BACK FROM THE WEDGE
Several other influences on the candidates prevented 1996 from becoming the year of the social counterrevolution. On the Democratic side some writers and magazines urged abandoning affirmative action and curtailing immigration, but the counterpressures in the party on both issues were overwhelming. If Clinton had turned against affirmative action, he would probably have faced a divisive primary challenge from the left; he was also so personally identified with affirmative action—hadn't he promised a cabinet that "looked like America"?—that he couldn't have reversed himself without severely aggravating doubts about the constancy of his commitments. And in a general election the potential gains among "angry white males" were counterbalanced by potential losses among women and racial minorities. Moreover, as the debate unfolded among Democrats, even many who disliked affirmative action began to worry that the absolute color-blindness advocated by Republicans failed to address many situations in which taking race into account was reasonable.
To comply with Adarand, the 1995 Supreme Court decision that imposed the same strict-scrutiny requirements on the federal government that Croson had imposed on lower jurisdictions, the Clinton administration had to reassess federal programs using race-based criteria. The
On the Republican side the failure of the candidacies of Wilson and Pat Buchanan reduced the likelihood that affirmative action and immigration would become central issues in the 1996 campaign. Similarly, the grassroots Republican support for the leading Republican defender of affirmative action, Colin Powell, suggested that the issue was not that potent even among Republicans, and Powell's unchallenged standing as a man of principle complicated any effort by Dole to make race and "quotas" central issues of his candidacy. The gender gap also inhibited full exploitation of wedge issues. If Dole had pursued a hard-edge, Limbaughstyle campaign, he would have had even less chance of bringing back the moderate women voters that he was losing.
To be sure, Dole reversed himself on affirmative action as he did on supply-side economics, and in the home stretch, desperate to win California, he tried to link his fortunes to the CCRI. But it was too late to redefine his candidacy. Just before the Republican convention, Dole made his defining decisions: the endorsement of the 15 percent tax cut and the selection of Jack Kemp. With those choices he opted for the growthoriented, sunshine conservatism of the supply-siders over the midnightin-America, culture war conservatism of the Buchananites. Kemp had opposed Proposition 187 and supported affirmative action; like Powell he obstructed Dole from fully exploiting immigration and affirmative action, and he himself refused to take on the offensive role. If Dole had struck Buchanan's themes from the start, he probably would have fared no better than he did—not only because, luckily, he lacks the talent of a true demagogue but also because of deep public resistance to polarizing appeals that threaten the national civil accord.
On election day Dole nonetheless paid an enormous price for his policies on affirmative action, immigration, and other wedge issues, losing among women and Hispanics by historic margins. The patterns in congressional races were the same, although less accentuated. The Hispanic vote was both larger than in earlier elections and more sharply Democratic, thanks in part to Republican policies denying benefits to legal immigrants that had encouraged immigrants to naturalize and then to show
Clinton's turnaround victories in Florida (the first win by a Democrat since 1976) and in Arizona (the first since 1948) also benefited from significantly improved percentages among Hispanic voters. In Florida Clinton won only about half of the predominantly Cuban Hispanic vote, but this was a marked improvement among a traditionally Republican constituency. In Arizona Clinton won the Hispanic vote by a ten-to-one margin. In California Hispanics also voted as a Democratic bloc in numbers that previously were characteristic only of African Americans.[3]
Twenty years ago there was much discussion of a "power shift" to the conservative Sun Belt, in part because of its rapidly growing population. What the theory of Sun Belt conservatism failed to anticipate, however, was the emergence of what might be thought of as the Latinized South—the strip across the southernmost rim of the United States running from Florida through Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, where Hispanic voters constitute a growing share of the electorate. Clinton's victory in all those states except for Texas may foreshadow a Democratic revival in the congressional races of the Latinized South, as the southern votes for Goldwater in 1964 and Nixon in 1968 anticipated later Republican gains by southern congressional delegates. To be sure, Clinton's victory in 1996 did not translate into significant Democratic gains in the congressional seats for the Latinized South, but that is the historic pattern: the advantages of congressional incumbency delay the impact of social and political change.
Thus the more immediate relevance of these changes may be to presidential elections. Republicans have always counted on heavy majorities in Orange County to win California; the supposed "Republican lock" on the electoral college in the 1980s depended on an edge in three big states—California, Florida, and Texas—all of which may now be in play because of the southern-rim demographic trends. Of course, neither the gender gap nor the Democratic hold on Hispanic and other minority voters need be fixed in eternity. The Republican Party may respond to these patterns by choosing more female and minority candidates and by modifying its policies. If it moves toward more liberal views, it might further reduce social tensions. But, given the influence of the right in Republican primaries and local and state parties, another line of response seems more likely.