First Read has a good run-down of my favorite topic:
*** Latinos aren’t swing voters anymore: For example, 68% of Latinos approve of Obama’s job (compared with 48% of overall respondents and 38% of whites), and they view the Democratic Party favorably by a 54%-21% score (versus 41%-40% among all adults and 34%-48% among whites). And their views of the Republican Party? In the poll, the GOP fav/unfav among Latinos is 22%-44%. What’s more, Latinos think Democrats would do a better job than Republicans in protecting the interests of minorities (by 58%-11%), in representing the opportunity to move up the economic ladder (46%-20%), in dealing with immigration (37%-12%), and in promoting strong moral values (33%-23%). The only advantage they gave Republicans was in enforcing security along the border (31%-20%). And Latinos remain a sleeping — yet growing — political giant: 23% of them aren’t registered voters (compared with 12% of whites and 16% of blacks), and….
[…..]*** The Pete Wilson lesson: Smart GOP strategists know this is a problem; the consensus is that Republicans need to capture AT LEAST 35-40% of the vote to win national contests. Yet looking at Republican primaries across the country, GOP candidates aren’t looking at the long-term. In Arizona, John McCain is airing a TV ad declaring “complete the danged fence.” In California, Steve Poizner is comparing Meg Whitman to Mexico’s president in a TV ad criticizing her opposition to the Arizona law, while Whitman has a TV ad saying she “absolutely” opposes amnesty. And in Alabama, gubernatorial candidate Tim James says, “This is Alabama, we speak English. If you want to live here, learn it.” Pete Wilson is an important lesson here, says co-pollster Peter Hart (D): In presidential races from 1952 to 1988, Dems won California just once. After Wilson’s Prop. 187, Republicans haven’t come close to winning the nation’s biggest state. The next California could be Texas, and the GOP can’t afford to have that big state become competitive.
I don’t know where the 35-40% figure comes from, but if it’s accurate, then Republicans are well on their way to losing the next five or six national elections. Maybe I’m wrong about this, but I wonder if the smart move here for Republicans is to cut Snowe, Collins, Corker, and Graham loose to vote for immigration reform, just to mute it somewhat as an issue.
Mike Kay
Looks like Doug has been having a blast spoofing the RNC.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/05/25/AR2010052504396.html
Martin
The votes aren’t what will matter – it’s the teatards on TV screaming about the issue. People aren’t nearly as intimidated by votes as they are about the prospect that the next person they meet on the street wants to kick their teeth in or throw them in jail on trumped up charges.
Laws can change, hate is everlasting, and the GOP has already lost the immigration war. There’s really no recovery from this, no matter how they vote from here on out.
Chris
Well, you can suggest to Republicans all the great advice you want, but Republicans only listen to other Republicans, because they are suspicious of people outside the party telling them what’s best for the party. First, if a non-Republican were smart enough to listen to, he’d be a Republican. Second, letting outsiders tell you what to do is a sucker’s game.
Imagine, if the shoe were on the other foot: would Democrats listen to non-Democrats about what would be smart to do, either for policy or politics?
(pause)
Okay, bad, bad, bad example.
Mike Kay
the 35-40 percent comes from shrub’s share of the 2004 latino vote.
http://www.cnn.com/ELECTION/2004/pages/results/states/US/P/00/epolls.0.html
http://abcnews.go.com/PollingUnit/ExitPolls/
NobodySpecial
Republicans have lost already. The only way it’s handed back to them is if the Democrats in power are perceived to be complete fuckups or if they suddenly pull a brand new leadership out of their ass with no connection to the old haters and manage to hold the old haters and bamboozle the minorities they’ve fucked over all those years.
Nah. Gah. Happen.
DougJ
@Martin:
I think that getting something passed quickly would give the teatards less time to scream.
Teatards will scream about immigrants and that will hurt Republicans regardless, but it may be possible to mitigate this with the right strategy.
Sentient Puddle
@Mike Kay: I had the same exact thought when I first read it. Some of those suggestions are a thing of beauty.
kay
I don’t know if this is true across the country, but here it’s really pronounced. If there is a Latino running, he or she is a Democrat.
You have to have a bench. You can’t really let ten years go by without running minority candidates who are active in local politics, because then they never get to national politics.
I think Republicans recognize this, and they appoint minority positions at the national level, but that’s not the same thing.
It’s more than just attracting voters. You have to offer minority candidates an opportunity, or they go to the side that’s likely to fund and elect them, because they are, you know, rational and ambitious and self-interested, and they don’t want to be a token of inclusiveness. They want to win.
