U.S. Senator Mel Martinez (R-Florida) is finding out how very painful it is to do Latino outreach for a party that hates Latino immigrants. Martinez was thrilled when Univision, largest Spanish-language U.S. television network and the fifth-largest overall, announced plans for a presidential candidates forum in Florida. He is not so thrilled now, as only ONE Republican candidate, U.S. Senator John McCain, has agreed to partake in the forum. Naturally, all of the Democratic candidates will be there.
“I think that to have candidates address the largest minority group in America would be a terrific thing,” Martinez said in June, according to the Washington Post. Sure, but now we ALL know that the majority of the GOP candidates don’t like Latinos and don’t want to even talk to them. Backfire!
Will the Republicans pay a price for their animosity towards Latinos? “The estimated 41 million Latinos are a force in American politics, and in few states will their decisions be felt more than in Florida. The state is home to an estimated 3 million Hispanics, two-thirds of whom are Mexicans, Puerto Ricans, South Americans and Latin Americans, who lean Democratic, and the other third are Cubans, who lean Republican.”
But wait – there’s more! “The Republican hopefuls snubbed two other high-profile Hispanic conferences — the first held by the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, the biggest gathering of the Latino political class, in late June, and the second by the National Council of La Raza, the largest Latino civil rights group, in late July. The Democratic candidates showed up for both events.”
“In politics, perception is reality. And in the past two years, the perception among Hispanics — not just Hispanics who are undocumented but also those who were born and raised here — is that they and their family are not welcome in the GOP. And that perception may stick,” said Roberto Suro, founder and former director of the Pew Hispanic Center, the Washington-based nonpartisan research group.
It appears to me that the GOP has lost whatever Latino votes that President George W. Bush brought to the table four years ago. This has long term implications for the red party. Take a look at national demographics – Latinos are having a lot more children than most Americans. Our votes will eventually be a huge key to victory for presidential candidates, even more than now. And despite Martinez’ efforts, I would bet my house that most U.S. Latinos won’t be voting Republican.
“To be frank, every day Martinez’s job is to put lipstick on a pig. It’s not a pretty job, but he took it, and now he’s got to live with it,” added Simon Rosenberg, who has studied the Latino electorate and runs the New Democrat Network, a think tank.
Art,
The GOP candidates can snub Hispanics all day long if they wanted to. The fact of the matter is, Hispanics don
good post 1 , i agree with you . renember this was written by art i am a independent pedroza . yeah you sure are art . all your post are anti g.o p. any one down the middle would comment on the other side but you never do . your articals are ALWAYS ANTI REPUBLICAN . so dont try and pawn yourself off as a independent .
These anti-latino comments are empirically inaccurate. Latinos do vote, just not in as high percentages as some other ethnnic groups. Young people–of all ethnic backgrounds–do not vote in high percentages either. That does not mean young people do not vote. A significant number of latino’s do not register to vote because they are not citizens. Factoring in age and citizenship, latinos have a respectable turnout in relation to most other groups.
But let the GOP think that latino’s don’t vote. The offices they lose will be their own.
Number one, they did come out in 1996 and 1998. Why do you think Bob Dornan and Jim Morrissey lost to LORETTA SANCHEZ and LOU CORREA?
BR:
You are right. When I said that Latinos do not vote I was referring to their turnout vs their registration vs their eligibility to vote. Meaning that the number of Latinos able to vote are about 50% of that registration. The registered Latinos that do vote are about 50% of that number. When I say they do not vote, i am talking about their turnout.
Facts:
I can assure you that it was not the Latino Vote that catipulted Loretta above Dornan. It was the rest of the voters who were fed up with Bob Dornan. She captured Dornans own base to beat him along with some Latino votes of course but those latinos would have voted in that election anyway whether or not Loretta was on the ballot. She did not bring out a significant number of new Latino voters to the polls.
That came later when she was up for Re-election. But again not to a significant degree. She solidified her base in the post Dornan era by courting Vietnamese voters as well as white voters.