As Bill Clinton accepts his party’s presidential nomination, he will look over a sea of liberal delegates who are 66.8 percent white, 18.9 African American, 9 percent Latino, 3 percent Asian-Pacific, and 1.4 percent Native American. A quick check of voting patterns also shows that the composition of the delegates in Chicago has an uncanny resemblance to the Democratic party’s overall electorate. Coincidence? Not a chance. The bean counters at the Democratic National Committee long ago mandated that the racial and ethnic composition of each state delegation must be proportional to the ethnic and racial makeup of Democratic voters in the state. What’s more, 50 percent of a state’s delegation must be female. To make sure each racial and ethnic quota is filled, a pool of reserve delegates is on call — just in case a delegation is short a Latino or some other minority.
The enthusiasm for diversity was so great this year that the Florida state Democratic party put out a press release with a handy breakdown of each delegate’s religion, age, race, occupation, and sexual orientation. One delegate, whom the press release named, is “retired, but works with under- privileged kids, gay and in a 20 year relationship.” Turns out the delegate had told only a few people that he was gay and was shocked to learn that his own political party had outed him.
So the audience of delegates Clinton will address Thursday night will be constructed using the most liberal application of quotas while the president will stand above pretending to be an utterly different kind of Democrat. Welcome to Chicago.