Chat Noir
As a lifelong Democrat, I can only hope. The Republicans seem to be getting douchier by the day on nearly every single issue. It’s clear they still have no reasonable ideas to help this country solve it’s most pressing and complex issues (oil gusher in the Gulf? Tax cuts will plug the well!).
The party of Lincoln my ass. He’s rolling over in his grave at what they’ve become and I hope they go the way of the Whigs. Morons.
Midnight Marauder
@Martin:
Precisely. There is no hope for them on this issue. There is nothing that will deliver them from the fate of reduced national prominence awaiting them. Who are they saving face with? Their foaming at the mouth, increasingly dwindling, xenophobic base?
The paradigm shift has already happen. It’s never going to be the same for them.
bkny
finally, law enforcement takes notice of the marauders in the gulf (via digby) … oh wait:
Charges have been filed against seven members of Greenpeace who boarded an offshore drilling support ship in a Louisiana port and painted anti-drilling slogans in crude oil on the vessel’s side on Monday afternoon.
[…]
The activists were charged with unauthorized entry of “critical infrastructure” and of an inhabited dwelling, according to the Lafourche Parish sheriff’s department. Both counts carry a maximum penalty of six years in prison.
TomG
I get a feeling that Gary Johnson – who was 2-term governor of New Mexico, so he’s been there – is the only sane Republican on this issue (immigration/borders) anymore. I’m hoping he doesn’t get thrown under the bus come 2012 by the Palin-ites.
Citizen Alan
The Repukes have lost the war, but they can delay having to concede defeat. All they need to do is pass an Arizona type law in every red state with an emerging Hispanic population and then use the machinery of state to harass Hispanics at the polls. If they can suppress Hispanic turnout, they can preserve their power at least in the short term. I’ve always suspected that suppressing voter turnout was the true purpose of the Arizona law anyway.
QuaintIrene
They don’t really use the word, ‘danged’ do they?
Way to go, sounding like a 1840’s grizzled prospector, McCain.
Damn!
Tsulagi
Yeah, as Hispanic SO has told me regarding the rising latin demo: “We’re hot, passionate, and Catholic (abortion and even for some birth control being no-gos), you guys are toast.”
kay
@Midnight Marauder:
It’s just really hard to make up lost time, because politically active Hispanics weren’t just twiddling their thumbs and waiting around for Republicans to embrace them. They were moving on. They were taking local and state Party positions.
I listen to Republicans on attracting African-American voters and I just think they’re delusional. They can’t really impose this from on-high. People run around associating with or without the okay of the GOP, and they go where they’re welcome.
They have, what? Forty years to make up?
db
Yes, but Latinos are not happy with the Dems either; seems like Latinos see Dems sitting on their asses on this issue.
Latino Decisions poll
me
@Mike Kay:
BWAHAHAHA
MattF
Remember how Republicans were unanimously (and sometimes offensively) opposed to Sotomayor’s nomination? Moral #1: Obama is not a dope. Moral #2: The Republican party really is the white people’s party, protestations to the contrary notwithstanding. Moral #3: It will not be difficult for Democrats to hold on to their advantage with Hispanic voters.
someguy
What do you expect the Republicans to do here, Doug?
If they open the borders and grant amnesty to the 15-20 million migrants who are already here, they are going to get smeared, just destroyed, in all upcoming national elections.
If they somehow get enough control of Congress to try to close down the borders, they will get smeared in the very near future, maybe in 5 – 10 years.
Latino immigration is a great issue for us. Seems to me we’ve hit critical mass and handed the Republicans a cup of tasty Geritol laced with arsenic.
rob!
Oh please oh please oh please oh please oh please…
Calvin Jones and the 13th Apostle
@Citizen Alan: You read too much Digby. ;-) Or is it Emptywheel.
Joseph Nobles
The teabaggers would hang McConnell if he cut loose Republican senators to vote for immigration reform.
DanF
A similar internal poll may well have been the inspiration for McCain’s “build the dang” fence spot. It is probably about as safe as you can get to appealing to the teatards in the primary and then minimally offending the Latino vote in the general. Unfortunately for the Senator from Meet the Press, xenophobic forces within the GOP aren’t so easily fooled.
BTW – the use of the word “dang” is hardly accidental. There are a lot of conservative retirees (i.e. older) in AZ. Gotta fire up that base with some stern words.
DougJ
@Citizen Alan:
There is no way in the world that would work for more than a few cycles, at the very very most. That would, essentially, be doubling down a losing strategy.
danimal
Dems do need to be careful and use a little finesse to take advantage of the immigration issue. Hispanics are concerned about border security and support reasonable attempts to resolve the immigration issue. They are not necessarily monolithic on how to resolve the issue. Dems need to take the issue seriously and back a comprehensive solution that addresses the issue in its entirety.
