Affirmative action yes! Racial preferences no!

One unfortunate omission from Bush's SOTU was any discussion of the distinction between racial preferences, which the Bush administration opposes, and affirmative action, which it supports.

As I discussed in a post a while back, there are many race-neutral methods for allowing governments or private organizations to offer preferences to individuals from underprivileged backgrounds.  For example, providing preferences to graduates of high schools with a high percentage of poor students, from troubled family situations, etc.

These race-neutral approaches would tightly target the benefits of affirmative action on the people who most need it; the individuals — regardless of race or color — who grew up in difficult circumstances.  Thus, children of wealthy and successful african americans would not receive preference, while kids living in poverty stricken areas and attending poor schools would receive preference on color-blind terms.

By clearly coming out in favor of affirmative action for the truly needy, the Republicans would undercut the Dem's assertions that Republicans are ‘insensitive to the plight of minorities’ or ‘uncaring’.

Of course, Bush only had an hour or so to speak, and the list of urgent topics was long.  So perhaps there really wasn't time to raise this issue.  However, it is an important point, and one that the Republican party needs to be clear on if it wants to stand any chance of making inroads among african american and latino voters in 2004.