WaPo: The Republicans’ Hispanic Problem?
By Shaun Kenney | Monday, March 28th, 2011 | Politics
You always wonder why articles such as these aren’t titled “The Democrats’ Hispanic Problem?” — the implication being that any move the GOP makes to “win” Hispanic voters are based on pragmatism rather than principle. Or if the GOP pays no attention to the demographic shift, then it’s one more reason the GOP is a party of racist, wealthy Anglos who don’t care about others. QED.
Cue the Rainbow Coalition…
Of course, the Democrats are frantic to recast the problem of Hispanic voters leaving their party in droves. Nay, argues Chris Cillizza over at the WaPo! Rather, it is the Republicans who have a Hispanic problem:
If demographics is destiny, then Republicans may have a major political problem on their hands.
Why? Because numbers released by the Census Bureau late last week showed massive growth in the nation’s Hispanic population, a community that Republicans have struggled mightily to reach in recent years.
Screeeeeeech…
Okay. Stop right there. Is anybody else reading this for what it is? Why is it immediately implied that 50 million hard working folks who are at least nominally Catholic and therefore social conservatives would be a “problem” for the Republican Party?
If you need a case-in-point for the latent paternalist racism of the Democratic Party, here it is folks… wedded right to their DNA.
That’s a major problem for Republicans, given that in the 2008 presidential election, Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) — far from the GOP’s most ardent advocate of stricter immigration laws — won just 31 percent of the Hispanic vote, according to exit polls.
And if looking back is worrisome for GOP strategists, looking forward is downright frightening.
ONOZ! WHAT ARE WE GOING TO DO?!?!?!
Former Florida governor Jeb Bush argued that there is no simple solution to reversing the GOP’s fortunes among Hispanics.
“Republicans need to make a better effort at connecting with Hispanic voters,” he said. “The more connected Hispanics feel to the Republican community, the more likely they are to turn out in support of Republicans on Election Day.”
Bush would know. He experienced one of the party’s rare success stories with Hispanics when he won a majority of their votes in his 2002 reelection bid.
Wait… I thought that a rising Hispanic population was a problem for the GOP? OK… maybe Chris was talking about state elections and stuff. Certainly we’d never do well carrying Hispanic values in a presidential election, right?
Two years later, President George W. Bush won 44 percent of the Hispanic vote, according to national exit polling, by far the best showing in modern presidential history for a Republican.
Oooo… that’s gotta smart.
But those are isolated moments.
Ah! Nice recovery! Chris continues…
And even in 2010, when voters elected three Hispanic Republicans to statewide office (Govs. Susana Martinez of New Mexico and Brian Sandoval of Nevada and Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida), the party won just 38 percent of the Hispanic vote nationwide.
Wait wait wait wait… you mean REPUBLICANS elected those Hispanics? And they’re, like, conservative and stuff? Katie, bar the door!
Of course — if one believes Chris Cillizza to be an honest purveyor of facts (and I do) — the problem here is that Chris is reading the information backwards. Republicans are doing phenomenally well, and not because they are pandering to Hispanics.
To the contrary, a message of free markets and social conservatism speaks right to the soul of, not only the average Hispanic voter, but the average Catholic voter as well.
The corresponding trendlines between how well the GOP performs among both Hispanics and Catholics can’t be ignored in this analysis. Though not every Hispanic is a Catholic (indeed — Pentecostals are finding a tremendous area of growth among Hispanic populations), there is certainly a more credible and compelling case for the values among the Hispanic community to find a better home with the GOP than with the statist, more socially-run PRI-leaning Democratic Party.
But this isn’t the story that Chris wants to drive home. Instinctively, he knows Hispanics and the GOP are a match made in political heaven… save for one tiny wedge issue:
Mike Murphy, a senior Republican strategist who worked on former eBay chief executive Meg Whitman’s unsuccessful campaign for California governor in 2010, argues that the reason his side has struggled to make inroads with Hispanics is “mostly driven by the fact that too many Republicans have attempted to use illegal immigration as a wedge issue.”
BAM! That’s the real point of this essay.
The question, of course, isn’t whether illegal immigration is an issue, but whether (1) can the Democratic Party turn it into a wedge issue to (2) split Hispanics from their natural inclination towards the GOP (3) as evidenced in the rising tide of Hispanic Republican leaders as well as (4) massive demographic shifts towards the Republican Party as (5) Catholics have turned towards the GOP in massive numbers.
Watch as Chris salivates over this possibility:
In the 2008 Republican presidential primary campaign, for example, McCain watched his candidacy falter amid a backlash from the party’s base for his support of comprehensive immigration reform. He ultimately stopped talking about the issue on the campaign trail.
Murphy describes it as a “base-driven strategy that has injected red-hot rhetoric into our party’s message on immigration,” adding: “Primary politics have made the situation even worse.” (Murphy suggests that GOP opposition to some sort of path toward legalization is a “non-starter” for Hispanic voters.)
A free-for-all in the 2012 presidential race could make matters worse as candidates try to out-conservative one another for the coveted primary voter. A race to the ideological right on immigration could further set back the party’s long-term prospects among Hispanics.
Damn. You almost have to sponge off the keyboard, dontcha?
Need further proof that we’re looking backwards? Check this out from Danny Diaz towards the end of the article:
Danny Diaz, who helped shepherd Martinez to victory in November, suggested that without a sustained effort among the party’s candidates and top strategists to find policy solutions — or at least a more respectful tone in the immigration debate — the party could be on the brink of writing its own political obituary with Hispanics.
