A HUGE ISSUE THAT nobody wants to talk about is bedeviling Democrats as they try to absorb the lessons of 1994 and reclaim the political center. That issue is race.
The Democratic Party has long championed efforts to benefit racial minorities -- a disproportionate number of whom are poor.
To aid these groups, the Democrats have backed everything from affirmative action and school integration to a vast expansion of such social safety net programs as Medicaid and food stamps. Those minorities have rewarded the Democrats with political loyalty. Last month, 92 percent of the black voters chose Democrats, as did three out of five Hispanics and 55 percent of Asians.
But the downside for Democrats is obvious. Blacks accounted for 11 percent of the electorate, Hispanics 3 percent and Asians 1 percent. Meanwhile, white voters have reacted with growing impatience, and even hostility, to programs that eat up their tax dollars while benefiting -- in their view -- other people. (Although whites are the chief beneficiaries of all government welfare programs.) And that resentment has helped fuel a massive outflow of whites into the Republican Party. Nationwide, 58 percent of all whites backed the GOP, but the number rose to 63 percent among white males, and to almost 70 percent among Southern white males.
How, then, do Democrats satisfy their core voters, while recapturing the white middle class that has been deserting the party for years? There are no easy answers, as the weeks since the election have made vividly clear.
Take the issue of congressional seniority. Many moderate House Democrats have gone to Minority Leader Richard Gephardt and pleaded: Do what Newt Gingrich has done with the Republicans, pick our top committee spokesmen by merit as well as longevity. But Gephardt refused, and the real reason was race. As one key Democrat told us: "Dick didn't want to touch the issue because he's so afraid of the Black Caucus."
Following strict seniority, four blacks and two Hispanics will hold the top spots on major committees. Two other blacks hold the No. 2 positions on the most powerful committees: Charles Rangel of New York on Ways and Means and Louis Stokes of Ohio on Appropriations.
Black and Hispanic leaders have a point when they say: Don't change the rules now, just as we're getting our share of power. The political world is now reflecting the results of the Voting Rights Act of the mid '60s, which empowered minorities for the first time. Blacks and Hispanics elected in those years are now reaching senior status, and their dominance has been enhanced by several factors. Most represent safe districts, and in fact, the only two blacks to lose this year were defeated in primaries. Moreover, minorities are far less likely than whites to run for statewide office or be lured away from Congress by lucrative lobbying or corporate jobs. So they stay, steadily building up seniority. Meanwhile, two other groups within the Democratic Party that once accumulated power through longevity -- southern whites and big-city ethnics -- have lost some of their clout. Witness the defeat last month of two powerful committee chairmen: Jack Brooks of Texas and Dan Rostenkowski of Chicago.
Accordingly, the Democratic leadership in the House will become increasingly weighted toward minorities, and thus toward liberal ideas and principles. And to party moderates, this is exactly the wrong direction. They point out that black and Hispanic lawmakers generally represent urban districts dominated by constituents of their own race. As a result, these congressmen seldom meet, or talk to, the disgruntled white suburban voters who have restored Republicans to power in the House for the first time in 40 years.
The White House is clearly aware of the need to reclaim these white suburbanites. The firing of Surgeon General Joycelyn Elders -- much to the dismay of many blacks -- and the revival of a middle-class tax cut proposal reflect Bill Clinton's determination to occupy the middle ground.
But the Republicans are clever. They know full well that the fault line of race runs right through the Democratic coalition, and they will be emphasizing issues aimed at widening that gap, from restricting immigration to broadening the death penalty. The president's considerable political skills will be pushed to the limit as he tries to bridge this racial divide, and avoid a challenge to his renomination from either the liberal or moderate camp.
Cokie Roberts is an ABC news commentator. Steven V. Roberts is a senior writer for U.S. News & World Report.