LatinaLista — Since their defeat in the 2008 elections, the Republican party knows it has to build a better relationship with Latino voters but to date they refuse to seize those opportunities that could begin the process.
It’s been over a month since the GOP took a pounding at the polls by Latino voters for underestimating the ire they stirred among Latinos for constantly vilifying Hispanic immigrants and advocating punitive immigration measures.
There are reports that those in charge of steering the party’s future are still analyzing what went wrong during the elections and trying to figure out what needs to change.
Virginia Republican Chairman Jeff Frederick, who saw the Republicans lose his state to the Democrats, told a group of newspaper editors that “the Republican party needs to change from within. We need to start building relationships.”
However, Frederick’s statements and the GOP’s actions imply that the Republican party isn’t yet ready to start building those relationships. For one thing, it hasn’t changed its line of attack when it comes to addressing immigration reform, one of the top five most important issues to Latino voters. Otherwise, they wouldn’t stand silently by and watch innocent Latino immigrants get murdered.
Continue reading Republicans not off to a good start in repairing relationship with Latino voters
Republicans not off to a good start in repairing relationship with Latino voters
Comment(12)
Peter Coyotl
There is such a gap between the core constituency of the Republican party and the moderate Republicans that force elected Republicans to choose one faction over the other. It takes one political creature to win the nomination while it takes another to win the election in a district where moderates and independents are needed for a majority vote.
Candidates in conservative districts can rant about putting “illegals†in tent cities but Republicans in other districts, while appeasing their base with such rhetoric, cannot win general elections with such mean-spirited campaigns.
The political disconnect between the Republican core and the moderate voter is so large that there is no way to currently please both factions. Appease one side and lose the other. McCain picked Palin to solidify the core and lost the moderates and independents that he desperately needed to win. McCain feared picking someone like the “Ultimate Opportunist” Joe Lieberman for fear of losing his core base.
Republicans may hesitate to offer support to immigration reform for fear they will lose their base voter. Yet, if they remain mean-spirited to immigration and they will continue to lose the Hispanic/Latino vote.
Yet, the future of any Republican candidate outside strong conservative areas has to reach out to the Hispanic/Latino voter in order to win an election.
The Republican congressperson who will compromise and publicly support the Dream Act as an act of empathy for children could win substantial Hispanic/Latino support while losing only the fringe of the core social conservative base. The Dream Act could easily be sold for many sound reasons. One main reason is that children who had no say in the migration plans of their parents. Why punish children for the acts of their parents? After all, the reality is that children do not dictate where they go-it is the parents making that choice. But before I digress…
The last election should have shown the Republicans that mean spirited campaigns do not win general elections. The fringe element, coaxed by well-financed opposition groups like FAIR, faxed, called, and e-mailed multiple times to influence the politicians during the last immigration debate. With only one vote per person, the fringe element of their party could not influence the outcome of the Presidential election.
The votes lost from the fringe element would be replaced by Hispanic/Latino voters grateful for the change in attitude of the Republicans. A gentler and kinder effort would also draw many votes from moderates and independents who do not buy into the anti-immigrant hate that is fed by the party’s fringe elements.
This can be a winning formula for Republicans. Can this be played out by some Republican congresspersons in districts where the moderate and independent voters are vital to victory?
Some hope so, especially those whose Dreams depend on it.
Sandra
How soon we forget that McCain co-sponsored a CIR bill with Ted Kennedy. No, this was more about voting for a Democrat minority (Obama) with Hispanics. The Democrats sponsor all kinds of social programs and that is a big pull among Hispanics and other minorities also. So the Republicans will never really get a big part of the minority vote anyway unless they alter greatly the platform that they run on and that would just make them Democrats then. Republicans are usually not bleeding heart liberals either. They tend to be conservative on adhering to our nation’s laws. I don’t see that as a negative. They are not anti-“immigrant” as the left likes to proclaim. Most Americans are anti-illegal immigration and so are many Republican politicians. That is as it should be.
If the only way that the Republican party can build a base with Hispanics is to ignore our immigration laws and reward those who violate them, they shouldn’t sacrifice their principles for a self-serving interest group who doesn’t have the best interests of this country at heart but a whole different agenda.
Thomas
I would care less about appeasing the hispanics and more about hyperinflation. With the economy tanking and obama wants to cut our carbon emissions. That means those who work in energy like coal will be losing their jobs. I mean who gives a damn about the American worker anymore. They way we keep printing money and bailing out wallstreet, Detroit etc. Expect hyperinflation. Thats where it will lead. We have yet felt the true problems of the economy. Expect double didget unemployment and fighting of foreign nationals for jobs expected to go to Americans. any job will do as long as its a job. Dollar will tank. Currency is paper base on credit. We don’t have credit but debt. Triillions of it. And given that we are going to give a near trillion to obama pet project. Global proverty bull to the UN. Sure is nice of him spending our tax dollars on foreigners. Hell anybody read french history. King Louie lost his head over it as well as his Austrian wife. Truth be told. We are seeing the end of the American Republic. States will form their own countries to try to stabe their economies. don’t belive me? Thats what happened the USSR. What I see is children spending daddy’s credit card and maxing it out. We will be bankrupt soon enough and begging for handouts. Thats our future. The 2 party system won’t matter anymore. They will focus on social unrest. we had a housing bubble. we have yet felt the automobile bubble. Its a bubble about to pop.
