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The Spectacle Blog
In light of my column today on the main site, I’ve been asked a couple times about what I think of the Sailer Strategy. Political analyst Steve Sailer has argued extensively that instead of pouring substantial resources into minority outreach, Republicans should seek to maximize their share of the white vote. People don’t like it when it is put as starkly as this, but Sailer is hardly alone: Whether they realize it or not, most conservatives who want to jettison social issues are hoping to replicate Rudy Giuliani’s New York City of the '90s, where values issues didn’t much divide white voters and they overwhelmingly backed the Republican mayor.
Sailer and I broadly agree on the following: Fluctuations in the white vote often explain election results better than much smaller fluctuations in the (still smaller) minority vote; Hispanic voters should be treated like the Americans they are rather than a monolithic, ethnocentric constituency for mass immigration; that it would be better for the country if people didn’t vote along racial bloc lines, but the reality is many people do vote this way.
My main difference with Sailer is that I don’t see this as a strategy so much as a statement of facts. Sailer is right that if whites in California voted like whites in Texas, Republicans would win more elections. But how to make that happen? Rick Perry was barely tougher on illegal immigration than Meg Whitman, yet he still did better among Anglos and worse among Latinos. What lesson was there for California Republicans in Perry’s reelection? As any Frum Forum blogger could tell you, whites in Connecticut and Mississippi frequently have different values. Those values explain their voting behavior more than their race.
Based on these facts, I make a more modest claim: Republicans should recognize diversity among Hispanic voters rather than needlessly alienating them or emulating the Democrats’ identity politics approach. At the same time, they should not allow a short-term hit among Hispanic voters to scare them into backing immigration policies that don’t redound to the long-term benefit of the party or the country.
View all comments (13) | Leave a comment
More Blog Posts by W. James Antle, III
http://spectator.org/blog/2010/11/08/the-sailer-strategy
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Sean| 11.8.10 @ 10:34AM
Republicans need to return to the party of fiscal discipline. They lost a lot of conservative Hispanic voters when they continued to spend and run up the debt. Also they created entitlement programs which increase the amount of people beholden to the Democratic party. Plus open borders = illegal immigrants= voter fraud= more Democratic voters.
White Texans are more liberal now than white Southern California of the 70s and 80s. It doesn't bode well for freedom in the next 30 years.
The major problem is white women. They are much more liberal than white men.
Sheila| 11.8.10 @ 3:02PM
I disagree that there are "a lot of conservative Hispanic voters" devoted to fiscal discipline. The vast majority of Hispanics utilize far more in social services and government monies than they ever pay in taxes. This does not decrease in the generations following initial illegal immigration; rather it increases.
The reason White Texans are now more liberal is that more of them are refugees from NY, NJ, California and Chicago - and they bring their politics with them. Add to that the massive influx of Asians/Indians (plus Hispanics and Blacks) and how do you spell population replacement?
Good point re White women. Women in general are airheads; most middle-class White women think it a badge of honor (or of their gender) to be "caring" and "compassionate" instead of smart and rational (and being smart and rational does not in any way imply any necessary decrease in femininity).
Tribalism + democracy + stupidity = racist idiocracy.
Doug| 11.8.10 @ 10:51AM
I think the Republicans would do well do continue to focus exclusively on conservative economic values and limited govt. Stay away from the divisive social issues (even as the Dems will try to continue to play group-politics). Like minded indviduals will support those tenents, regardless of gender, racial background, sexual orientation.
I think conservatism at it's core is the respect for and the judgement of the invidual based on their individual actions and achievements, not lumping them into some group needing 'special messaging'.
Occam's Tool| 11.8.10 @ 11:27AM
I say, welcome everyone in who supports lower taxes, strong borders, etc. and run as many minority candidates as you can. It took a while to lose the Black vote; it will take a while to get it back. But if you're clear and for smaller government and more freedom, the people will come.
