The two parties and identity politics

One thing that might be noted in the election results in this and recent years is the Democrats' reliance on identity politics. It is not just that Barack Obama got elected by drawing a record turnout among African-Americans and getting a record proportion of the vote among that same group. Rather, if you look at Democratic African-American office-holders, they are nearly all elected from constituencies with majority African-American electorates. (An exception might be Cory Booker, recently re-elected to a Senate seat in New Jersey. But he got his start as mayor of Newark, a largely African-American city.)

By contrast, African-Americans elected as Republicans are elected in constituencies that are not majority African-American — look at Tim Scott, Will Hurd and Mia Love — just to mention three African-Americans who will sit in the next Congress.

Scott was first elected to a seat in the House of Representatives from a majority-white district in South Carolina. When Senator Jim DeMint resigned, Governor Nikki Haley (herself an Indian-American) appointed Scott to the Senate. Tuesday he won a full term — and you can bet that this first African-American to be elected from the South since Reconstruction did not get the office because of African-American votes.

Will Hurd won a race in a basically Hispanic disctrict, running against a Hispanic incumbent. Again, his victory cannot be laid to identity politics.

Mia Love got elected from a district in Utah — and the number of African-Americans in the whole state of Utah is not enough that, even if they were all packed into one Congressional district, they could form a majority! Like Scott, she had to win based on white voters' feeling she was the best person for the job, and she did.

These are examples of the Republican Party's treatment of African-Americans as simply Americans, and it would be great if the Democrats could do the same.

An Examiner column I really liked

I've recently mentioned some columns and editorials in the Washington Examiner to which I found myself very much opposed. I should, in fairness, cite a column which appeared today, which I applaud unhesitatingly. It was done by Examiner columnist Noemie Emery. (I read it first in the paper; it is now available online as well.) She in turn was responding to a column by Michael Walsh in the National Review Online in which Walsh had said:

"After running one of the most disgraceful 'honorable' campaigns in American political history ... you'd think the least the least of the military McCains could do is to slink quietly off into the wild blue yonder with the thanks of a grateful nation trailing in his wake. But no, at age 74, he's still in the Senate ... where he can continue to reach across the aisle, poke his finger into the eyes of conservatives, hog the media spotlight, rail about Republican 'isolationists,' suck up to Fox News, and unleash his ankle-biting mini-me onto his enemies. Please, just go away."

Emery's response, after quoting this paragraph, began:

This was National Review Online contributor Michael Walsh's pique-bomb for John McCain, R-Ariz., whose behavior was clearly irking him.

But the appraisal is as short on understanding as it is long on rhetoric. McCain's "disgraceful" campaign did a remarkable job under the circumstances in staying close to Obama. He actually led him for two weeks before the financial implosion put paid to his chances.

McCain was also elected to the Senate five times, by fairly large margins. Having put away a movement conservative challenger by a two-to-one margin in the 2010 primary, he has the right and the power to do as he wants. He represents his state — not conservative pundits, to whom he owes nothing. He has the right to poke his finger in the eyes of anyone when he thinks they deserve it. He has the right to rail at "isolationists" when he thinks that they're wrong on the issues. And they, of course, have the right, and the duty, to rail back at him.

And then Emery went on to make it clear that the Republican Party has an identity separate from its conservative wing. And one of Emery's best remarks in that column is:

The Republican Party is conservative in the relative sense that it is the more conservative of the two major parties, and home to everyone in the country to the right of the center, by one degree or by one hundred: to Olympia Snowe and Michele Bachmann, to Jim DeMint and Jon Huntsman, to Rand Paul and Marco Rubio; to Scott Brown and Rick Perry.

There are no "Republicans in Name Only"; only different kinds of Republicans.

Bravo, Ms. Emery. I couldn't have said it better.