I’ve noticed a few stories are popping up about the lack of diversity among John Kerry’s top campaign staff. It’s a legitimate area of discussion, but the stories I’ve seen are missing a critically important part.
The AP has a story on the wires today suggesting that a “lack of minority representation at the upper levels of John Kerry’s presidential campaign threatens to weaken enthusiasm among black and Hispanic voters.”
Kerry’s inner circle — the dozen or so advisers who participate in the campaign’s most important decisions — is mostly white.
Senior political adviser Paul Rivera said a core group of seven high-ranking staffers participate in a daily, morning conference call to talk strategy and make key decisions. The group includes campaign manager Mary Beth Cahill; deputy campaign managers Steve Elmendorf and Marcus Jardotte; communications director Stephanie Cutter; general election strategist Jill Alper; and senior advisers Art Collins and Rivera. Jardotte and Collins are black; Rivera is Hispanic.
The Washington Post’s Colbert King wrote an unusually critical column on this issue over the weekend.
The Massachusetts senator, putative 2004 Democratic standard-bearer and soon-to-be leader of the party that most voting African Americans and other people of color call home, has an innermost circle of advisers that is practically as white as the driven snow.
This strikes me as overly harsh for a candidate with a strong career record on civil rights, but I can’t deny that this is a valid question. Al Gore’s 2000 staff featured an African American campaign manager, political director, and finance director. Kerry should make a sincere and concerted effort to have a diverse staff.
There’s one name, however, missing from all of these reports about campaign staff diversity: Bush.
This isn’t an example of “my guy is bad; your guy is worse.” I’m merely arguing that there seems to be two different standards at play. The president’s name and/or campaign wasn’t mentioned once in the AP story or the Post column. There was no comparison between the diversity of Kerry’s staff and that of the Bush-Cheney team. Why? If one is relevant, they’re both relevant.
Kerry’s “inner circle” is, for the most part, a fairly diverse group. Women, for example, are clearly in positions of authority. Two of the staffers are African American, one is Hispanic. I haven’t seen reports about religious diversity, so I can’t speak to the issue.
Could this staff be more diverse? Sure. Is it as diverse as Gore’s? Not really. But let’s look across the aisle to Kerry’s rival.
Now I don’t know the inner workings of Bush’s closest campaign advisors, but it appears that this is a staff that is entirely white. Looking at every key player I know of, there is some gender diversity, but no racial or ethnic diversity.
Marc Racicot, Don Evans, Ken Mehlman, Karl Rove, Terry Holt, Sandra Pack, Dan Bartlett, Mark McKinnon, Karen Hughes, Jack Oliver, Matt Dowd, and Terry Nelson all have two things in common — they’re all leading staffers for Bush’s campaign and they’re all white.
I’ve never seen a story that says, “A lack of minority representation at the upper levels of George W. Bush’s campaign threatens to weaken enthusiasm among black and Hispanic voters.” I doubt I ever will see that story — and that’s the problem.
Yes, the Democratic Party is the party of civil rights and diversity. It deserves the reputation; it’s earned it. With that in mind, expectations will naturally be higher for our presidential candidate when he’s assembling a staff. Fine.
But the Republican Party, long hostile to minority communities, claims to be serious about its new-found respect for diversity. The GOP has invested heavily in outreach programs to build its ranks among African Americans, Hispanics, Jews, and women, all of whom have historically been ignored by the party.
The historical record influences the story in an unfair way. Republicans and Republican campaigns are expected to be white, so it’s not newsworthy when Bush assembles an overwhelmingly white staff. Dems, meanwhile, have made diversity a backbone of the party. As such, a seven-member team with three women, two African Americans, and an Hispanic is somehow seen as wholly unacceptable, bordering on prejudice.
Kerry should be committed to making his staff “look like America.” It’s a reflection of his priorities and his commitment to diversity should he get elected. But fair is fair. If the background of Kerry’s campaign staff is important, and a sign of his respect for minority communities, then similar scrutiny must be applied to the Bush campaign.