The AZ law, by itself, isn’t a kill shot for Dems, but it gives law enforcement the means to unleash the ugly. The true kill shot is that the GOP will overshoot with increasingly repressive proposals that target Hispanics. They can’t help themselves. The tea party rhetoric will push moderate Reps over the edge (see McCain, John, a former moderate on the issue).
Remember, big business doesn’t want to solve this issue because resolution will increase labor costs, so immigration splits the GOP base from its funding source.
Martin
@DougJ: Nope. The damage is done. What politicians, and especially the teabaggers, continually underestimate is the level of communication among minority groups. The growing assault on immigrants from the right is getting constant attention on radio and TV and facebook and elsewhere. Even if they pass a bill, there’s still efforts at the state level, and affected communities of people across the country are going to keep talking about this.
Remember how large the latino community in California is – and that community strongly influences spanish language radio and TV across the country. Everyone here is extremely aware of how eager groups from outside California are to come in and affect the legislative process here. Even if all the rumblings are coming out of AZ, they’re going to be suspicious that those groups will come here and push for voter initiatives and whatnot. They’re not going to drop their guard.
People outside of that community, they largely have no idea what’s going on – particularly with Latinos where that conversation is often times taking place in Spanish. New media has allowed a very rich conversation to take place without any of it hitting NYT or USA Today or Fox or CNN or Clearchannel. And that conversation goes on for a LONG time. The damage is already done.
suzanne
@QuaintIrene:
Yeah. They do.
And the Sheriff that appears in the ad next to McCain, walking along the fence, is a Sheriff in Pinal County. A county which doesn’t border Mexico.
Cacti
Karl Rove realized the importance of the Latino vote and it was one of his keys to a “permanent Republican majority”.
But he was unable to keep the crazed nativists in his party at bay and it all fell apart.
geg6
Well, of course, that would be the smart move. An even smarter one would be to fall back onto the W/McCain-back-when-he-was-a-maverick position of comprehensive immigration reform.
Which is exactly why the GOP will do neither. It’s smart and they are not.
fucen tarmal
@Mike Kay:
holy turd cutters, that is the funniest thing i have read today since the fast times at the new york observer high freak out about a piece flattering some abc news wench mimi gurbst who apparently was quite the monster….
ruemara
@Tsulagi:
Most of my latina friends regale me with stories of their sibs/nieces/cousins and the 1st or 2nd round of pregnancy without marriage. My latin neighborhood has the most charming array of teenage mothers pushing prams with their boyfriends to the local parish church. My closest friend, as I was aghast at her daughter’s running away to be with a worthless boyfriend, consoled me that the first thing she did after starting back a relationship with her, was get her checked for stds and start her on the pill.
Catholic, yes, but practical. It isn’t cut and dried.
RSR
>>the smart move here for Republicans is to cut…loose…
The teabaggers won’t let it.
Last fall, Chris Bowers wrote a timeline of when and why Snow switches parties.
http://openleft.com/diary/15957/olympia-snowe-will-join-democratic-senate-caucus-in-at-the-most-945-days
Midnight Marauder
@kay:
You are exactly right. Republican efforts to attract black voters are downright insane, if not wholly counterproductive. And I feel like that is the case with their approach to Hispanics, except extrapolated to infinity. They are actively attempting to render these people into second-class citizenship. Fundamentally, their worldview will not allow them to ameliorate this position.
We’ve talked before about how thin the Republican bench is at the national level, just in terms of potential presidential contenders. But when you step back and realize that they are alienating entire segments of the country from even having a desire to affiliate themselves with Republicans, you begin to realize just how much the game is over for them.
And it’s only going to get worse the more the Republican Party features candidates like Rand Paul and politicians like Eric Cantor, John “Please, Oh Please, Let Me Become Speaker of The House” Boehner, and Sarah Palin. They are literally cutting off multiple generations of voters in one ugly moment in time. It’s amazing to watch. We will look back on this moment in time 5 years from now and realize just how much the Republican Party was a dead man walking.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
Sleeping means that they don’t register and vote. 60s-40s, white voter turnout versus Hispanic voter turnout in 2008. Until that gap is closed, the GOP’s short term calculation that the Hispanic vote is disposable will win the day.
I don’t know why you keep ignoring this aspect of the issue. But whatever. Until Hispanics register and vote, the Republicans win in Arizona and probably in Texas. Not sure about New Mexico. And the remedy only works in states with large Hispanic populations, at least in theory. In states with no large Hispanic bloc, the Hispanic bias isn’t worth much.