Peter Coyotl
Most sane Americans are against illegal immigration. I am strongly against it. I have yet to meet a person who favors it, and I get around.
Supporting a fair, comprehensive immigration reform is not pro-illegal immigration. To solely define immigration reform as pro-illegal is a weak attempt to demonize a much needed discussion and the ensuing action to resolve an international conundrum.
Even if we look at illegal immigration from a reductionism viewpoint, none of its real components would consist of a “pro-illegal†part.
Illegal immigration does not exist because of any organized “pro-illegal†group. Again, this is an effort of those against any type of immigration to wrongly typecast those on the other side of the issue as supporting crime and illegalities.
The American Farm Bureau Federation is on record for supporting immigration reform. I would not call them outlaws. The ski industry, reliant on skilled European labor, also is in favor of it as well. Despite our rising unemployment rates there are still jobs that are not filled by current legal labor pools.
While I am on the subject of the law I must reply to the statement that Republicans tend to adhere to the law insinuates that Democrats are lawless. Such bias underscores and nullifies, in the mind of the objective observer, any point that a person may try to make when they resort to negative stereotyping of opposing views. The comment about bleeding hearts was also a weak attempt to typecast Democrats as motivated only on an emotional level and lacking reason and common sense to make a good decision.
Conservative Republican Orrin Hatch,Utah, helped introduce the original version of the Dream Act. It is not about “bleeding hearts.” It is about reason, common sense, and empathy.
Senator Hatch was able to exhibit these principled qualities in his original support for the Dream Act.
As to the comment about self serving groups, is it not really folks like FAIR who push an anti-immigrant(legal or illegal) agenda that are the self serving group?
Republicans would not be sacrificing principles in their support of immigration reform. In the real world it is not always about personal principle in politics-though it would be nice if it were. It is about what is politically convenient and acceptable according to the current political “wind” of the nation.
Although immigration
reform is a principled fight.
Mainstream America in the last general election made a statement that it is tired of divisiveness. It is tired of negative campaigning. It is tired of the ugliness that demonizes and dehumanizes. American voters sounded the alarm clock that wise Republicans will pay heed too. Governor Charlie Crist of Florida acknowledges that when he was quoted at the recent national Republican Governor’s Convention “The most important thing is to make sure that we reach out to Hispanic voters…â€
Republicans would be wise to recognize the current political wind and find the principles within their own heart to loudly endorse an immigration reform that reflects our truest guiding principle that, indeed, all men/women are created equal.
Sandra
Humans may be created equal but that doesn’t nullify any country’s immigration laws. Illegal aliens are not equal to legal citizens or immigrants nor should they be as far as rights go in a country.
We already take in nearly a million legal immigrants a year. How much is enough for you? Till we double or triple our population? What tunnel vision the bleeding hearts have. It isn’t fair that most of the “immigrants” who have come here in the last couple of decades are from mostly one ethnic group either.
Hispanic voters only make up 7-8% of our electorate so why the concern for reaching out for their vote and why do our politicians have to promise to change our immigration laws and grant special favors to their group?
Michaela
Ok, I’ve had enough of this crap. The U.S. has every RIGHT to “advocate punitive immigration measures.” Who the hell do you guys think you are? What the hell do you think gives you the right to criticize our government for demanding that our laws be enforced? Mexico enforces their immigration laws…let me repeat that…MEXICO ENFORCES THEIR IMMIGRATION LAWS so why the hell do you think America does not have the RIGHT to enforce ours??? You make me sick with your victim mentality.
It’s been over a month since the GOP took a pounding at the polls by Latino voters for underestimating the ire they stirred among Latinos for constantly vilifying Hispanic immigrants and advocating punitive immigration measures.
Sandra
I didn’t know that the Republicans had to “repair” their relationship with Latino voters. What did they do wrong in the first place? Minorities nearlly always vote Democrat anyway.
Texano78704
“Vote Democratic” would be the proper term, Sandra. That minorities lean towards the Democratic Party should be the first clue to the GOP as to what is wrong with their political platform. The GOP could easily be called “The White People’s Party.”
Sandra
No, the reason that Latinos and other minorities usually vote Democratic is because the Democrats are a party of handouts and social programs for miniorites. So does that make the Democratic party “The Brown People’s Party”?
Marisa Treviño
Sandra, you’re so offensively insulting, it’s hard to take you seriously.
Sandra
So I guess it isn’t offensive to call the Republican party the “white people’s party” but it is offensive to call the Democrats the “brown people’s party”? Is there a double standard of thinking here?
Texano78704
A double standard? By the GOP no doubt — and by those that insist that the Democratic Party is the party of handouts and social programs for minorities.
The irony is that more whites receive assistance from those “handouts and social programs” than minorities. But, by asserting that those forms of assistance were for minorities, you did offend.
My point, that you so obviously missed, was that the Democratic Party represents all the citizens of this country whereas the GOP represents a specific demographic.
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