If Bush nominates a Latino, will that really earn Republicans more Hispanic voters?

[Lord_Ashtar]

In reading this thread, I was struck by this comment made by the OP:

@BrainGlutton

The name being floated in the media most often is Attorney General Alberto Gonzalez – http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Gonzales – who has never been a judge, who has only held the AG post since February, and whose confirmation then was controversial owing to his stated opinions against the Geneva Conventions. OTOH, he would be the first Hispanic on the court, which would help the Pubs in their ongoing struggle with the Dems over the Latino vote.

Emphasis mine.

Does it really work that way? When the Presidential elections come up in 2008, will some Hispanic guy somewhere who usually votes a straight Democratic ticket say to himself, “I think I’m going to vote Republican this time since GWB selected one of our people to the SCOTUS?”

In short, does this kind of high level planning actually work?

[Neurotik]

Did Clarence Thomas win over black voters to the conservative side?

Of course it doesn’t work. People are a bit more nuanced then that.

[Paul_in_Qatar]

Of course yes, do you think it would loose him Hispanic votes? Still the effect would be small, unimportant even. More critical might be placing George II in the history books in a positive way.

Remember also the Hispanic population of the US is very, very diverse. Call a Guatemalan a Mexican sometime if you do not believe me. Some are very conservative, some very liberal. Most are in between.

A Hispanic justice might please as many as it would annoy I suppose just because they will (mostly) look at his views and actions, not his race.

[XT]

Sure it will. It will earn them some undefined number of ‘hispanic’ voters if the Republicans keep the focus on hispanic voters by including them in the party. Including blacks in the party has undoubtedly earned them some undefined number of ‘black’ voters after all. Now…will it be a majority of hispanics that switch over due to inclusion of hispanics into the Republican party at various levels of power? No, probably not…just as inclusion of blacks at various levels of power by the Republicans under this administration hasn’t brought over a majority. However, IIRC, more blacks/hispanics voted Republican in the last election than before, so its seemingly had SOME impact on both groups to have visible men and women from their ‘race’ in prominent positions of power. It certainly can’t have hurt, yes?

-XT

[Loopydude]

I dunno. They already swung a surprising number Latinos their way in 2004 by focusing on “moral” values, targeting the conservatively Catholic segment. It may be that those who would have jumped on the GOP wagon already have.

[Maeglin]

@Neurotik

Did Clarence Thomas win over black voters to the conservative side?

Of course it doesn’t work. People are a bit more nuanced then that.

Clarence Thomas was also a spectacularly bad nominee (and perhaps even a worse justice). Nominate a conservative Thurgood Marshall and the results might be different.