California, of course, is its own strange political trainwreck. A combination of desire for services, high costs, tax aversion …. who knows what will happen there.
In Arizona, we are held captive by a totally Gerrymandered legislature. Unless Hispanics vote en masse, we are screwed.
2005 figures had White at about 80% of the US total, and Hispanic at about 14%. Outside of the border states the Hispanic percentage drops considerably below the average. When in a typical state, the percentages are at something like 80-8, or 9:1 or 10:1 White v Hispanic, a pretty small increase in turnout among white voters trumps a large increase in turnout among Hispanics. The GOP knows this, and this is another reason why they maneuver with confidence on these issues. They are treating the minority blocs as disposable. They might not win the White House that way, but they can win control of congress that way, and I think at this point, they’d be very happy with that.
geg6
@Martin:
I agree. We have almost no Hispanics here in my part of Southwestern PA, but we have quite a few students here from Texas, California, and Arizona who are Hispanic.
They are the most vociferous and enthusiastic O-bots that we have here on campus. Even edging out the African American students, who pretty much all adore him. And I can’t tell you the things they have to say about the GOP and Teabaggers. The language is enough to make me blush (which is really some feat) and even too much for BJ.
They hate them and they will never, ever, ever vote for a GOPer. They’ve become politically aware in the last year or two and they vote. Hell, some of them wanted to vote in the PA primary (though it was too late to get them registered) and came to me find out if they could and how.
licensed to kill time
@QuaintIrene:
McCain probably thought it would make him sound like Marlboro Man Reagan.
Martin
@danimal: Minority groups almost always see legislation like AZs as either a direct or indirect means of suppression. There’s too long a history of that in this country for them to not be suspicious. Hell, look at the relationship between the gay community and Dems and Obama – I don’t begrudge them being suspicious, they’ve rarely been dealt a straight hand (no pun intended) from politicians, including Dems.
Of course Dems need to be careful. Too often they take minority groups for granted. The Latino and African American communities are generally pretty conservative on many issues. With large numbers of Latinos being practicing Catholics, gay marriage isn’t a postion they’re going to support in big numbers (we saw that here with Prop 8). Many Latinos around the border and pretty much the entire state of New Mexico have no immigration story – they trace their roots to before the US annexed that land. They’re not always a vote for looser immigration laws and amnesty because their experience isn’t any different from whites who *did* immigrate here a century or two ago. But they’re going to be very sensitive to *how* immigration policy plays out – does it target certain populations, etc.
I think too many activists on the left (like Hamsher) oversimplify the landscape in precisely the same way that the teabaggers do. They push hard for *liberal* ideas that aren’t shared by the more practical-minded or more locally conservative subgroups in the Democratic party, and when they get pushback from these groups they’re quick to accuse them of triangulating or being sell-outs, etc. when really there’s a lot of diversity of views, some of which have a hard time getting a voice in the progressive community.
Cacti
@suzanne:
Yep.
Sheriff Paul Babeu, McCain’s “border sheriff” is based in Florence, AZ…
A good 140 miles from the U.S./Mexico border.
kay
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
This is also true, in my experience. I don’t really get it, either. Hispanics, as a politically active group or bloc, put on these really well-attended actions (marches and such). We’ve seen that in just the last 6 years, so they don’t lack grass roots organizing or enthusiasm. I don’t know why that doesn’t translate to registering and turning out.
Citizen Alan
@DougJ:
A few cycles might be all that is needed for a Republican president to appoint Kennedy’s successor. Picture a world where Alito is the vulnerable swing vote.
Chat Noir
@Midnight Marauder:
Steve Benen talked about this earlier today. The thought of Boehner as Speaker and his wacky sidekick Sparky (I’m Not that Smart) Cantor as Majority Leader is really too much for me to bear.
Martin
You need to look at the electoral map. If the GOP can’t carry Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California, they simply can’t win unless they somehow figure out how to win states like NY, which has no shortage of immigrants either and is more liberal than even California.
They might be able to take the plurality of Governor and Senate seats (which is part of why I think there’s such a states-rights revival going on), but the WH and the House will become ever more difficult.
And the tax aversion here in CA is actually a minority position, but because our laws require a supermajority, that minority (the wealthy along the coast) has been able to hold their ground. Polling in the state has a solid majority demanding tax increases. The state is right on the knife edge on the tax issue – a Democratic governor and a shift of a very few seats in the Senate and Assembly and legislatively California would look like a totally different place.
Common Sense
I’m curious how this bodes for Rubio. Seems like his biggest appeal is his skin color.
brendancalling
heh. “america speaks out” seems to be slowly but surely shutting down, if my experience is the norm. After enjoying a few responses, all of a sudden, none of the topics would open up. and currently, the site is trying to refresh, but not doing such a good job.
and damnit, i can’t register!
