Bush Picks Up Minority Visibility

President's Cabinet Picks Favor Minorities, Women

(CBS)  By David Paul Kuhn,
CBSNews.com chief political writer

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Continuing Republican efforts to reshape the face of the GOP, President Bush tapped the only Hispanic head of a Fortune 500 company on Monday as the new commerce secretary.

Mr. Bush is hoping to reach out to demographic groups long in the Democratic camp by appointing minorities to key Cabinet posts, according to political analysts.

So far, the three most visible vacancies in the administration have gone to non-whites. Kellogg Company Chairman and Chief Executive Officer Carlos Gutierrez would join National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice and White House Counsel Alberto Gonzales in what is becoming a minority-led Cabinet.

National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice would replace Colin Powell as America’s chief diplomat. Gonzales would replace John Ashcroft as attorney general. And Gutierrez would replace Donald Evans in the Commerce Department.

A cereal salesman turned chief executive, the Cuban-born Gutierrez, 51, embodies Republicans most loyal Latino constituency. The support of Cuban Americans in Florida was central to Mr. Bush's election in 2000, as well as in 2004.

Rice would be the first black female secretary of state. Gonzales would be the first Hispanic attorney general. Gutierrez would be the first Hispanic to head the Commerce Department. Under Mr. Bush in 2000, Powell was the first black secretary of state and Rod Paige the first black education secretary.

“[President Bush] has empowered minorities as never before with his Cabinet picks,” said former Sen. Carol Moseley Braun, D- Ill., the second of only three popularly elected black U.S. senators. “I just hope these people won’t forget where they came from.”

Only about one out of ten black voters backed President Bush, according to exit polling. Yet Hispanic support was instrumental to Mr. Bush’s victory in early November. Improving by at least 10 percent compared to 2000, four out of ten Hispanic voters supported Mr. Bush’s bid for reelection.

“It’s been a significant outreach effort on the part of Bush and Rove,” said John Fortier, executive director of the Continuity of Government Commission at the American Enterprise Institute. “[With the Cabinet appointments] you have some symbolism for a group that is hopeful it is gaining in America.”

With fellow first-term minority Cabinet members Spencer Abraham, Mel Martinez, Elaine Chao and Alphonso Jackson, the president’s appointments exhibit the Republican’s “big tent” effort to reshape the GOP.

“The Bush campaign, from the outset in 2000, has made it very clear that it is eager to reach out to minorities, I would say especially Hispanics,” said Professor William Galston, a University of Maryland political scientist. “These appointments symbolize the administration’s desire to expand the reach of the Republican Party, consistent with conservative principles.”

During the GOP convention, the Republican National Committee cited a 70 percent increase, compared to the 2000 convention, in the number of minority delegates and alternates.

Of the 5,000 Republican delegates and alternates at the 2004 convention, 17 percent were minorities, about 850. But Democrats had more than 1,600 minorities serving as delegates and alternates at their convention, according to research by American University Professor Clarence Lusane.

"It is good to put minorities in high positions, but ultimately it is the direction they are given that determines their value," said Rev. Jesse Jackson, a Democrat and leading civil rights activist.

But Jackson questions whether those minorities Mr. Bush appoints represent Hispanics and blacks.

"His father put Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court and he is the most right wing justice in the Supreme Court," Jackson continued. "You put blacks in key positions and then you take a position against affirmative action, the laws that made their opportunity possible."

Though Mr. Bush has tapped minorities, he is also sticking with his long-time associates. Like Gutierrez, both Gonzales and education secretary nominee Margaret Spellings served with Mr. Bush in Texas. Rice herself, is considered one of the president’s closest confidantes.

Rice and Spellings are also the newest female appointees to Mr. Bush’s Cabinet. President Clinton appointed four women to Cabinet positions, more than any other U.S. president. But Bush’s second term Cabinet, currently likely to shapeup with three women, is far better than most any other administration.

Upon confirmation, nearly half of Mr. Bush’s 15-member Cabinet will be under new leadership.

In 1992, President Clinton’s heavily minority Cabinet was considered a breakthrough to civil rights activists. Though the number of minorities in the Bush Cabinet is roughly akin to President Clinton, it is not in status.

Never have the visible posts heading commerce, the State Department and the Justice Department been wholly led by minorities.

But Republicans remain the party of far fewer minority politicians. The Cabinet posts are an effort, said analysts, to compensate for the Democratic Party’s considerable advantage with non-whites.

“I don’t think there is much near-turn hope of Republicans gaining more of the African American vote,” Fortier said. “I guess with the Hispanic vote, there is.”