“As is always the case, the release of census numbers is accompanied by hand-wringing, yet what’s required is a commitment to a respectful and substantive dialogue based on sound, forward-looking policies,” Diaz said. “History proves that Hispanic voters can support Republican candidates, but it can’t take place without seriousness and dedication.”
The question isn’t whether Republicans have a Hispanic problem. The question — better stated — is that Democrats believe the Hispanic community has a Republican problem, and dammit if they aren’t going to fix that problem quick with a key wedge issue — and fast.
For Hispanic voters to add to the GOP coalition flies right in the face of the Democratic Party’s image of being the “party of minorities” all under the thumb of a wealthy liberal elite. Can’t have those uppity Hispanics defending the free market and rediscovering (or more appropriately, allowing others to discover) the heritage and principles of the late Scholastics such as Francisco Suarez, Bartolome de la Casas, Francisco de Vitoria, Duns Scotus, William of Ockham, or anything like that, now can we?
Let’s review. Obama has triggered a third war in the Middle East. Housing prices are falling, commodity prices are rising. The economy has flatlined. Congress is leaderless and deadlocked while staring down a $1.5 trillion problem. Tea Party groups are mobilized and taking the scalps of do-nothing Democrats and Republicans alike. Obamacare is set to bankrupt the nation. Jobs aren’t magically materializing on a wave of hope. To cap it all off, the Democrats suffered the single greatest repudiation of their political philosophy since the ’94 Republican Revolution.
Hispanic voters grabbing the GOP by the ear? That’s the last thing the Democratic Party needs right now.
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About the author
Shaun Kenney is the Chairman of the Fluvanna County Board of Supervisors, former Communications Director for the Republican Party of Virginia, and an active blogger since 2002. Shaun lives in Thomas Jefferson's backyard with his wife, six children, and a modest attempt at a farm in Kents Store, Virginia.
Comments
9 Responses to "WaPo: The Republicans’ Hispanic Problem?"
Shaun, you nailed it. All you need to do is come up to Northern Virginia, where you’ve got Tito Munoz and a dozen other Hispanic activists who are well known and respected amongst our local party crew.
The Democrats want to turn Hispanics into their next ethnic stronghold, and it’s not going to work.
I think you make some valid points. Although your point about a largely Roman Catholic populace seems to stray from the mark… Socially conservative perhaps, but Catholics in the United States have historically voted Democratic and although that is changing, I would not say that Catholicism is a point in either party’s favor.
Brian and Shaun- Well it might work. Depends on if Republicans follow the Corey Stewart playbook or not. Whether they will seems to be up in the air right now.
It’s a values issue not a religious argument. Here in the 2nd District we had a Hispanic candidate, endorsed by the Tea Party, who made a respectable showing in the last congressional election.
Why do we lump all Hispanics under one banner? They’re not all the same. Even within each country of origin (or ancestor’s origin). For instance, Cubans are much more likely to be conservative than say, Nicaraguans, but they won’t all be conservative.
I think the GOP does a fairly good job of not making it all about race. We should continue to reach out to the Hispanic community, but I don’t think simply pandering to them wins us any votes (or votes of confidence). Sticking to principles, and spreading the conservative message is already turning Hispanic voters toward the GOP, and we shouldn’t allow the Dems to frame our issues for us.
Ponder –
Well said. I agree with everything you’ve added:
For the same reason we lump all Catholics, Protestants, African-Americans, whites, soccer mom, gays, Muslims, Indians, Jews, Russians, guitar players, hippies, and Jeep-drivers under one banner, I guess.
…and of course, the whole point of the post was *not* to pander to individuals, but rather to bring people along on principle. Naturally, there’s going to be opportunities to slice the data. Even then, Cubans aren’t monolithic, WASPs aren’t either, etc…
IMHO, it was more important to address the very serious errors being made by Democratic operatives, because they are very much divisive and paternalistic in their approach and reasoning.
In essence, we agree.
Ponder and Shaun,
That is exactly the problem with the Democratic strategy. Hispanics are less monolithic than any other group in the US with the exception of whites, and the ones that I know very much resent being characterized as a single group. Hispanics from South America have very little in common with Hispanics from Central America, just as new arrivals have little in common with those who are generations-long Americans. They do tend to co-mingle here in the US, but that is mostly driven by their common native language, just as Americans and British tend to co-mingle on the Continent and in the Middle East. That doesn’t mean that you can lump them together as a single group with common values and beliefs.
Some Hispanics will vote Republican, particularly those who waited their turn to enter the country and become citizens. Some of the most hard-core Republican conservatives that I served with in the Army were Cuban-Americans and Puerto Ricans. And if you mistook their native country to be Mexico, they would take a deep breath and then quickly straighten you out. Others will vote Democratic, particularly if they came here as economic refugees and find themselves stuck in the lower economic strata. As for immigration being a wedge issue, it will mostly work only with the Hispanics who would vote Democratic anyway.
…until the answer for illegal immigration is to make it uncomfortable for those people to work and live here, so that they will go back across the border.
Not sure that’s really going to be the case when certain voices are screaming for a solution to illegal immigration with “probable cause” laws.
Though a minority in the GOP, it’s a voice that certainly caused consternation at CPAC among Hispanic conservatives at the national level.
The Democrats only messages are emotional based and they have the bullhorn.
- Illegal Immigration? They only want the best for their families.
- ObamaCare? Conservatives want people to die.
- Social Security? Conservatives wants to take grandma’s retirement away.
- Deficits? Tax the evil rich.
- Housing Problems? those evil bankers.
As for solution for illegal immigration, these voices just want the laws enforced already on the books. …by no means create new ones.
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