Meanwhile...the numbers are in...

While John McCain and Sarah Palin (the bulldog and the beauty queen, respectively or irrespectively...you decide) continue to follow the same party tactic that effectively granted Bush a second term in office--repetition, repetition, repetition--in touting their efforts towards political unity, "bipartisanship" has apparently taken on a new meaning. As in, "we'll say whatever we have to in order to buy your partisanship".

I've been trekking about the web; these numbers are taken from sites for The New York Times, MSNBC, Fox News, CBS, and The Washington Post on demographics at the Democratic National Convention and the Republican National Convention:

Women
A colleague of mine recently asked, "How could any woman possibly vote Republican?" Good question. At the DNC women made up 49% of the attending delegates. RNC statistics boast a paltry 32%. Sixty-eight percent of this party's delegates are men. Oh, but I'm sure they have an understanding of women's issues equal to that of women themselves...after all, they're the ones who keep sending our children to Iraq.

Blacks
Even the black Republicans can't believe the dearth of representation in their party. As quoted in the September 4 Washington Post article "In a More Diverse America, A Mostly White Convention": "It's hard to look around and not get frustrated," said Michael S. Steele, a black Republican and former lieutenant governor of Maryland. "You almost have to think, 'Wait. How did it come to this?' "

I almost wish the numbers didn't back Steele up so well: after a decade of strident efforts to reach out to minorities culminating in an almost-impressive 7% of black delegates at the 2004 RNC, the GOP's minority courting seems to have fallen by the wayside in 2008: only 1.5% of the delegates attending the Republican National Convention were black. That's 36 out of 4500. Wow. Apparently their partisanship was a little pricey for the Republicans this year...or perhaps simply unworthy.

Blacks made up 23.4% of delegates at the Democratic National Convention. 'Nuff said.

Hispanics
I was a little bummed at the representation of the fastest-growing minority group in America at this year's DNC, and I don't think my party did this community justice with a representation that only made up roughly 12% of Democratic delegates. I think we can do better.

We still better-than-doubled the representation of Hispanics at the RNC, however, although more liberal estimates are coming in at about 7%. Most news sources report Hispanic representation at the RNC around 5%.

Asians
Asian representation was prototypically low for both parties, although again statistics of the DNC show a greater-than-double turnout than the RNC: 4.1 - 4.6% representation in Denver, and 1.8 - 2% participation in St. Paul.

Overall, whites made up roughly 60 - 67% of the delegates at the Democratic National Convention. The most conservative estimates of white delegates at the Republican National Convention come in above 90%.

Who represents you?