Top GOP Presidential Candidates to Miss Tavis Smiley's Debate
By Yoji Cole
September 21, 2007
Top Republican presidential candidates are again skipping a debate that promises to focus on issues that affect people of color. That the GOP appears to be out of touch with communities of color is a matter of concern for party leaders.
For an in-depth look at why the major Republican candidates are not attending events sponsored by black, Latino and LGBT groups, see the upcoming October 2007 issue of DiversityInc magazine and learn why this is a significant gap in customer service that could cost the GOP the presidential election.
The Republican candidate "All-American Presidential Forum" moderated by black journalist and talk-show host Tavis Smiley will feature GOP presidential candidates but not the party's frontrunners—former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, Arizona Sen. John McCain, former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney and former Tennessee Sen. Fred Thompson.
The four candidates all cited scheduling conflicts as the reason for their absence. The top Democratic presidential contenders attended a similar event in June at Howard University. Republican leaders are saying they're concerned that the party appears to be ignoring communities of color.
Smiley's "All-American Presidential Forum," which will take place at Morgan State University in Baltimore and is scheduled to air Sept. 27 on PBS, is not the first debate the GOP presidential contenders have skipped. Only McCain accepted an invitation from Spanish-language network Univision to attend its GOP presidential forum. Republican candidates did not participate in the gay-and-lesbian television network LOGO's presidential forum. And they skipped the annual conferences of the NAACP, National Council of La Raza, National Association of Latino Elected Officials, and the League of United Latin American Citizens.
Smiley does not plan to ignore the top GOP presidential candidates' absence. He told The Washington Post that he plans to have lecterns with the absent candidates' names at Thursday's debate.
"When you reject every black invitation and every brown invitation you receive, is that a scheduling issue or is it a pattern?" Smiley said to The Washington Post. "I don't believe anybody should be elected president of the United States if they think along the way they can ignore people of color. That's just not the America we live in."
"We sound like we don't want immigration; we sound like we don't want black people to vote for us," said former New York Congressman Jack Kemp, the 1996 GOP vice-presidential nominee, to The Washington Post. "What are we going to do—meet in a country club in the suburbs one day? If we're going to be competitive with people of color, we've got to ask them for their vote."
"I think [Republican candidates'] customer service thus far is at best inadequate and at worst nonexistent when it comes to the Hispanic community," said Lisa Navarrete, vice president, office of public information for the National Council of La Raza, to DiversityInc.
Republicans are missing opportunities to engage voters of color while waging a competition for votes. Black voters have traditionally supported Democrats since the civil-rights movement of the 1960s, but the number of black voters who cast ballots for Republicans doubled from 1999 to 2002. Voter turnout has increased most noticeably in the black community from 1980 to 2004, with 60 percent casting ballots in 2004, compared to 54 percent who did so in 1980. Voter turnout among whites and Latinos has increased 1 percent for each since 1980—67 percent and 47 percent, respectively, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.
Meanwhile, gains that the Republican Party made with Latino voters who also have historically voted for Democrats is slipping away. In the 2000 presidential election, George W. Bush earned 30 percent of the Latino vote and in 2004 increased that percentage to 40 percent. The increases in both black and Latino support helped usher Bush into his second term. In last year's midterm election, however, the Republicans' share of the Latino vote dropped back to 30 percent, according to The Washington Post.
DiversityInc attempted to contact the Giuliani, McCain and Romney campaigns for its October issue to hear why they missed conferences and debates sponsored by organizations of color, but only the Romney campaign responded.
Top Democratic contenders have missed some events as well. Sen. Barack Obama will miss tonight's televised Democratic presidential forum in Iowa, which is being cosponsored by AARP. As a result, he is putting himself at risk of alienating older voters. People older than 50—AARP's membership age—comprised more than half of the people who cast ballots in the 2004 Iowa caucuses, according to The New York Times.
And John Edwards missed NCLR's conference, reportedly because of scheduling conflicts.
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