Minority Party

AFTER the campaign comes the campaign to define its meaning. The party would have done better, says the advice-giver, if it had been more . . . like the advice-giver. Since the GOP was disappointed this time out, it has fallen to its factions to enact this dance. But while they disagree on much—Was the party too frightening or too milquetoast? Too obsessed with impeachment or too indifferent to it?—on one point they are remarkably united: the Republican Party needs to do more to attract minorities. Said Arizona Senator John McCain, “The new Republican Party, ifitistobe successful in future elections, must be a party of inclusion.”

One reason for the breadth of this consensus may be that it is correct. Black voters’ revulsion at the GOP hurt the party badly on Nov. 3. It is the reason Democrats held all the Midwestern seats Republicans had targeted. It is the reason Democrats control 17 of 22 state legislatures in the South—supposedly the modem GOP’s heartland. And it is the reason Roy Barnes was able to get elected Governor of Georgia without clearing 40 per cent of the state’s white voters. In South Carolina, if David Beasley had won 25 rather than 6 per cent of blacks’ votes, he would not be moving out of the governor’s mansion.

About the Author

Ramesh Ponnuru

Ramesh Ponnuru is the editor of National Review, a columnist for the Washington Post, and a fellow at the American Enterprise Institute.

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AFTER the campaign comes the campaign to define its meaning. The party would have done better, says the advice-giver, if it had been more . . . like the advice-giver. Since the GOP was disappointed this time out, it has fallen to its factions to enact this dance. But while they disagree on much—Was the party too frightening or too milquetoast? Too obsessed with impeachment or too indifferent to it?—on one point they are remarkably united: the Republican Party needs to do more to attract minorities. Said Arizona Senator John McCain, “The new Republican Party, ifitistobe successful in future elections, must be a party of inclusion.”

One reason for the breadth of this consensus may be that it is correct. Black voters’ revulsion at the GOP hurt the party badly on Nov. 3. It is the reason Democrats held all the Midwestern seats Republicans had targeted. It is the reason Democrats control 17 of 22 state legislatures in the South—supposedly the modem GOP’s heartland. And it is the reason Roy Barnes was able to get elected Governor of Georgia without clearing 40 per cent of the state’s white voters. In South Carolina, if David Beasley had won 25 rather than 6 per cent of blacks’ votes, he would not be moving out of the governor’s mansion.