This week's poll from the Lester & Charlie Institute of Forward Thinking:
What a difference an election makes. A few weeks ago, all the GOP wanted to do was arrest anyone with a darker tan than John Boehner. Suddenly, as the saying goes, the GOP can't even get arrested.
Republicans are famous for having their own brand of arithmetic -- the kind where 2+2 equals "x"and "x" can change as soon as someone asks "why?" But there are some numbers they can't question, like the steep drop in voter support from Latino voters.
Forty-four percent of Latinos voted for George W. Bush in 2004, 31 percent supported John McCain in 2008 and a paltry 27 percent pulled for the now-forgotten Mitt Romney in 2012. That's a downward spiral -- even when the numbers are converted into socialist metric ones or God-sanctioned Bible Math!
In spite of all the calls for self-deportation of brown people, all those clever voter suppression initiatives -- and even after all the poison they've been serving up at Taco Bell -- the Latino demographic somehow keeps growing. And they're voting for Democrats. And the GOP finally smells big trouble.
Overnight, some of the most xenophobic figures in the GOP went from whistling Dixie to blowing smoke up Ricky Martin's ass. Hardliner John Boehner suddenly wants immigration reform. FOX's anti-evolution Sean Hannity says his hardline position has "evolved." Even Jan Brewer, the "papers, please" governor of Arizona, says that she's "fine and dandy" with immigration reform as long as we secure our border. (From Democrats, no doubt.)
Of course, not every conservative jumped on the come-to-Hey-Zeus bandwagon. Some are freaking out. "Obama voters chose dependency over liberty," tweeted Iowa Rep. Steve King, the same man who once compared immigrants to dogs. "Now establishment Republicans want citizenship for illegals. You can't beat Santa Claus with amnesty." Say that again? If that Santa Claus comment wasn't strange enough for you, how about conservative radio host Bryan Fischer telling his national audience that the Latino vote actually has nothing to do with immigration -- and everything to do with socialist Mexicans who want to "benefit from the plunder of the United States." Umm. OK.
The GOP is going to be duking this one out for a while -- at least until their inner jumping beans settle down. But with Latinos projected to make up 30 percent of the U.S. population by 2050, they're going to have to figure out how to get Hispanics to vote for them sooner than later. Or their party will disappear entirely. We bet they're tossing around some really genius ideas right now. Tell us what YOU think they're going to do!
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