Can Republicans win minority votes and still stand on principles?

Daniel Greenfield writes at Front Page Magazine,

Republicans court the minority vote by making two major mistakes.

The first mistake is assuming that a minority group is a single collective whose members all think the same. Yes, they may vote the same way, but that’s the outcome of a process combining everything from community organizing to media control which created a Democratic political identity for that group.

The second mistake is then aiming outreach at the organizations that form that political identity. That is like Coke trying to get Pepsi executives to drink Coke. It sounds stupid, but Republican outreach that involves the NAACP or Univision appearances are just as stupid. Those are arms of the Democratic Party. The only thing that outreach to them accomplishes is to reinforce their communal power while letting them set the narrative. The outreach ends with Republicans being told about the importance of embracing Democratic policies. And some Republicans are even stupid enough to fall for it.

Republicans are not going to win a majority of their votes any time soon, but they can win a minority of theirs votes without compromising their principles.

And they can do it while weakening the Democratic political identity within that group.

Democrats consistently lose the white vote, but combine high percentages of the minority vote with a minority of the white vote. The Republican model should focus on increasing its share of the white vote, increasing white voter turnout and adding enough minority votes to weaken the Democratic coalition.

Instead of imitating the Democratic Party’s broad spectrum targeting of minorities, Republicans should look at subgroups where they do better than the average within that group. For example, among Asian voters, Republicans perform better with Japanese and Vietnamese Americans than with Chinese or Indian voters. Among Jews, Republicans do better with religious Jews rather than secular Jews.

Bloomberg split the Latino vote in 2001. When he faced a Latino candidate in the New York City mayoral election four years later, he didn’t panic. His opponent was Puerto Rican and so his campaign aimed at the city’s growing Mexican population who felt overlooked and he won a third of Latino voters.

Instead of writing off an entire group as one collective whole, he drilled down to a subgroup.

... 60 percent of Jews who attend weekly religious services disapprove of Obama. 58 percent of Jews who rarely attend approve of him.

...Likewise, instead of pandering to #BlackLivesMatters, Republicans should address black voters worried about crime and gang violence. They’re not going to get the #BlackLivesMatter vote anyway, but they might make some inroads among black voters looking to clean up their neighborhoods.

... Instead of liberalizing their positions to appeal to minority voters, Republicans should target conservative issues within segments of minority groups concerned about those issues.

Instead of competing to be better Democrats, they should distinguish themselves as Republicans.

...The “inoffensive Republican” candidate is a failed legacy of another era that should not have survived the Reagan years.

Being inoffensive does not win elections. Engaging the base by focusing on the compelling issues that they care about does.

Republicans should not back amnesty. That’s stupid and suicidal. Neither should they completely write off the Hispanic vote. They should not endorse pro-crime policies, but neither should they completely write off the black vote. Those are false choices manufactured by the left to push the GOP against a wall.

...The first time, Giuliani won by increasing white voter turnout. The second time, he turned out a larger number of minority voters who were willing to support him while maintaining his existing white support.

...The Republicans can’t compete on pro-crime policies, amnesty or the welfare state with the left anyway. When they try, they lose their own base. But there are plenty of Asian voters angry about affirmative action, black voters angry about crack dealers in their neighborhoods and middle class Hispanic small business owners who are angry about the welfare state. Instead of chasing minority voters that the GOP can’t get, it should connect on traditional conservative issues with those it can get.

Read more here.