That Republicans lost Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008 has nothing to do with changing racial demographics.

There is much chatter these days about the need for the Republican Party to "reach out" to those to whom it has supposedly paid insufficient attention in the past — i.e., blacks and Hispanics.  This, we are incessantly reminded, contributes to no slight extent to the problems that the GOP has suffered as of late.

In spite of the conventionality of this wisdom, it is utterly false.

First, the notion that Republicans have "ignored" blacks and Hispanics, or anyone for that matter, implies that the GOP is some novel fringe cult of which only a relative handful of people are aware.  Every American knows of the GOP, and at the disposal of every American there exists an endless supply of information on the GOP.  Republicans no more need to make themselves known to Americans, of whatever color or race, than do Christians need to make Christianity known.

This, of course, is not to suggest that Republicans shouldn't continue their efforts to promote their platform, for politics is as transitory a human endeavor as any: issues come and go and the rhetorical vernacular fluctuates accordingly. There will always be the need to essentially reinterpret, or even reinvent, the GOP for a new generation.

But to acknowledge this is a far cry from conceding that Republicans have "ignored" minorities. 

Second, not only haven't Republicans "ignored" racial minorities, they have been hyper-focused on "reaching out" to them.  This line, though, is not without its dangers, for such efforts always appear contrived to out-pander the Democrats and, as such, threaten to alienate the core constituents of the GOP.  It would be one thing if Republicans sought to attract individuals from minority groups by promoting the conservative values to which they profess a commitment.  But it is another thing entirely when they seek to recruit minorities by being obsequious, by moving leftward– a move that is invariably and wildly at odds with the interests and commitments of those who constitute the base of their party.   

Whether it be Republicans like John McCain apologizing to black audiences for having voted against the move to make a federal holiday of Martin Luther King's birthday, George W. Bush reassuring the NAACP that "racism" remains a virtually omnipresent force in response to which nothing less than aggressive civil rights legislation is in order; or Republicans enthusiastically supporting efforts to legislate "comprehensive immigration reform" — i.e., a de facto amnesty for millions of illegal (mostly) Hispanic immigrants while remaining silent as whites are systematically discriminated against via "affirmative action" policies and continually demonized by a "politically correct" leftist cultural orthodoxy, Republican politicians have done much to undermine the trust that its base has placed in them. 

Third, if Republicans want to continue winning elections, it is imperative that they not lose the white vote. In fact, they must labor indefatigably to expand it.  There is doubtless an inconsiderable number of people who would react aghast at this recommendation, but such histrionics are woefully undeserved, for the sorts of measures that this would require would not prove uniquely beneficial to whites. Nor would they necessarily be perceived by minorities along these lines.

Crime, social order, lower taxes, massive Third World immigration, bilingualism, and "gay marriage," are just some of the issues with respect to which it isn't at all difficult to envision a genuinely cross-racial consensus of a sort emerging.  

The point, though, is this: whatever benefits accrue to whites from the type of measures I urge the GOP to adopt would not be at the expense of the rights of non-whites.  In contrast, those policies typically associated with the Democratic Party and all too often co-opted by the GOP in order to win black and Hispanic votes are injustices against whites.    

To this last proposition, that a large white base is indispensable to future Republican victories, the nationally syndicated talk radio host Michael Medved recently objected that McCain, in spite of receiving an impressive 55% of the white male vote to Obama's 43%, still lost the election.  Thus, if the Republican Party is to survive, let alone flourish, it must draw more non-whites into its ranks.

Yet recall that just four short years ago in the last presidential election, George W. Bush defeated his Democratic rival even though Kerry received the vast majority of the black vote and significantly more of the Hispanic (and, for that matter, Asian) vote than the former.  This was no less true in the 2000 election when Bush beat Gore (though admittedly, by a much smaller margin than that by which he defeated Kerry).

Since 1994, let us not forget, well after Hispanics became a voting bloc to be reckoned with and long after blacks had been voting overwhelmingly for Democrats, Republicans in Congress also had repeatedly prevailed over their rivals.  That Republicans lost Congress in 2006 and the White House in 2008 has nothing to do with changing racial demographics and everything to do with the cold, hard fact that Republicans, to put it simply, had bested their ideological nemeses by becoming them — and more.   

It is not at all unreasonable to suppose that had McCain insisted on making Obama's 20-plus year membership in Jeremiah Wright's church an issue, as well as draw attention to the intense race consciousness that Obama exhibits in his autobiography, Dreams of My Father: A Story of Race and Inheritance, the outcome of the election may have been very different.  Instead, in what amounts to another effort at a kind of silent pandering, McCain chose to avoid the race issue like a plague.  Consequently, he lost the election and, doubtless, alienated more whites whose suspicions of McCain's claims to conservatism were reinforced.

In summary, it is all fine and good for the Republican Party to "reach out" to non-whites, but only insofar as its efforts aren't tantamount to pandering and don't come at the expense of eroding its base, for then it will have neither non-whites or whites left.