Chat Noir
@brendancalling:
Steve Benen, again.
I agreed with him when he said this gem was his fav:
MikeJ
@brendancalling: “A very high volume of Americans are speaking out right now.
Please wait a moment and try again.”
Soon we’ll hear about those evil libruls ruin everything. I view hijacking it as the same as the town hall meetings.
kommrade reproductive vigor
You know what this means:
More voting-related hijinks from the Grand Old Putzes.
Expect everything from more legislation designed to make it harder to prove you’re eligible to vote, to self-appointed poll monitors in camo gear hassling people who look like they might not vote for the “right” candidate.
Mike Kay
O.T./Breaking
Top kill has been started.
Hope for the best.
BC
What is illuminating in this is the African-American solidarity with the Latino community. These two groups have been divided for years, so it’s good to see them becoming more united. And if they are going to be in the Democratic party, it’s good to have them together than always quarreling.
Warren Terra
What is George P Bush doing these days, anyway?
(He’s the Bush grandson, Jeb’s kid iirc, that either George HW or Barbara, I forget which, famously referred to as “the little brown one”).
Comrade Javamanphil
@MikeJ: Ned Lamont strikes again!
Warren Terra
It’s worth recalling that the Virginia Republicans had a special Minority Outreach event late in the summer of 2008. Special guest speaker: George “Macaca” Allen.
“Clueless” doesn’t begin to cover it.
Comrade Javamanphil
Re: cutting Snowe and others loose: Any deal (or even perceived deal) on immigration will result in such Tea Party hysterics that I believe you’ll see an immediate forming of a third party running against anybody left of Glenn Beck. The GOP has no play here.
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Mike Kay: Oh. My. God.
Either Republicans are REALLY stoopid (debatable, I know)– or Doug J and all his like-minded cousins are having way too much fun over there.
Kevin Phillips Bong
Since when do they speak English in Alabama?
Tom Q
The to-date lower turnout level among Hispanic voters is of course in line with other minority groups beginning their climbs up the social ladder. Voting has long shown correlation with higher class/education levels — the lower percentages of African-American vote even since Civil Rights being the prime example. But motivating factors, like Obama was for African-Americans, can inspire registration, and the hope is that, as with America’s upper classes, the habit of voting (through peer pressure, and other factors) becomes self-perpetuating. Plus, a younger generation becoming more broadly educated will likely lead to more democracy-participating.
Of course, Democrats would like this change to take place overnight, which is probably too optimistic. Resentment of the AZ law could drive Hispanic turnout this November — and considering how important voter motivation will be in a midterm, a slight bump could be decisive. But it’s also possible the Pubs will benefit for this cycle (Wilson, it might be remembered, did win the ’90 governor’s race). The day of reckoning, though, is not far off: the numbers DougJ posts are inexorable. Maybe not ’10, or even ’12…but, to paraphrase Bogart, “soon, and for the rest of your life”
Why, then, are so many Republicans rushing blindly into this? Two thoughts:
1) It worked 40 years ago, when they essentially became the anti-black party. They not only got away with that, they thrived. Why not try again? The problem: the black vote was smallish and static (basically 10%, then and now). The Hispanic vote is significant and growing exponentially.
2) They’re desperate. I see the party as akin to a team behind 3 games to none in the World Series. All their concentration is on winning the next game (election cycle). If it means using every available starter, rendering them useless in all succeeding games, well, if they lost game 4 they were done anyway. The GOP’s entire strategy is focused on November…I don’t think they have one clue what to do that day after the midterms. But if they don’t pull out every stop to do as well as they can on Election Day, they figure they might be dead for a generation, anyway, so they might as well take every shot.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
You need to look at the history of Hispanic voter participation. It has been weak at best.
Dems cannot take this for granted. Republicans here in AZ are basically saying, to Dems and Hispanics, in so many words, until you guys can get your bloc to register and show up at the polls, we figure we win this battle short term, and maybe mid term. And that’s just here. Nationally, they think that immigration and border issues are major winners for them, the Family Values(tm) style divisive wedge of our time.
Don’t kid yourself, the GOP has run the numbers up, down, and sideways, and they think they come out ahead until Dems prove that they can motivate Hispanics, not just to demonstrate and show up on talk shows, but to get the rank and file working folks to register and vote. Until that happens, and you see Arizona and Texas turn, I wouldn’t be counting any chickens. The GOP is strutting out here at the present time.
