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Chuck Raasch column: Democrats' 2008 grand plan won't work this time around
By Chuck Raasch • May 17, 2010

WASHINGTON — With multimedia precision, Democrats rolled out a $50 million plan to reassemble in November the coterie of younger voters, blacks and Hispanics that were key to Barack Obama's victory in 2008.

But events quickly showed the limits of the Democratic National Committee's strategy.

First, there were fresh reminders about how badly the country is split over illegal immigration.

Second, in key congressional election battlegrounds this year, the demographics simply do not work for this part of the Democrats' strategy.
The '08 Obama coalition resulted from an unprecedented presidential voter registration and targeting campaign, one that Democrats believe brought in 15 million new voters as the vanguard of a more diverse political future. If current demographic trends continue, whites will slip below 50 percent of the population by the middle of the century while the Hispanic population could approach 30 percent.

The president himself got involved in this year's campaign, cutting a video for the DNC that critics said played the race card.

"It will be up to each of you to make sure that the young people, African-Americans, Latinos and women who powered our victory in 2008 stand together once again," he said.

Democrats rejected the race-card claims.

"That is ridiculous," said DNC Chairman Tim Kaine. "Just a week ago the chairman of the Republican Party (Michael Steele) said, 'We need to do more to attract minority voters.' That is not a race card war or a race card, he was just stating an obvious fact."

The backlash to the controversial immigration law in Arizona showed how tenuous any political party's connection is to Hispanics, who voted for Obama over John McCain in 2008 by 67 percent to 30 percent.
Protesters took to the streets, and there was condemnation and threatened boycotts. But a Gallup Poll showed that 51 percent of those who knew about the law favored it, with 39 percent opposed.

Democrats shoulder huge expectations. They have wiped out the Republican beachhead among Latino voters won by George W. Bush in 2000 and 2004. But many expect them to solve an immigration crisis that could result in policies — including a path to citizenship for people here illegally — that many Americans oppose.

Data from this election cycle shows that the Hispanic community is still with the Democrats and still wary of the GOP, but (Hispanics') intention to vote trails far below the national average," wrote Andres Ramirez of the New Politicy Institute think tank in an April report on Latino voters. "This is a change, a sign perhaps in their disappointment in Washington's continued inability to resolve the issue so close to their communities and their families — immigration reform."

Not long after the Democrats rolled out their "new voter" strategy, Rep. David Obey, D-Wausau, a veteran congressman facing a potentially tough re-election, decided he'd had enough.

The Democrats' targeted $50 million plan would not have helped him; the demographics of his district skew older and less diverse than the national average, with blacks and Hispanics combined making up only 2 percent of the population.

This points out the limits of the Democrats' strategy. While mobilizing blacks, Hispanics and younger voters could have a great impact in Senate races in Colorado, Florida and Nevada, and in key House races in New Mexico, Illinois and other districts where the Latino population is far above the national average, it will have little effect in other key battlegrounds.
New Hampshire, for instance, has two House races and a Senate race that will go a long way in determining who controls Congress, and by what margin. Less than 4 percent of its population is black or Hispanic.

Missouri, Kentucky, Ohio and Pennsylvania all have pivotal Senate races but lower percentages of the Democrats' targeted groups and, in some cases, far older populations than those targeted by the Democrats.

To win again in 2010, Democrats will have to defy both history and the traps of incumbency.

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