Is Dick Cheney What Bush Means by Inclusion?

Within moments after George W. Bush picked hard-line conservative Dick Cheney to be his Republican running mate, Al Gore beat a hot path to Jesse Jackson’s Operation PUSH headquarters in Chicago. He warned the mostly black gathering that Bush’s much repeated vow to get more minorities in the GOP was nothing but a smoke-and-mirrors ploy to deceive blacks and Latinos.

This was easy for Gore to say. Cheney’s congressional scorecard included opposition to the Equal Rights Amendment, tough gun control laws, busing to achieve racial desegregation, federal funding for abortions, child nutrition programs and creation of the eduCation Department. His knee-jerk conservative voting record was a made-in-heaven chance for Gore to brand Bush a political fraud when he claims that he wants greater minority inclusion.

If Bush blew his chance--with his choice of Cheney--to break the iron grip that the Democrats have on black and Latino voters, he has no one but himself to blame. In the months before he picked Cheney, there were some signs that the Democratic hold on black and Latino voters was slipping. After the March 7 Super Tuesday primaries, exit polls in California showed that Bush had pared the traditional bulge in Democratic support among Latinos down to a 2-1 margin. Overall, 15% of blacks, nearly 30% of Latinos and more than 40% of Asians voted for Bush or McCain. The Republicans were also heartened by the whopping margins in which Latino, black and Asian voters supported the anti-gay ballot initiative that limits marriage to heterosexual couples and gave near-majority support to another conservative-powered initiative that mandates tougher sentences for violent juvenile offenders. In Texas and Florida, Bush and his brother, Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, bragged that they bagged about half of the Latino vote and one-third of the black vote in winning office.

The substantial support blacks gave Bush, at least in Texas, also shattered the myth that blacks are cradle-to-grave reflexive party-line Democrats. A sizable percentage of blacks are anti-abortion, pro-school prayer, anti-gun control and anti-welfare. Many also enthusiastically support school vouchers, “three-strike” laws, stiffer sentences for crime and drug use, and oppose abortion and gay rights. The National Urban League’s recent annual “State of Black America” report confirms that blacks, like many whites, have benefited from the boom times. They are better educated, more own homes, and many have made impressive gains in corporations and the professions.

Many Democrats see this as a plus for them. They bank heavily that minorities won’t risk rocking the boat by voting for Bush. Yet that same prosperity and political comfort can be a double-edged sword for the Democrats. Many blacks and Latinos now feel that they have a stronger stake in the system. Republicans try to play to that feeling by pitching to blacks and Latinos that their proposals for school vouchers, bigger tax credits and cuts and more aid to small business are the best way for them to accelerate their upward social and economic climb.

But prosperity, relative racial peace and the social and increasingly political conservatism of many blacks and Latinos are not enough to cause them to dash into the Bush camp. He would have to do much more than dole out dollars for ad campaigns to attract Latinos. And he would certainly have to do much more than utter the warmed-over platitudes about diversity, as he did at the recent NAACP convention.

Bush would have to pledge to make political appointments in his administration that reflect the diversity of the United States; to confront such issues as immigration reform, racial profiling, the death penalty, the grotesque racial disparities in the prison and criminal justice system, a disastrous drug policy; and to support massive funding increases for health care and education and greater protections for Social Security.

The Cheney pick makes a mockery of Bush’s dangled hints that he would do any of these things. It also gives no reason to think that Bush will do anything to make over the GOP from a clubby, party of ole conservative white guys into a party of gender and racial inclusion. In fact, a poll released the same day that Bush picked Cheney showed that black and Latino support is still rock solid for Gore. No wonder that Gore can gloat: “See, I told you so.”