An acquaintance who is coming to the Drinking Liberally meetings here in Phoenix says that the gauntlet has been thrown down. The GOP is betting that Hispanics are unorganized, and apathetic, or citizenship-averse, and that GOP white fauxrage trumps Hispanic chagrin until proven otherwise.
Martin
@kommrade reproductive vigor: That’s part of the concern over the AZ law. If ‘government officials’ can challenge anyone’s immigration status, the most obvious place for that to play out is at the polling place, staffed by government official. The provision that allows a citizen to sue if the government doesn’t adequately challenge immigration is too easy to abuse by poll watchers – you get the Republican watcher questioning anyone who walks in the room looking brown and the poll workers are cowed into doing their dirty work out of fear of getting sued. It doesn’t matter that nobody would even be on the rolls if they were
The whole thing reeks of a voter suppression effort.
Anoniminous
Har’rumph.
Where I hail from du var tvungen att tala svenska. (And I wish I’d kept it up!) Ein bisschen Deutsche wouldn’t have hurt, either. There are pockets in the US where another language is ‘standard;’ for the simple reason people immigrating tend to cluster. Language acquisition is as much a social/culturalization process as anything else, kids here will learn English; it’s the default international language; it’s the most taught and learned language in the world. In the general scheme of things, it ain’t that important.
And, if their signs are adequate evidence, the TeaBagging crowd needs to learn English they own selves.
Martin
@BC: Politically they’ve not been as far apart as people think. Everyone seems to think there’s some national Crips/Bloods feud going on. There isn’t. There’s local tensions, but politically there’s been a fair bit of solidarity for a while. If anything, there’s competition to be the Dems pet minority project of the week. That more than anything is what keeps the Dems from really solidifying support from these groups – they seem unable to listen to and serve the gay, latino, black, etc. communities at the same time, so everyone feels like they get a turn at the Democratic charity wheel, and everyone wants to go next lest the other guy get something that undermines their needs and steals their political capital.
But that’s not an inherent problem between blacks and latinos, rather an inherent problem with Dems.
gocart mozart
@QuaintIrene:
yes, yes they do.
Martin
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
And I’ve said above that there’s evidence that the population isn’t unorganized and apathetic. If anything, I think they feel neglected and marginalized by both parties. So I agree, the Dems need to step up here, but I don’t think it’s an intractable problem. I think it’s something that can change rather quickly, in fact, especially when there’s an effort specifically targeting the community.
I hope that Dems are smart enough to talk directly to the Latino community because of this and tell them what they plan to offer, but that they need the community to come out and vote. Dems should skip the fundraising message and just ask for turnout to show support for getting immigration reform done – that should go a long way. Unfortunately, too many Dems in the past have only gone to the Latino community when they were the bulk of the base. They need to change that.
SpotWeld
Republicans as they present themselves now.
It’s pretty obvious that there’s a quiet majority of the GOP that is waiting for some sane leadership to arise for them to latch onto.
The Palin/tea-partiers are the loud minority that is just making everyone feel like you’re being forced to hang out with that one uncle at the family reunion who always makes really bad racists jokes after his sixth beer.
Norwegian Shooter
RE: GOP cutting loose (innuendo intended)
It is remarkable that this is even a subject of discussion for the US Senate. For you political newbies, it is a completely new phenomenon that a individual Senator would be expected to follow the party line on a controversial vote such as immigration reform. Yes, both sides would pressure a toss-up vote to join their side, but by horse-trading votes, not any commitment to party ideology or even unity.
It’s also worth reminding people that the Founders (and Madison is their prophet) didn’t account for any party or permanent faction to bind congressmen in stable coalitions. Every issue was expected to create different political bed-fellows. Their ideal didn’t last a generation.
Leo
Did you mean mute? Or did you mean moot?
Ivan Ivanovich Renko
@Midnight Marauder: The Republican party has been a “dead man walking” since 1968. They drank the arsenic-tainted Dixiecrat kool-aid… and the body is just about to collapse.
Now ain’t that a just a bitch?
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
Not here, there isn’t. Over a beer, Hispanic activists will tell you that voter participation in their ranks here is just embarrassing. When you are grappling for basic rights, community integrity, and fundamental political power, voter turnout in the 40+ percent range in a national election year is pathetic. That’s not me talking, that’s them.
Herbal Infusion Bagger
“And the tax aversion here in CA is actually a minority position, but because our laws require a supermajority, that minority (the wealthy along the coast”
It’s not the wealthy along the coast. Silly-Con Valley is a Dem ATM, frex. It’s OC, the Central Valley, and the foothills who vote i the wingnutz.
BenA
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
I think there’s evidence that the population as a whole is terrified of interacting with the government in any way. That has something to do with it, I’m sure.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
Yes it does, and unless somebody lights a fire under this bloc, it will be successful.
