Courting Latino Candidates: A Smart Move For the GOP

by TexasGOPVote on March 4, 2010 at 6:01 PM

According to an article in the Wall Street Journal, high ranking Republicans are starting to tone down harsh rhetoric toward immigration and trying to recruit more Latino candidates in "response to the party's soul-searching about tactics that many strategists believe have alienated the country's fastest-growing voter bloc."

Republicans won just 31% of Hispanic votes in the 2008 presidential election, according to exit polls, down from more than 40% four years earlier, as the party took a hard line on immigration policy. That was a big factor in handing President Barack Obama his Electoral College victory and a seven-point win over Republican Sen. John McCain (R., Ariz.). If current demographic and voting trends continue, Hispanics' growing share of the electorate could make Republican electoral college victories a near impossibility as early as 2020.

George P. Bush, the son of former Florida Governor Jeb Bush, has founded a political action committee that promotes Hispanics for state and local offices called Hispanic Republicans of Texas. Furthermore, Georgia Representative Tom Price, who was once a strong opponent of working to find a sensible immigration policy, has recently made a "Lou Dobbs-like" transition and has been meeting with Hispanic leaders to find a new tone- one that will not turn away the conservative Hispanics. Such actions can carry risks for Republicans, however, as some people see any sort of appraoch to sensible immigration as amnesty, when this is not the case.

The Republican efforts could prove crucial in Hispanic-heavy states in this year's elections. Party strategists fear a heavily Democratic Hispanic vote could hurt Republican chances in governors races in Texas, California and Florida, and make it harder for a Republican presidential nominee in the future to win states with fast-growing Hispanic populations.

According to Former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, "We have to make clear to Latino voters that we care as much about welcoming legal immigrants into our country as we do about keeping illegal ones out."

Tags: 
Latinos and the GOP
Immigration Reform
Hispanic Republicans of Texas

Comments

Submitted by Anonymous on March 6, 2010 at 2:49 PM
Sensible? What does "sensible" mean? Why stop with the illegals already here? Are you saying that ONLY the illegals that are here are worthy of citizenship and superior to all others in the world? What about the other BILLIONS of people in the world that want to emigrate to the U.S.? Why stop now?  Are you demeaning them by not offering them citizenship? Sounds like it to me. Used to be people would wait years to gain legal residency, but I guess the new requirement for citizenship is to just  make it across the border. Let's make sure everyone in the world knows that, because we wouldn't want to offend them either. Fair is fair! "Comprehension Immigration Reform" is nothing more than a euphemism for wiping the slate clean and declaring no more illegals. In other words, the easy wat out. You won't mind then, if I cut in front of you the next time there's a long line at the grocery store or gas station . Maybe I can reach into your pocket and take some of your money to pay my bills. This is what is wrong with the RINO-Chamber of Commerce-Globalist-Big Tent Republicans: talk a good game of inclusivity, import poverty, displace American workers and drive down wages. They preach small government and hard-work, but increase the social-fiscal burdens and make it impossible to improve your lot because your earning power has taken a beating. You RINOs are stupid, because Latinos like large families and raising one ain't cheap. Guess what? The Democrats are about aiding the less fortunate, so you've lost yourselves voters, not gained any. People vote their pocketbooks.

Submitted by mr logical on March 10, 2010 at 10:46 PM
ahhh anonymous regarding this part of your post..."social-fiscal burdens and make it impossible to improve your lot because your earning power has taken a beating. You RINOs are stupid, because Latinos like large families and raising one ain't cheap....."

you might do well to remember the bush/nadler globalist types rule of politics...'privatize the profits, and socialize the costs' - this is the mantra of the country club wing of the republican party.  Remember, according to these people, there is no difference between illegal and legal immigration, and the costs the middle class has to bear for this rampant illegal immigration is just a sacrifice we have to pay in order to import a future voting/consuming bloc.

I myself will never compromise on talking about, and voting for, ANYONE, republican or democrat, who abides by 4 things:
1.  pro-life. end of story.
2.  pro-MIDDLE class/pro legal immigration
3.  ANTI ILLEGAL immigration
4.  Pro small business, and anti fraudulent NAFTA schemes that ship jobs overseas.

I truly truly hope the neocon globalist party of the republican party destroys themselves.  Anyway, great post anonymous, I totally agree with you.  But, you should know, not much point in reading or posting much on here, real conservatives are not all that welcome here, from the tone a lot of these types take on here.
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