Race and Rick Perry
Indeed, Perry's words were so powerful and courageously candid that I almost forgot why Republicans stopped being so "content to lose the black vote," not to mention other voters of color: They discovered after Mitt Romney's demographically driven defeat in 2012 that they no longer could rely for victory on a majority of white votes alone.
Romney won a larger percentage of the white vote in 2012 than Ronald Reagan did in 1980. But this time that wasn't enough to beat the majorities of black, Hispanic and Asian American voters who turned out to re-elect President Obama.
Romney said as much in early 2013 when asked on "Fox News Sunday" why he believed he lost the White House. "We didn't do as good a job in connecting with that (nonwhite) audience as we should have." With that, Romney showed a keen grasp of the obvious.
He was not alone. In recent decades the GOP has treated the black vote as if we African-Americans were not even worth being pandered to. After losing the majority vote in five of the last six elections, it's time for the party to broaden its appeal or risk shrinking back to a regional power.
Although Perry said more about the failings of Democrats in improving black employment, education and crime than he offered in terms of solutions, he did show a significant new ideological shift: "Too often, we Republicans -- myself included -- have emphasized our message on the 10th Amendment," which protects states' rights, "but not our message on the 14th," which calls for "equal protection of the laws" for individuals.
Indeed, the party of Lincoln switched places with the party of Andrew Jackson and the Confederacy in recent decades in emphasizing states' rights over civil rights. Now is an excellent time to start switching back.
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(E-mail Clarence Page at cpage@tribune.com.)
(c) 2015 CLARENCE PAGE DISTRIBUTED BY TRIBUNE MEDIA SERVICES, INC.
