“Many candidates will seek campaign
staffs from people who they know, so the
real challenge is the extent to which
candidates are exposed to individuals
who have different backgrounds than
their own,” says Christie. “If I were a
candidate, I wouldn’t just want people
who worked on Capitol Hill. As I seek
candidates, I’d want to ensure that I had
as diverse and as reflective a staff as possible to lend me all the voices necessary
to get greater perspective and make
informed decisions.”
THE CHANGING ELECTORATE
The rapidly changing demographics of
the electorate are fueling a transformation in public opinion and party identification, particularly among black voters.
“There’s no doubt that any candidates’
personal experiences and the personal
experience of the people around him or
her reflect the way a campaign evolves,
the decisions it makes and the policies
that are promoted,” says Thornell. “The
recipe for success is, ‘How do you get a
broad group of people who aren’t necessarily in your base to be energized by your
message and then get enough people to continue to support your campaign to get the
message out and get voters out?’”
It starts by understanding which issues are
important to various constituents. How do the
candidates square up on issues most important
to people of color?
HERE ARE A FEW KEY POINTS
TO CONSIDER:
■ Immigration is a major political hot-button
that political pundits predict will be a wedge
issue in the 2008 election—one that may shift
the votes of many Latinos and Asian
Americans to those in favor of an expedited
path to citizenship, who tend to be mostly
JOHN EDWARDS
DAVID BONIOR
Campaign Manager
JENNIFER PALMIERI
Communications Director
JULIUS CHAMBERS
Campaign Treasurer
Democrats. In the 2006 mid-term elections,
Latinos’ strong opposition to the construction
of a 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexican
border helped shift control of the House and
Senate to Democrats for the first time in 12
years. Some Republican presidential candidates have shifted their position on immigration in the last few months to try to avoid
alienating this portion of the electorate.
■ In 1995, 58 percent of Americans favored
affirmative-action programs, compared with 70
percent in 2007. Gains are evident across party
and demographic lines— 65 percent of whites,
for example, now favor such policy, up from 53
percent. Both Clinton and Edwards publicly
lauded former Supreme Court Justice Sandra
Day O’Connor for casting the swing vote in a
2003 decision to uphold affirmative-action policies at the University of Michigan. Giuiliani and
