-Americans and people of other races must be represented in the important decision-making strategies of any given campaign, whether it be for a Democrat or Republican."

[Battle]

Chicago Tribune

by Clarence Page


As America 'browns', blacks can offer guidance



White babies are no longer a majority of new births, according to the U.S. Census Bureau. America is quietly "browning," it is said, like dinner rolls in a warm oven. Yet such change does not come about without resistance from those who prefer to remain unbaked.

White supremacist groups have been having a "meltdown," says Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate groups.  In an ABC News report, he called the demographic trend "the single most important driver in the growth of hate groups and extremist groups over the last few years."

To the haters and the racially paranoid, even President Barack Obama's historic election is just one more piece of mounting evidence that whites are losing their majority in America's population. The Census Bureau now expects the nation will have no racial majority in 2042.

Two opposing visions shape our national debate about this demographic development, which largely has been driven by immigration trends. One fears that dramatic cultural change will tear the nation apart. The more hopeful view sees our younger generations, unburdened by historical baggage, leading America to a transformative integrated and post-racial era.

The truth probably lies between those two scenarios. Today's immigrants are assimilating over time in much the same way as earlier generations, driven by the traditional American dream of opportunity and upward mobility. But I don't expect ethno-cultural differences to lose all value.

America's traditional melting pot always has been more of a mulligan stew, balancing respect for ethnic traditions with a sense of common purpose. Our challenge for the future, as in the past, is how we can make that stew work for everybody and keep it from boiling over.

The element of race adds a new complication to assimilation in a country that seldom has undertaken racial change easily. As much as Americans have benefited from a national identity that is based on ideas, not a single racial or ethnic tribe, white supremacy was embedded in law for most of our history. Every naturalization act from 1790 to 1952 included language that reserved citizenship to a "white person," although standards as to who is considered "white" constantly have changed.

Even today, slightly more than half of those who checked "Hispanic" for ethnicity on the 2010 census forms also checked "white" for race.  To the census, you are whatever you say you are, even if others see something different when they look at you.

Still, the question of who can melt in today's melting pot rings alarm bells for some who long for a more monocultural past. An unhappy blogger who identifies himself as "Roger" laments in a post on Phyllis Schlafly's Eagle Forum website that "the USA is being transformed by immigrants" who "have high rates of illiteracy, illegitimacy and gang crime, and they will vote Democrat when the Democrats promise them more food stamps."

Roger's narrative runs quite the opposite of historical realities. Most immigrants are known for working long hours in rough conditions for low wages, driven by hope for a better life, including a good education for their children.

And their social conservatism on issues like abortion, gay marriage, school prayer and capital punishment tends to be closer to Schlafly than Obama. Rising Republican stars like Gov. Bobby Jindal of Louisiana, South Carolina Gov. Nikki Haley and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida show that immigrant ambitions don't have to lead to the Democratic Party.

But Roger is hardly alone in his discomfort with change — and not all of the uncomfortable folks are white. Former District of Columbia Mayor Marion Barry, now a City Council member, offered a recent example. He apologized for his "admittedly bad choice of words" in suggesting in earlier public remarks that Asian business owners in his ward "ought to go."

Obviously the landscape is changing for us black folks too. As we gain some measure of power in the melting pot, our victim rhetoric must change too.

In fact, if anyone should be concerned about helping white Americans adjust to becoming a minority, it is African-Americans. We have lots of experience.






Clarence Page is a member of the Tribune's editorial board and blogs at chicagotribune.com/pagespage.

cpage@tribune.com

Twitter @cptime

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