Tim*| 11.8.10 @ 11:46AM
Catholic voters, who had favored Democratic over Republican candidates by double-digit margins in the last two congressional elections, swung to the GOP in 2010.
PCC| 11.8.10 @ 1:04PM
Pronoucements on racial voting patterns as a reflection of the determinative factor in voters' minds are, to some degree, a result of lazy polling and lazy analysis.
A more sensitive polling method might reveal, for example, that suburban married Hispanics with incomes over $75,000 break 60-40 for Republicans. So, in those cases, it may not be a race that gets that vote, it might be crime or education or tax policy.
It's just easier to say, "here's how Hispanics voted," even if racial identity was not determinative.
Derek Leaberry| 11.8.10 @ 1:37PM
Sailer understands politics much better than Karl Rove while not being slavishly devoted to the Bush family as is Rove.
Steve Sailer Reader| 11.8.10 @ 4:00PM
James, I found it. ;-)
How about affirmative action? You've got to know that white people are getting really tired of getting discriminated against in hiring, scholarships, promotions, etc. A lot of people are starting to get downright pissed, in fact.
Others just go native (by that I mean, state that they are native Americans, which they are (just not "Native Americans" - one letter, could easily be a typo, huh?)).
Back to the point, if you want to pick up white votes from voters that would otherwise stay home, you'd be stupid not to state that you are for eliminating all affirmative action programs of the Federal Government. (That doesn't mean you will do it, as, after all, you're a politician, but we'll find out who your gay* buddy is, and hold your feet to the fire.).
* or straight, I am an equal-opportunity black-mailer.
Long Ben| 11.8.10 @ 5:40PM
Now may be the time to major on the economy and smaller government, sure . But the Gop can not prosper without the social conservatives , ever .
serfer62| 11.8.10 @ 5:43PM
Any diviation from conservative values is racial. The Big Tent should encompass conservatives of all differances. Pandering to a race, religion or region is prejudicism.
Spicy Joker| 11.8.10 @ 5:52PM
More Hispanics - and more people in general - will vote Republican when Republicans becomes the party of fiscal sanity. If Republicans restore fiscal sanity, the economy will begin to improve on its own, and people of all kinds will appreciate that.
John Smith| 11.8.10 @ 10:25PM
"It took a while to lose the Black vote; it will take a while to get it back."
You got to be kidding; Blacks want only one thing, FREE MONEY. That's why Blacks voted for Quinn for Gov in IL. You will never get Black votes by talking about corruption because Blacks don't pay taxes and are in fact the receiptient class for tax expenditures. Republicans should stop wasting money and effort trying to get Blacks and Hispanics and concentrate on the Sailer Strategy. They could attract Asian citizen votes by supporting the elimination of the H-1B job thief visa so Asian citizens can get tech jobs.
Benito| 11.17.10 @ 10:42PM
The Republicans are so funny, when the economy is good you say let’s all celebrate “Cinco de Mayo, my brothers” but when the economy is down “it’s all your fault, you damn immigrant”.
The GOP has went on a nationwide rant in proposing and passing several anti-immigration legislation (that our US Courts continue to strike down) and have continue to blame the immigrant for the flat economy or worse.
Plus the more radical of the GOP are now attacking our Constitution (with all Amendments), and the Declaration of Independence, in their crazy notion of wanting to take away rights that all of us take for granted in their misguided attempt to garner some much needed votes (how is that working, of course I mean the Senate), they really are fools, and leading the GOP towards obscurity because they are no longer a party of ideas, just of empty suits.
When most Americans (of Latin America roots) went to the polls this November we all remembered who stood with us, our children, aunts and uncles, brothers and sisters, our parents and grandparents, in one word our families and who stood against us, so trying to make amends now is somewhat funny, but go ahead, you did not change our minds. Your hate made you do it, and you found out that you reap what you have sown. I wonder what Abraham Lincoln would say about todays GOP, he unlike the current GOP was a man of ideas.