New Census Data Brings Good News for Democrats

[pampango]

http://politics.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/john-farrell/2010/12/21/new-census-data-brings-good-news-for-democrats.html

Superficial analysis will hail this as a political windfall for Republicans, largely because Texas is expected to pick up four congressional seats. Recent history, however, warns against such claims. In winning three of the last five presidential elections, the Democrats have shown their ability to compete in the Sun Belt, especially in the West. Even in last November's disaster, the Continental Divide acted as a firewall, with Democrats winning crucial statewide elections in Colorado, Nevada, California and Washington.

The reason is pretty obvious: Republicans have a problem with minority voters. Multi-racial coalitions gave Barack Obama victory in Virginia, North Carolina, Florida, California and other crucial states in 2008. Yes, the Sun Belt is growing, but to a great extent that growth is Hispanic. Newt Gingrich can take all the Spanish lessons he wants, but the Tea Party Republicans won't let their party bend on immigration. Senate Republicans did themselves no favor by rejecting so moderate and fair a measure as the DREAM Act last week.

Politics runs in cycles. When the GOP stopped running Californians (there was a Nixon or a Reagan on the GOP national ticket in seven of the nine presidential elections between 1952 and 1984), and stepped up the bashing of Hispanic immigrants, it shoved the nation's biggest political plum, majority-minority California, into Democratic hands and forfeited its once-vaunted Electoral College "lock."

Texas is a GOP bastion now. But it too is a majority-minority state. In part because of the Bush family's moderation on race and immigration, Democrats have failed at assembling (and getting to the polls) the kind of multi-racial coalition there that has proven successful in other states. But unless Jeb runs for president, the Bush era is over, at least for a generation.

[drm604]

1. Puts things nicely into perspective. n/t