Will Republicans Take the Bait?

Barack Obama may be, above all else, a savvier politician than even Ronald Reagan or Bill Clinton. Why? With his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the Supreme Court Obama has set a defining trap for Republicans: If they take the bait they will dig themselves deeper into the pit of electoral despair that will take a generation to climb out of.

There are two fundamental things to remember about America and voting: Women vote in bigger percentages than men (plus there are more of them to begin with) and Hispanics are well on their way to becoming the dominant “minority” in the U.S.

In last year’s Presidential election women made up 53% of the vote although they represent just shy of 51% of the population (and 51.6% of the voting age population). Women have traditionally voted more Democratic than men and have favored the Dem Presidential candidate in every election since 1988. That’s twenty years and the trend is not good for the GOP. Obama won the biggest share of women since Reagan crushed Walter Mondale in 1984.

In choosing Sotomayor, Obama is acknowledging both the historic gender imbalance on the Supreme Court (110 members, 108 men) and the smart political play of appointing a woman. Remember who appointed the first woman to the Supreme Court — Reagan, who as we just noted, was the last Republican Presidential candidate to get a huge share of the women’s vote.

If Republicans attack Sotomayor for being “intellectually shallow” or a “bully” they will likely trigger the kind of reaction among women that will hardly help their cause. How often do women hear they aren’t as smart as the guys? How often to we hear about the shrill woman who has to get her way? These are dangerous waters for a party that is already decidedly male in the ranks of both its electeds and voters. Even if these arguments don’t get a full workout, count of the Democratic political team to make sure the media believes Republicans are making these kinds of challenges the center of their opposition to Sotomayor.

The other bait in the trap is even more alluring and dangerous for the GOP. In 1988 Hispanics made up just 3% of those voting for President. By 2000 the number had jumped to 7%. Last year it was 9%. Still not a huge number and not yet the second-largest racial voting group after whites (blacks were 13% in 2008) but growing fast. What’s much more critical about the Hispanic vote is where it is growing. In states like California, Arizona, Colorado, Florida, and Texas the Hispanic population is growing so rapidly that it is impossible not to count those states trending Democratic over the next decades if the GOP doesn’t figure out how to win over more Hispanics.

This is not a new issue for Republicans. When then-California Governor Pete Wilson blamed the state’s problems on immigrants (later clarifying he meant illegal immigrants but the damage was done) the party was banished to a generational oblivion in the Golden State. Republicans managed to win the Governor’s office back in this decade but only with a “Bloomberg Republican” named Arnold Schwarzenegger. The rest of the state’s party has been pretty moribund since the Wilson fiasco.

George W. Bush recognized this and campaigned hard in 2000 for the Hispanic vote, pushing his party to see the demographic reality. Bush then stuck his neck out on immigration reform in his second term and got it promptly chopped off by his own party.

Of course that hasn’t stopped some conservatives from denying the obvious but the specter of Republicans hammering Sotomayor on immigration or racial decisions must bring big smiles to the Obama White House. Fox News was off to a fast start highlighting a Sotomayor ruling in the case of white firefighters in New Haven suing for reverse-discrimination just minutes after the President’s Sotomayor news conference ended.

Perhaps the biggest problem for Republicans is that they have so few (any?) credible, prominent women or Latinas to make their case against Sotomayor no matter what ammo they decide to use on her. There are only three female Republican Senators and two voted for Sotomayor when she was elevated to the Appellate Court by Bill Clinton in 1998. Both are also among the last remaining moderates in the shrinking GOP caucus. Don’t expect (Ranking Republican on the Senate Judiciary Committee) Jeff Sessions to convince Olympia Snowe or Susan Collins to be the spokeswoman for the “Republicans Against Sotomayor” campaign. As for big-name Republican Latinas, forget it.

Indeed the biggest voice against Sotomayor so far is (surprise surprise!) Rush Limbaugh who said on the radio after the announcement that he hoped she “fails.” That sounds familiar doesn’t it? If Rush is the Republican spokesman on this those White House smiles will get even bigger.

So the trap is baited and set. Will Republicans bite? Obama certainly hopes so.