I believe that the GOP will actively start courting this voting block within this presidential term. Maybe it will take a year or 2 to figure out, if it’s possible, some sort of stance that could be acceptable to their base.
Perhaps there’ll be more morenos on Fox - in fact, I’d bet on it.
Firstly - is this a reasonable thing to assume? How could the Dem’s counteract this, should it happen? My own belief is that they need to do all that they can to get the disenfranchised and disinterested motivated, to target the 40% that doesn’t vote.
I don’t know what you do to “counteract it” aside from have ideas that bloc likes more, but a few thoughts I’ve had on it:
(1) Obama will likely aggressively seek immigration reform this term. The GOP will either be the guys who blocked it or the guys who facilitate giving Democrats a big win with Latinos.
(2) Conservatives seem legitimately befuddled when they trot a minority out on stage before a sea of white people and that doesn’t magically make things better. Romney was using “self deportation” as an immigration platform, making dog-whistle welfare attacks, talking about the “47%” of welfare and government benefit moochers and leeches, and saying he’d reverse Obama’s immigration enforcement policies. Then he loses minorities in huge numbers and… “But we had Rubio and Rice and Martinez on a stage! What else could they want?”
(3) Number 2 doesn’t even address the rank-and-file members of the GOP who press for Constitutional amendments against “anchor babies”, “English as National Language” laws, compare undocumented aliens to rapists and child molesters because “They broke the law!”, call for barbed wire fences and machine gun nests along the border, think “Put them all in cattle cars and send them to Mexico” is an immigration policy, etc.
(4) Immigration isn’t the silver bullet that will bridge the rift between Latinos and the GOP. It’s just one piece of a much larger and systemic issue and, until it’s addressed in full, trotting out Rubio or Martinez will be rightfully seen as tokenism.
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Yes. Obama has already stated (“off the record” interview) that he would and that the GOP will deal precisely because they will realize that they lost the election by losing the Latino bloc so overwhelmingly.
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Yup. Just stop pandering to the xenophobic crowd and they can appeal to those Latinos who are otherwise just as likely to have conservative POVs as any White guy. They will still get the xenophobes.
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see #2
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see #2
I have no idea what to answer to your questions, but it’s el futuro and neither Hispanics are the only dark-haired people out there nor all Hispanics are dark-haired…
The OP makes my eyes hurt 
Forgive me, Nava - my Spanish is inelegant (to put it mildly). And yes, I am fully aware that Hispanics do vary greatly in appearance, but the overall point that I was attempting to make was that in order for the Right to court this bloc, they will likely do so by bringing in representatives of the bloc through their propaganda arm, Fox News.
I think it’s Fox that has its hand up the Republican’s ass rather than the other way round. The Republicans have allowed themselves to be hijacked by crazies and cynics manipulating crazies and the Right Wing media has been a primary instrument of this hijack.
At this point I don’t think Sane Republicans have any chance of taking it back. Look at what a pretzel Romney had to twist himself into to get the nomination.
God, I can’t believe I forgot a huge one: voter disenfranchisement targeting minorities.
“Before we start the show, we want to thank our billboards in minority neighborhoods warning everyone there that if we see you near a voting place without three forms of ID, we’ll have the feds on your ass sending you right to jail. Ladies and gentlemen, Susanna Martinez! Vote Republican, everyone!”
GOP allies send out fliers to minorities giving them the wrong voting date/location and then wonder why they’re not getting the Hispanic vote. Go figure.
It’s clear that the GOP can win the Hispanic vote, or at least a bigger chunk of it. GWB got 40% of it. I had the vague idea that the “Obama war on Catholics” the GOP was trying to play up would swing a few their way, but apparently that was wrong, or Romney didn’t talk about it enough.
Obama won the Catholic vote by a few points but lost the white Catholic vote by 20 (40-60). Obviously Latino Catholics aren’t voting on social conservatism issues.
Edit: GWB got 40% of the Hispanic vote but the rest of the GOP helped to screw the deal when they fought tooth and nail to prevent GWB from passing immigration reform.
Or people smelt the bullshit for what it was.
Next time I think the Republican Party should make ‘The War on Christmas’ a central platform plank. And the reintroduction of slavery. It’s all in The Bible folks.
Take it from me, it’ll be electoral gold.
The important thing to remember is that such voter suppression tactics were attempted and they lost anyway.
The big question is can Republic leaders who are realistic enough to not want to suppress the latino vote sway enough of the firebrands to even get started on winning them back.
Remember, it’s completely invalid to think of any demographic group as a monolithic bloc of votes. Some will be conservative, some will be liberal and most will fall somewhere in the middle. So if the Republicans can stop actively attacking latinos votes will fall their way naturally. But it’s the decision to stop attacking they’re going to have trouble with.
A good first step would be to stop framing this election as “We lost the moocher vote,” which is the main narrative I’m hearing. I’m really looking forward to the ham handed pandering that is about to come. We’ll see a parade of tokens and bizarre attempts to stuff racist policies into something that is supposed to be attractive (self deportation!).
Latino Catholicism can be a pretty complex mix of family-oriented social conservatism mixed and a strong sense of compassion and social justice. It tends more towards tolerance than towards the fire and brimstone stuff that gets other conservatives going. So while the Republic personal values may be fairly well aligned, their political values may not be. Courting Latino voters is going to take more than better marketing, there will need to be some serious changes in the party itself.
Very true. They need a si change.
Not sure about the GOP, but if I were a Hispanic voter I’d be making a mental note not to vote for you, TOJL.
Is there something wrong with making a terrible pun here all of a sudden?
It seems like Obama will try to force the issue early in his second term. The GOP will either end up blocking immigration reform once again or handing the Democrats a big victory, is there any way they can spin either result as a win?
Spluh?
I think a political party seeking a voter bloc has to approach with the right mindset. They can’t ask “Why do we want their votes?” because that’s putting the party’s needs first. The party needs to ask “What are we offering this group?” and put the group’s needs first.
I think there’s a strong Marian component to Latino Catholicism (and by extension Latino culture) that drives them towards social justice and compassion that isn’t as strongly reflected in European Catholic perspectives. So you have conservatives talking about dismantling welfare, government insurance programs or other social programs to help the weak and then expecting that Latino Catholics will flock under their banner due to abortion, contraceptives and gay marriage. That’s not to imply that the Hispanics themselves aren’t hard working or that they want to be on welfare but rather that they believe the government should support actively support the weak and needy for those who do need it.
While that would be something special, I don’t agree that it’s what happens in practice. I believe that the Republican Party always puts party first. For them, it’s the end result that counts more than anything; and they get lots of votes from people that most certainly don’t get most of their interests served.