Survey shows diversity is an issue for Florida's GOP delegation

ST. PAUL -- The national Republican Party was poised to make history Wednesday by nominating a folksy, straight-talking, working mother of five for vice president, a move party officials said will drive home the message that they are the party of the people.

But the demographics of the Florida delegation paint a different picture.

A party survey of the 225-member delegation turned up six blacks and 18 Hispanics. Sixty-three members did not specify a race on the party questionnaire.

The same survey showed 67 women.

Blacks make up 15.9 percent of Florida's population but 2.7 percent of the delegation. Florida is 19.6 percent Hispanic, but the delegation is 8 percent Hispanic.

The delegation's gender gap is also pronounced. Florida is 51 percent female, the delegation is 70.2 percent male.

Republican Party of Florida Chairman Jim Greer acknowledged the party's historic struggle to attract minorities, but he argued that Florida Republicans have made tremendous strides. He was quick to mention Brevard County delegate John Anderson, the first black Republican in Florida to serve as a county chairman.

"At the end of the day, we have great delegates to the convention that are black and that are Hispanic," Greer said.

Women make up 29.8 percent of the delegation, but it won't look that way on television when Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin accepts her vice presidential nomination Wednesday. Delegates and alternates are sharing Florida's 114 floor seats at the Xcel Energy Center, but Geer asked the men Wednesday to give up their seats to women when Palin makes her much-anticipated speech.

Greer argued that the Democrats' approach to building the delegation it sent to Denver last week, using a quota system, puts quantity above "quality."

"I don't agree with that concept," Greer said. "If you have major outreach like we have, why do you have to have percentages?"

The Florida Democratic delegation was 51 percent female, 23 percent black and 9 percent Hispanic.

Anderson, an 81-year-old member of the Tuskegee Airmen, said the percentages ignore the significant progress that the party has made.

"I try to make sure when I'm doing my outreach that people understand that this was not a black thing, that I was elected by whites," he said. "John Anderson was in the trenches, serving on committees, doing the things that he needed to do not because he was black, but because he was a Republican."

Clarence McKee, a black Republican and a communications coordinator for the Broward County Republicans, acknowledged that there are more black Democrats in Hillsborough County than the 65,000 black Republicans in all of Florida.

He blames tradition. Most black elected officials are Democrats, and that perpetuates the black tendency to identify exclusively with that party, McKee said. But much of the Republican platform, being tough on crime, anti-abortion and supporting school vouchers, are issues that naturally appeal to blacks, McKee said.

"Unlike Hispanics and Jews, who understand the importance of having a stake in being represented by both parties, blacks continue to be tied to the umbilical cord of the Democratic Party," McKee said.

Florida Democratic Party spokesman Eric Jotkoff sees it another way.

"I think Floridians recognize that Republicans represent special interests, not the people," he said.

By By Jim Ash
Tallahassee Democrat

The 'Bola' Is In McCain's Court

When they come to the barrios to seek the Hispanic vote, Democratic Party leaders tell us anything we want to hear, especially about their plans to fix our broken immigration system and to grant some kind of amnesty to the 12 million illegal immigrants already living here.

But when they address a national audience, as they did from their convention in Denver last week, you don't hear anything that resembles their barrio speeches.

In fact, from listening to the main speakers at the Democratic National Convention, you wouldn't know this country has an immigration/national security crisis or that the American people consider immigration reform/enforcement to be one of the most important issues of our time.

On the Spanish-language TV networks, we saw interviews with Latino Democrats at the convention, and of course, they were speaking as if their party had solutions to all of our problems. Some will tell you that the Democratic Party platform -- which few Americans read -- commits the party to overhauling the nation's immigration laws and placing illegal immigrants on a path to legalization. But you have to wonder why none of their Spanish-language TV rhetoric or platform commitments came out of the speeches delivered from the main convention podium.

It's clearly a sign that once again, the Latino vote is being taken for granted by the Democratic Party. The polls say that Sen. Barack Obama leads Sen. John McCain by a 3-1 margin among Latino voters, and Democrats obviously feel they can sit back and say absolutely "nada." If they can win the Hispanic vote by default, why risk alienating some xenophobic Americans who might vote for Obama?

Yet that was the convention where many Latinos expected to hear strong condemnations of the immigrant-bashing measures and anti-Hispanic rhetoric of many Republican lawmakers during the past few years. That was the place and time for Democrats, especially Obama, to (SET ITAL) earn (END ITAL) respect from Latinos.

Instead, what Latinos got was disrespect. They are America's largest minority, but they were treated as if they don't exist.

Here's a simple Internet research exercise: Download the texts of the most important prime time speeches -- including those by Barack and Michelle Obama, Bill and Hillary Clinton, Sen. Joe Biden or any of the other keynote speakers. Then, within each of those transcripts, search for a few keywords. Try "Hispanic" or "Latino" or "immigration" or "Latin America." Or try the name of the Latin American countries that have been in the news lately: Mexico, Colombia, Venezuela, Ecuador, Cuba, etc. You will be surprised by the almost absolute absence of any of the issues that are uniquely of interest to Latinos.

You will find that even when the words "immigrants" or "immigration" were used, in speeches by Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, it was done very disingenuously -- by simultaneously trying to appeal to both sides of the immigration debate. READ MORE

By Miguel Perez
The Post Chronicle