Christie, Paul, And Perry Court The Black Vote
The three Republican presidential candidates not willing to write off minorities are a welcome development for the political system.
President Obama will be leaving the White House in 18 months, but where will that leave the minority voters who helped elect him? It's a question that Republican presidential hopefuls not named Donald Trump are pondering.
Between 1980 and 2004, black support for the Democratic presidential candidates ranged from 83% to 90%. But in 2008 Mr. Obama won 95% of the black vote and was re-elected four years later with 93%. In 2012 black voters turned out at higher rates than white voters for the first time on record. The likelihood of Hillary Clinton or another Democratic nominee drawing Obama levels of black support is small. Many blacks may simply stay home. Others, having observed the black economic retrogression that occurred even with a black Democrat in the Oval Office, might consider alternatives.
To that end, Republicans such as New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie and Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul have been actively courting minorities. Mr. Christie has become a familiar presence in Camden, Newark and other economically depressed parts of the Garden State. In 2013 he was re-elected with the backing of 51% of Hispanics and 21% of blacks—an impressive 19-point and 12-point increase, respectively, from four years earlier.
Woody Allen once said that 80% of success is showing up, and Mr. Christie has been willing to campaign in communities and among voters that Republicans too often write off. The governor has bothered to introduce himself to black voters directly instead of letting Democratic opponents define him or only giving the occasional speech to the NAACP.
“How many Republicans are you going to see walking up and down these streets like this?” a black woman in Orange, N.J., told a Real Clear Politics reporter in 2013. “He's approachable. I really like that. And I think the people in Orange are really thrilled, whether they're Democrat or Republican, that he's here.”
Mr. Paul, for his part, has courted younger blacks by visiting historically black college campuses, which is admirable. Less admirable is Mr. Paul's decision to mouth liberal positions on voter ID, drug laws and prison sentencing in order to win black support. “I'm trying to go out and say to African-Americans ‘I want your vote, and the Republican Party wants your vote,' ” he told a radio interviewer last year, explaining why he thinks the GOP should drop the voter ID issue. “We have to be aware that the perception is out there and be careful about not so overdoing something that we further alienate a block of people that we need to attract.”
That's not black outreach—that's pandering. Moreover, it's off-base. A Fox News poll last year found majority support for voter ID laws among every demographic group, including 51% of blacks. A 2012 Pew survey put black support for voter ID at 62%. And law-abiding ghetto residents want the criminals who prey on them and their children locked up, not coddled. Don't confuse the agenda of civil-rights groups and other black elites with the desires of most blacks.
The better approach is the one taken by former Texas Gov. Rick Perry, who launched his second bid for the White House last month and gave one of the campaign's most poignant speeches last week. Mr. Perry is less concerned with making race-based entreaties than he is with appealing to blacks as fellow Americans. Imagine that!
The governor acknowledged America's history of oppressing blacks—“and because slavery and segregation were sanctioned by government, there is a role for government policy in addressing their lasting effects”—but he also noted the tremendous progress that has been made.
“A half-century ago, Republicans and Democrats came together to finally enshrine in the law the principle that all of us—regardless of race, color or national origin—are created equal,” said Mr. Perry. “When it comes to race, America is a better and more tolerant and more welcoming place than it has ever been.” These may be plain truths, but such progress is regularly dismissed by many on the grievance-focused left, where there is money to be made by civil-rights groups, and votes to be had by Democratic politicians, who are willing to pretend that systemic racism still drives racial disparities in the U.S.
Mr. Perry believes that a more significant barrier to black progress is poor political representation. The Democratic Party has long operated with no fear of losing the black vote, and Republicans have been too quick to concede it. Mr. Perry's overarching theme, however, was a rebuke of identity politics, stressing instead what all Americans desire—safe neighborhoods, good schools, economic opportunity. And he urged black voters to compare the track records of liberal and conservative governance on those fronts and then hold politicians accountable.
“In the cities where the left-wing solutions have been tried over and over again—places like Detroit and Chicago and Baltimore—African-Americans are moving out,” said the governor. “In blue-state coastal cities, you have strict zoning laws and environmental regulations that have prevented builders from expanding the housing supply.” San Francisco's black population today is half of what it was in 1970. That's obviously not because conservatives run the place.
If the GOP is getting serious about competing for black voters, it's a welcome development for our political system. And if Republican presidential candidates are looking for the right approach, they could do a lot worse than Mr. Perry's template.
This piece originally appeared in The Wall Street Journal