Republicans won control of the House Tuesday, but their hopes of controlling the Senate as well were stymied by a firewall of Latino voters who were outraged by Republican demonization of Latino immigrants, their Arizona "papers please" law, their proposal to repeal the 14th Amendment, and their overall opposition to comprehensive immigration reform.
The consequences of the Republican anti-immigrant rhetoric will likely spread far beyond last Tuesday's election. The fact that Republicans have alienated the fastest-growing ethnic group in America will have far-reaching consequences for the party's ability to win a Presidential election and compete nationally over the long term.
A quick look at the numbers tells the tale:
Latinos also made the difference in critical Governors' races that will affect the playing field shaped by redistricting.
Immigration was the major issue driving these vote totals. In some cases Republican candidates depicted Hispanics as gang members and criminals in ads that were meant to whip up fear among Anglo voters about immigration. That kind of rhetoric is not understood as a difference about a policy or issue. It directly offended the Latino community's sense of identity, pride and self-worth. That drove voter decisions as well as turnout.
The Las Vegas Sun quoted Gilberto Ramirez, a first-time, recently-naturalized voter from Reno, Nevada, as he explained how Sharron Angle's anti-Latino ads influenced the fact that he turned out and the fact that he voted for Harry Reid: "She was depicting me as a gang member. I served seven years in the Marine Corps."
Fiorina and Whitman got on the wrong side of the immigration issue in order to win Republican primaries. Angle, Tancredo, Maes and Colorado Republican Senate candidate Ken Buck overtly trumpeted their anti-immigration positions to whip up fear and anti-immigrant votes. Turned out that was a bad call. And it will likely turn out to be a worse and worse call that will effectively prevent Republicans from winning control of the White House. In fact, demographers tell us that another 1.25 million Latinos will reach voting age between now and 2012.
A major organizational effort by Latino and immigration rights groups helped galvanize voter turn out. The level of organization is only likely to grow over the next several years.
The fact is that as the Latino population continues to grow, it will rapidly become impossible to put together an electoral majority of 270 electoral votes with that kind of Hispanic opposition.
It is increasingly difficult for overtly anti-immigrant candidates to win electoral votes in states like California, Colorado, Nevada, Illinois, New York, New Jersey and Florida. Together these states have 117 electoral votes. It would also be very difficult for them to win New Mexico, and might even put Texas into play. Remember that when John McCain and George Bush ran for President they presented themselves as pro-immigration reform candidates. Bush got a sizable percentage of Hispanic voters. McCain got less, but was not wiped out. Between them, Texas and New Mexico have another 34 electoral votes.
If an anti-immigration Republican disqualifies himself completely in states with 117 electoral votes, and then makes life very difficult in states with another 34 (a total of 151 votes), that massively narrows the playing-field where he or she must assemble the 270 votes needed to win election.
Of course right now, Republicans are flush with their victory in the House, and there is no sign that they recognize the looming political disaster just over the demographic horizon. Already Republicans have denied themselves potential control of the Senate because of their immigrant bashing. It is likely that the fresh gang of Tea Party extremists that they have just sent to Washington will make matters worse. Nothing like being hoisted on your own petard.
Robert Creamer is a long-time political organizer and strategist, and author of the recent book: "Stand Up Straight: How Progressives Can Win," available on amazon.com.
http://pewresearch.org/pubs/1790/2010-midterm-elections-exit-poll-hispanic-vote
The only one who at least had the dignity (or lacked the spine depending on how you look at it) NOT to endorse outrigh the AZ law was Rubio.....and what a shock...he was the one who won his election and the Latino vote (or enough of it to guarantee victory ) in what would've been a close race he could have lost had it not been for Crist...
The fact that so many Latinos associate with the Democrats shows how alienated they are by the GOP and the conservatives that use hateful rhetoric against them to scare White voters. The hysteria over Latino immigration bunches together the legal and the undocumented, and with that association comes the sympathy that legal Latinos have for undocumented workers.
Latinos would be fairly conservative if Republican candidates and politicians didn't use them as a scare-tactic for ignorant voters in their shrinking base. We'll see how their strategy affects them in the future.
I suspect more Latinos will swing Republican because the GOP will have to start caring about their numbers, and like politicians, will change their message and deny their old race-baiting.
We'll see how many remember the old strategy though.
www.latinonationreport.c
And lose the Tea partiers? Sure, maybe years from now. Just remember those Republicans who went after Sonia Sotomayor and you'll see that changed isn't coming soon.
Furthermore, in the state with the largest population (California, the seventh largest economy in the world), minorities are now the majority and the largest minority is now the Latinos.
Que Viva La Raza!
I'm 52 years old. I lived thru all the debate about “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” in the 1980's. Many younger people here say, "well Reagan approved an amnesty, so what’s the problem now?" Simpson-Mazzoli was a compromise, but once the amnesty part happed, the Left, mainly Ted Kennedy, with help from business owners, stopped ALL enforcement.
I gave the link for people that were not even born when Simpson-Mazzoli passed. I lived thru it. When you give an amnesty and stop all enforcement on employers, that is effect an open border policy. Anyone who was old enough to read a newspaper in 1986, that’s what we did before the internet, knows that any new “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” will NOT be “Comprehensive” at all, just a new amnesty.
Fool me once shame on you, fool me twice shame on me! Anyone who lived thru the Simpson-Mazzoli debates in the 1980's will not be fooled again by calling amnesty, and that's what it was called then, "amnesty with employer enforcement", with the new term “Comprehensive Immigration Reform”!
Just google "Simpson-Mazzoli" ,pick your own sources, and study it.
If you study what happened with Simpson-Mazzoli, you will understand that “Comprehensive Immigration Reform” really just means a new amnesty, and that will encourage many millions more to come and wait for the next amnesty. Last time we legalized 3 million; 15 million more came.
$harron Angle won among republik_lans by promising concentration camps in the desert for the detention of the american born children of immigrants pending the repeal of the 14th ammendment. They haven't even noticed that the anti latino laws in that state are written by a guy who attends National Socialist Movement rallies regularly. Way to go teabaggers.
MARCO RUBIO is a self-professed Tea-Partier and yet not one liberal has attacked him.
If he runs for vice-president or president....well you know.
Minorities are used by the left for political gain as allways. Reid's people handed out gift cards and food to intice voters to the polls.
If the dems have any sense, they would take hie speakership away. Then again, let him keep it.