Canellos column 11/25/04

The original red-state political strategy dates back to 1968, the first presidential election after the full implementation of the Civil Rights Act of 1964. From the end of Reconstruction until that point, the South had been reliably Democratic, the anchor of the electoral majorities of Franklin Roosevelt and other Democrats before and after him.

But when Southern Democrat Lyndon Johnson and a Democratic Congress enacted a sweeping civil rights agenda designed to overrule all "Jim Crow" laws, Dixie began to sing a different tune.

Richard Nixon's "Southern strategy" was predicated on the idea that Southerners were more culturally aligned with Republicans on a range of issues, from anticommunism to "law and order." But over the following 30 years, as the South shifted from solidly Democratic to solidly Republican, race was the cloud that shadowed every movement. (Race was also the reason the South had been solidly Democratic in the first place, as many white Southerners refused to forgive Republicans for opposing slavery and then enforcing civil rights for 12 years after the Civil War.) Still, to keep those electoral votes in their back pockets, Republican presidential candidates often ran campaigns that, while preaching equality, embraced issues and strategies that pushed racial buttons with white voters. In Nixon's day it was opposition to busing; in Ronald Reagan's it was repeated references to "welfare queens" in Cadillacs; for the first George Bush it was the infamous "Willie Horton ad," featuring a black rapist let out on furlough under Massachusetts Governor Michael Dukakis.

Each issue wore a veil of policy concern - be it education, government waste, or crime - but the racial impact was felt on a gut level.

So last week, as George W. Bush, fresh off a red-state sweep en route to re-election, nominated Condoleezza Rice to be secretary of state after having chosen Alberto Gonzales for attorney general, there seemed to be a break with the past. Bush had won huge majorities in the South without any transparently coded racial appeals. And he followed up by appointing two of his closest aides to the most important openings of his administration. One was Hispanic, the other black.

Bush's commitment to diversity seems likely to grow, with several black and Hispanic conservatives in line for the Supreme Court.

Court appointments do not, by themselves, lead to gains at the polls, as Bush's father discovered after placing Clarence Thomas on the bench. But they can have a deeper impact if they are part of a pattern of diverse friendships and loyalties. And Bush, like Bill Clinton but unlike any previous Republican, has a fairly diverse group of friends, Gonzales and Rice among them.

The sense that Bush is comfortable with people of different backgrounds improved his standing among minorities between 2000 and 2004. According to network exit polls, his share of the Hispanic vote jumped by nine points, from 35 percent against Al Gore to 44 percent against John Kerry. Bush's chunk of the black vote grew as well, from nine to 11 percent. If the exit polls are right, most of Bush's popular-vote margin can be ascribed to greater black and Hispanic support.

Steady gains for Republicans among minority voters would have sweeping national impact. The growth of immigrant and minority communities is the linchpin of all theories of Democratic ascendency; all collapse if those voting blocs cease to be reliably Democratic.

Of course, demographic predictions of electoral changes are notoriously unreliable for all sides. Republicans' gains among minorities could be offset by Democratic gains among whites, for all anyone knows.

But for anyone other than Democratic candidates running in the next few years, the notion of competition for minority votes can only be seen as healthy: It frees the nation from a racial divide along political lines and gives both parties greater incentive to appeal to all Americans.

Since the election, however, the Internet has raged with debate over whether Bush is, in fact, deserving of greater minority backing.

Among the arguments why not: his long-ago speech to Bob Jones University, the fundamentalist school that bans interracial dating; his opposition to affirmative action, though he chose not to campaign heavily on it this year; and his snubbing of the NAACP, which enraged leaders Kwase Mfume and Julian Bond.

Among the arguments in favor of Bush's minority backing: his support of a form of amnesty for undocumented workers; his emphasis on faith-based charities, which funneled some money to African-American and Hispanic churches; and the diversity of his inner circle.

It is too early to tell whether Bush's second term will add to either list, or, perhaps more importantly, whether more blacks and Hispanics might choose to support Republicans for reasons unrelated to race: lower taxes, strong defense, religious values, and the like.

But the fond smiles exchanged between Bush and Gonzales and, even more strikingly, Bush and Rice, will be remembered by many, and could have greater political significance than a pile of speeches and policy papers.

Peter S. Canellos is the Boston Globe's Washington bureau chief.