GIVEN AN increasing minority population and key locations where minorities are actually the majority, neither Republicans nor Democrats can risk alienating voters by being insensitive to gender or racial concerns. For that reason, both parties should be concerned about how Ward Connerly's "Super Tuesday for Equal Rights" campaign against affirmative action will affect the November 2008 election.
Neither party wants to be seen as resorting to identity politics, but Democratic candidates know they must get a majority of the votes of white women and people of color along with a respectable percentage of white male votes. And Republican presidential candidates are keenly aware that moderate women and Latinos helped give President Bush the edge over John F. Kerry and might have carried other Republicans with him.
Connerly's mission to end affirmative action began in 1995 in California where he succeeded in convincing his fellow University of California regents to end the practice. Since then he has been the face for successful initiatives against it in Washington and Michigan.
From now until next November, Connerly, a Republican, will be campaigning to ban affirmative action in five states - Arizona, Missouri, Oklahoma, Colorado, and Nebraska - all targeted, in part, for their growing anti-immigrant rumblings. According to Connerly, if large numbers of undocumented immigrants are granted legal rights, current affirmative action programs would entitle them to job or educational preferences. By using affirmative action as a proxy for immigration policy, he is taking racial and gender politics to a new level. If he gets his way, voters will associate those who defend granting rights to illegal immigrants with those who support race-based affirmative action.
Connerly counts on anti-immigrant sentiment to attract those who are ambivalent about affirmative action. And white women and blacks, traditional supporters of affirmative action, may think that a vote for affirmative action is a vote for immigrants who will displace them in the job market, and therefore stay home. This tactic may be just enough to affect the election of Democratic candidates. On the other hand, it may also alienate Latino voters who might have voted Republican.
Connerly's true cynicism shows in his decision not to take his initiative to South Dakota, where he recognizes "the Indian tribes are very influential" in bringing in federal programs seen as beneficial to the entire state. That white voters in South Dakota are thus less apt to be polarized by affirmative action and more likely to vote their community interests was part of his calculation.
By exploiting racial distrust, Connerly's campaign employs the kind of identity politics that both conservatives and liberals decry. At the core of his effort is the idea of white male victimization by racial preferences. Moreover, Connerly promotes a fracturing of community interests along racial and gender lines, the very thing he says affirmative action does.
What may determine the outcome in the targeted states is whether either party can bridge gender and racial issues. According to Harvard sociology professor William Julius Wilson, effective coalition building occurs when politicians persuade different groups that they share common values and common goals, and that their common goals can best be achieved with the participation of all groups. Wilson adds that politicians should not ignore differing race and gender perspectives or concerns but should frame the issues "in a way that is consistent with the broader political agenda to benefit all ordinary Americans."
Yet in Missouri, Connerly's group is challenging the secretary of state, Robin Carnahan, over his interpretation of the measure. Carnahan wants language on the ballot that expresses the state's constitutional interests and suggests that passage will negatively impact Missouri's ability to fight discrimination.
This episode transcends the issue of affirmative action and Democrats don't have to concede states where it appears on the ballot. They can continue to bridge groups around domestic issues and antiwar sentiments that are of particular concern to white women and minorities.
Certainly, the Democrats have fielded a more diverse slate of presidential candidates. Republicans need not rely on the kind of ill will Connerly fosters. Rudy Giuliani's tough law and order message could find support among white voters and people of color whose communities suffer from high crime rates and violence. Mike Huckabee, the Baptist minister, may use that part of his identity to woo the growing number of Hispanic and black evangelicals as well as white values voters.
Commonality of issues may not be enough. Effective coalition building may also require some personal identification with the candidate, whether on gender, race, class or religion. But whether it's the Democrats or the Republicans who, ultimately, best speak across different gender and racial lines, how well political leaders bridge the divides has great power to determine how well individuals treat one another.
Anita F. Hill, a guest columnist, is professor of law, social policy, and women's studies at the Heller School of Policy and Management at Brandeis University and a visiting scholar at Wellesley College, the Newhouse Center for the Humanities, and Wellesley Center for Women.