The GOP here is totally Machiavellian, and they are plotting not only for Arizona, they are part of a larger national plot.
Remember, this is a political machine that utilizes stealth …. deliberately hiding the real views of their candidates …. to gain an advantage. Keeping the Palins and Rand Pauls away from reporters is just child’s play to these people. They are into major stealth and tricks and anything else that works for them.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@BenA:
Bingo. These GOP bastards will not shrink from scaring voters away from protecting their own interests.
DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio
@DonBelacquaDelPurgatorio:
On the other hand, you gotta love this from WaMo today:
How can they be so clever, and yet clueless, at the same time? It is one of the great mysteries of the sea.
Barry
@Martin: Martin, do you have any links to this (translated for us poor monolingual Anglos)?
I’d like to have an idea of what’s going on, and you reminded me that I’d miss most of that conversation in my daily life.
JBK
Latino’s are an integral part of America’s past, present, and future. If the Republican party wishes to ensure victory now and in the future, gaining the Latino vote must be at the top of the list. This is the simple fact: they are an ever-expanding minority, in fact already the largest, and as education and overall economic status increases, their voting percentages will go up and a force will be born. We must not alienate these voters.
But this does not mean we should forget our principles for political gain. We must spread the message that our economic policies of consumer opportunity and choice beat the fiscally reckless policies of those who wish to over-regulate and over-spend. That the government works for the people, not the other way around. That the government has to stop wasting taxpayer money and that accountability will be enforced if these disastrous policies remain. Economic prosperity benefits all, and that is the message we have to spread to the Latino voters. And If they realize that we are right, and that our policies will ensure economic opportunity and success, the vote will come to us. To do this, we must elect representatives who realize that economic prosperity trumps all. Ryan Brumberg, of NY 14th district, is running against Carolyn Maloney for Congress this fall, and we must make sure that the candidate with the smart economic policies for a smarter, more responsible, more efficient government should be elected.
I urge all of you to visit http://www.brumberg2010.com to see what I am talking about.
JC
Well, the article is nice and all, but this: “After Wilson’s Prop. 187, Republicans haven’t come close to winning the nation’s biggest state”.
Whuh?
Does Arnold Schwarzenegger, Republican, not ring a bell?
jl
@JC: Arnold Schwarenegger, Republican, or anyone remotely like him, certainly does not ring the right bell with Republican primary voters in California or anywhere else. See Campbell, Tom.
kommrade reproductive vigor
@Martin: And the best is (possibly) yet to come. Pearce is working on one that would not acknowledge birth certificates issued to people who are citizens by place of birth.
Martin
@Herbal Infusion Bagger: Well, I’m on the coast in OC, so maybe my perception is a little distorted. SD isn’t any removed from OC on the issue, though, and these two areas have 6 million voters. We swamp the shit out of the central valley.
Barry
@kay: “experience. I don’t really get it, either. Hispanics, as a politically active group or bloc, put on these really well-attended actions (marches and such). We’ve seen that in just the last 6 years, so they don’t lack grass roots organizing or enthusiasm. I don’t know why that doesn’t translate to registering and turning out. ”
There was an article (in TNR) back in the early 90’s saying that Prop 187 was what had really galvanized the CA Latino community. Voter registrations skyrocketed. The article was prescient. Hopefully, history will repeat.
Martin
@Barry: No, it’s been quite a while since I read the detailed walkthrough of how the 2006 rallies got organized.
I do know that they were primarily organized by Piolin. He hosts the morning commute show on KSCA and helped organize a number of the other local spanish language radio and TV hosts. Facebook and MySpace were big tools used to spread the word and that’s how the ‘spontaneous’ student walkouts happened.
The articles I read at the time focused mainly on the communications rift between the mainstream media and politicians and the spanish language media. A LOT of people were caught completely off-guard at the scale of these rallies as they hadn’t heard any organizing effort for them, so suddenly you have half a million people show up in LA, clearly very well organized, along with student walkouts, and people were dumfounded how that could have occurred.
You might want to try googling for Piolin and see what you come up with.
charles pierce
They can mute the issue, but not the people in their party. That’s their problem.
Mike
@Martin: Not by as much as you’d think anymore. The Central Valley is up to around 6.5 million people. Not OC or SD, but Fresno and Sac in particular aren’t insignificant.
SB Jules
One of my clients who owns a Mexican restaurant called today to be sure all the employees’ paperwork was in order. He was freaked out by Meg Whitman ads. We’ve known each other for many, many years and he’s only mentioned one other politician, Barack Obama; he registered to vote for him.
