Obama opening the racial divide?

A politico-demographic insight from a recent conversation is worth developing. It has to do with Obama's recent win and the configuration of voters that helped make that happen.

 

It is first useful to recall voting patterns in many larger American cities. Detroit is a good example.It has a large African-American population along with substantial Hispanic representation and a solid bloc of white liberals. These three entities were able to merge into a sufficiently strong voting bloc to successfully elect a black mayor. Moreover, this pattern is being duplicated all over America although at times the elected mayor turns out to be a white liberal as in the case of Chicago or an Hispanic as in the case of San Antonio. 

 

This model also pertains to the last presidential election. It suggests that the USA will continue to be led by a coalition of minorities over the years ahead. All that is required to achieve this is for key states which by definition have large African-American and/or Hispanic minorities, to continue their infatuation with the Democratic Party. As long as we have the Electoral College, minority cum liberal votes can be parleyed into strategic voting blocs that guarantee success. 

 

This formula for success is not as easy to maintain as it sounds. First and foremost, it costs a lot of money to plan and energize voter registration and voter turn-out campaigns. It also assumes that the Republican Party will remain impotent as a result of ideological feuds and a general unwillingness to identify and support a single candidate. One of the more devastating factors leading to Romney's failure to win was the exposure of his every weakness  and item of dirty laundry during the primary debates. Those debates gave the Democrats all the ammunition needed to topple Romney and then some.

 

Clearly, and the Republicans know this and the Democrats fear it, the Republican Party needs to systematically and genuinely reach out to ethnic minorities if it ever wants to access the bully pulpit again. If nothing else, Romney's hard line vision on immigration reform assured defeat. While we may not have known this at the time, we did know that his immigration policies were certain to lose Hispanic votes.

 

Attracting Afro-American votes is not easy for the Republican Party especially if the selected candidate is white and rich. Sadly, many black and white voters do not realize that the advancement of African-Americans in contemporary society will not be achieved by making them more dependent on government handouts. Surely a portion of the billions of campaign dollars in the Republican coffers could be spent on educating the public to this simple fact.

 

One disturbing side effect of the last and future campaigns is the commanding role played by racial politics. Obama was meant to mollify African American anger and to demonstrate as a role model that the American dream was open to all races. As soon as he was elected, Obama began to develop the administrative infrastructure whereby minorities could short-cut their way to higher incomes and status.  

 

This led to a reaction among conservatives in which they noted in a series of talking points that 'equal opportunity did not ensure equal results'. The promoters of this reminder wanted to make it clear that they would support equal opportunities measures but they would not do so at the expense of incompetent employees or office holders.