Wednesday, December 1, 2010

Conservatives Represent Minorities

Here are some extremely interesting statistics about which major US party actually is more representative of the entire nation including minorities. Just as the Democratic Party cannot speak for women when it is under the thumb of radical, pro-abortion activists, so it cannot speak for minorities when its political philosophy is to the right of many minority Americans.

Josh Kraushaar writes:

Here's a statistic to pore over this Thanksgiving weekend: In 2011, there will be more Republican minorities holding governorships, Senate seats and representing majority-white House districts than Democrats.

There are only 18 elected officials who fit that category -- 10 Republican, eight Democratic. Republicans got a major diversity boost from the midterms, seeing their ranks of minorities expand from one (Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal) to nine, with the elections of Govs.-elect Susana Martinez (R-N.M.), Nikki Haley (R-S.C.), Brian Sandoval (R-Nev.), Sen.-elect Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) and Reps.-elect Jaime Herrera (R-Wash.), Bill Flores (R-Texas), Raul Labrador (R-Idaho), Allen West (R-Fla.) and Tim Scott (R-S.C.).

Gov. Deval Patrick (D-Mass.) heads the Democratic list of minority elected officials winning white voters, along with Sens. Robert Menendez (D-N.J.), Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii), Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii) -- and Reps. Keith Ellison (D-Minn.), Emanuel Cleaver (D-Mo.), Andre Carson (D-Ind.) and David Wu (D-Ore.).

Overall, the clear majority of minorities in Congress are Democrats. But the numbers above reflect an inconvenient reality that, even with their much more diverse caucus, Democrats face similar challenges as Republicans in recruiting, nominating and electing minority candidates to statewide office and in suburban and rural districts that are majority-white. The vast majority of Congressional Black Caucus and Congressional Hispanic Caucus members hail from urban districts where it doesn't require a crossover vote to win, or represent gerrymandered seats designed to elect a minority member of Congress. They are markedly more liberal than the average Democrat, no less the average voter, making it more difficult for them to successfully mount a statewide campaign.

Conservatism is often embraced to a greater degree by immigrants to the US because the whole reason they came was the American Dream and American Exceptionalism. (See for example Marco Rubio). For leftists to claim to speak for such people is ridiculous. It is time for identity politics to be tossed in the dustbin of history where it belongs.

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