DougJ
@LikeableInMyOwnWay:
For the last fucking time….Latinos already voted at a low rate in 2008 and proved pivotal anyway. You think Latino turn-out will go even lower? No, it has nowhere to go but up.
This isn’t that complicated.
The number of Latinos voting will go up in the future, not only because there will be more Latinos of voting age but because turn-out will probably increase too. That is what makes the Republican strategy so colossally stupid.
Snarki, child of Loki
Tim James says, “This is Alabama, we speak English. If you want to live here, learn it.”
Hey, wait! That would almost totally empty out AL onto the rest of the US, since most residents of AL speak “redneck”, not English.
Peter J
I rather have sane republicans, and lose a national election now and then.
I’m not looking forward to secession 2.0 or the American Taliban movement, which is way more likely if the republicans get marginalized on a national level.
Zach
Without his substantial Latino support, McCain would’ve lost Arizona, Missouri, and Texas and been demolished in NV, CO, FL, and NM instead of keeping the race somewhat close. Nominate Gingrich and you’ll see sub-5% numbers once Gingrich calling Sotomayor a racist gets out on the megaphone.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@DougJ:
Nope. I think white, Republican base turnout is going to go higher, and that Hispanic turnout will not gain enough to keep up with their gain. And the Hispanic activists I have talked to out here are afraid of the same thing. And the GOP is basically doing a throwdown. “So, you Hispanics think you are hot stuff right now? Okay, let’s see you ramp your weak 48% turnout up to 68% where ours will be, and maybe you will … but we don’t think you can do it. We (Republicans) think our outrage factor, our organization, and our money will trump your little Si Se Puede marches, and turn Arizona from slightly purple back to crimson in 2010.”
When white retired guys like me are planning to rent vans to try and bus Latino voters to the polls in November, you can bet that Dems out here are worried as hell.
Let’s see what kind of turnout we get Saturday at the big rally and march to the capitol being put on by the Hispanic activists. How many white BJ’ers in Arizona do you think signed up for the AltoArizona list I posted a few days ago?
It’s relatively easy here to get people to march to the capitol. Getting them to vote, another thing entirely. If we get 100k at the rally, maybe I will get a little optimistic. There are 2 million Hispanics in Arizona. 100k would be 5% of them. The last time I saw a number, organizers were looking for 50k to show up Saturday. We shall see. I will be out there Saturday morning counting the heads myself.
I can’t find my Drinking Liberally notice at the moment but I think there is a DL session tomorrow night. If there is, I will post that and anyone in town here can come down and get the skinny firsthand on what is going on here from people close to the action.
The only thing I can promise you is that you will most likely get a better idea what is going on in the border states down here in our watering holes than you will from blog-obsessed people stuck on their keyboards in upstate New York.
gwangung
Hm. That seems counter-intuitive, given
a) past history in California, and
b) this is essentially an existential threat to Hispanics. Strike at the essentially human-ness of a people and they’ll react.
But…we’ll see.
LikeableInMyOwnWay
@gwangung:
I hope that Hispanic turnout goes through the roof. But I am not optimistic at this point.
Anyhoo …. the Drinking Liberally notice for the Phoenix chapter has arrived, and tomorrow night is on.
Thursday, 6 pm until whenever, George and Dragon, Central Ave north of Indian School.
We will be competing with the Suns playoff game against the Lakers, but here’s a chance to sit down and have a sarsaparilla with locals who are close to the political action and can talk about Hispanic turnouts and other things that can defeat the evil John McCain. Anyone who shows up and says Balloon-Juice in my earshot gets a round on me. Also if you laugh at my jokes I will buy rounds all night. That’s up to you of course. The beauty part of that is that my jokes get funnier, the drunker you get.
See you there!
Or, you can stay home and watch and see what people back east and who have no lives outside of blogs think about Arizona politics. Whatever cooks your tortilla!
LosGatosCA
Smart move?
These are the people who devolved from the party of Lincoln to the party of Jefferson Davis.
They pushed Smart off the bus at the point they decided government shutdowns and impeachment were the political moves of the century.
Hate sells Much better with these people than sex.
suzanne
@LikeableInMyOwnWay: Will be there. :)
superdestroyer
The more conservative party will never be able to appeal to Hispanics. The real question is what will national politics be like when the Repubican Party completes its collapse and the Democratic Party is the only relevant party.
What happens when all of the former Republicans start voting in the Democratic primaries. What happens to politics when the general election is a moot exercise to affirm the Democratic nominee. Will any group inside the Democratic Party be willing to walk away from the automatic voting blacks and Hispanics to try to create a new political party to the left of the Democrats.