Hispanics are Key to Winning the West -- and National Elections

At least two entries posted on Huffington Post's Denver site during its launch week, "Why the West Must Be Won" and "There's a Reason the Rockies Are Purple Mountain Majesties: Dems Shouldn't Take Anything for Granted in the West," state the obvious - that the West is important, even essential, to any durable national Democratic majority. Gary Hart's post highlighted the East/West political strategy that is threatening to banish the post-Civil Rights era North/South mentality to irrelevancy. But it's the latter post by Laura Chapin that pinpoints several nuances - and potential pitfalls - qualifying the Democratic Party's resurgence in the West and, consequently, on the national level.

Last November's electoral triumph retains enough giddiness to dissuade and discourage such cautionary analysis among those Democrats still wanting to savor the moment when the party dominated coastal states, cut an impressive swath through the Rockies and even upstaged the GOP in perennial red states like Indiana, Virginia and North Carolina. It seemed that such astounding inroads portended a seismic shift in American politics, perhaps even an indefinite Democratic majority. But remember it wasn't all that long ago that Karl Rove imagined an enduring Republican majority, which to horrified Democrats seemed all too possible, even if unbearable, at the time.

While there are many factors to sustained success in the West, an integral ingredient to any majority, particularly in this region, is the rapidly expanding Hispanic population. Consider that the candidate supported by the majority of Hispanics in Western states in the 2008 primaries and general election won. Hillary Rodham Clinton triumphed in most big state primaries in the West, thanks to widespread Hispanic support. Likewise, the ethnic group's support proved instrumental, if not decisive, to President Barack Obama's victories in those same states in the general election.

It wasn't always that way.

Despite Ronald Reagan's not inconsiderable support among Hispanics and his oft-quoted claim that Hispanics were Republicans but just didn't know it yet, the ethnic group didn't figure too prominently in national political considerations. Not all that long ago, the GOP largely ignored Hispanics, with the exception of Cuban-Americans, and the Democratic Party assumed, some would claim took for granted, their allegiance, even if the ethnic group's lackluster presence at the polls frustrated party leaders. Ever since the Civil Rights movement, black leaders and politicos were the overarching, public perception of minority activism, political powerhouses instantly recognized by mainstream America. With the exceptions of Cesar Chavez and Corky Gonzalez, Hispanics lacked the celebrity firepower to command widespread attention to their grievances and causes. To enhance their influence, Hispanic leaders often aligned themselves in civil rights and political affairs with black organizations.

Then the immigration explosion upended past assumptions and patterns pertaining to Hispanics.

The first big evidence of the upcoming political upheaval generated by Hispanics came over a decade ago in the aftermath of 1994's GOP-sponsored Proposition 187 in California that denied public services to illegal immigrants. Often called the "sleeping giant," the ethnic group was stirred from its slumber, actually jolted awake, by the tangible ramifications of the proposition (far more so than the anti-affirmative action measures also championed by then-Governor Pete Wilson). Within a few years, Democrats recaptured California's governorship and a Latina unseated a Republican congressman in a district the GOP considered inviolable. Instrumental in California's Democratic successes in the late 90's were Hispanics, a group possessing a political temperament that has shifted from apathy to anger and, in recent years, to appeasement. And, even more recently, back to anger and fear.

Rove's strategy anticipated that an enlarged Hispanic population, spurred by conservative familial and religious affiliations, would help secure a Republican grip on the White House and increase the party's presence in Congress and statehouses. For a time, it appeared his vision might be 20/20. In 2004, when then-President George W. Bush garnered an estimated 40 per cent of the Hispanic vote, it seemed surreal to me that less than a decade had passed since another Republican presidential candidate's mere appearance on television prompted my Hispanic coworkers in a restaurant to loudly boo, accompanied by shouts of, "Go home!" Bob Dole received about 20 per cent of the Hispanic vote in the 1996 presidential election.

It appeared to me that Hispanics, like the overall American population, had a short memory, their decisions influenced by brief attention spans and the politics of personality. Then came the public explosion of the anti-immigration faction, as ubiquitous across America as the immigration explosion that precipitated and preceded it. Republican conservatives, a vocal and active contingent of the party, shrilly registered their umbrage at the perceived threats of illegal immigration.

Finally forced to confront the morass, Congress attempted to tackle immigration reform; supported by the president. Ultimately, Congress ditched immigration reform, its demise mainly resulting from those Republican members intimidated by the prospect of defeat in upcoming elections at the hands of the anti-immigration clique. Even Senator John McCain, coauthor of the immigration reform bill with the late Senator Edward Kennedy, edged away from his previous efforts during the Republican primaries.

Many Hispanic Republicans felt isolated and angry. Two years ago, here in Colorado, one of the state's most visible Hispanic Republicans, Gil Cisneros, asked me, a staunch Democrat, to write an opinion piece in which we attempted to explain the political environment created by the immigration uproar. At the time, Cisneros' position represented the GOP fissure that persists to this day.

Former President Bush, who had enjoyed considerable support from both Hispanics and his party's conservative base just a few years previously, watched helplessly as any compromise and resolution (along with Rove's envisioned Republican majority) slipped away. All of which helped President Obama lead the party's 2008 electoral sweep. Hispanics, as a whole, had come full circle to the political environment I recalled in 1996. As Chapin's post cautions, attitudes and affiliations can change fast.

At present, the anti-immigration faction of the GOP has antagonized Hispanics and alienated independents, presenting a public face of the party with its most prominent features being intolerance and intemperance. As long as Republicans allow that constituency to dominate the discussion and impede compromise, Democrats will reap rewards. But, similar to how Chapin describes the West's voters, Hispanics can also be capricious. Just ask Karl Rove and recall his predictions and plans of an indefinite Republican majority.

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Comments

[kathy2trips]

Hipsanics who followed laws and have either been naturalized or were here at statehood have every right to be upset with the illegal aliens. It has gotten to the point where Hispanics are pegged as "illegals" whether they are or not, just by their speaking Spanish in public. Their culture has been hijacked by people who won't stay home and fix their own country, yet come to the USA without waiting their turn disregarding the other people who have been patiently awaiting to be here. To pander to American Citizen Hispanics by being soft on illegal aliens (let's call them what they are) is to make a serious, yet stereotypical mistake. No one wants them to follow the law more than they do. They want to be proud of their culture, not to be ashamed of the law-breakers.

[Wayne Trujillo - Huffpost Blogger]

The above post is mainly an observation on the political environment in regard to the Hispanic population--in a broad view and overall--without strenuously arguing what is right or wrong. As you note, the entire Hispanic population doesn't act (or vote) as one, unified group. There are Hispanics who are upset, as you noted, by being stereotyped as "illegal" simply because they are Hispanic and/or speak Spanish. And there are Hispanics who are upset at the influx of illegal immigrants. However, there are many Hispanics, neutral on the immigration debate, who perceive animosity and even hate in many of the anit-immigration rhetoric, and that does tend to unify them. Also, there are many Hispanic American citizens who have relatives who are not citizens. It's a complicated issue and there is not no easy or right answer. And don't forget the companies that benefitted from immigrants. We can all complain about the problem and who and what is culpable. But the fact of the matter is that there are millions of immigrants here without papers. We aren't going to sweep them under the rug or across the border. Nor is every company that ever hired an undocumented worker going to be fined or shut down. It's time to fix the broken immigration system by dealing with reality, not rhetoric. I believe comprehensive immigration reform is the best way to do that. Has the derailment of the Kennedy-McCain effort in 2007 Congress improved matters?

[Louweegie272]

I have no problem with Hispanic people. I do have a problem with unchecked illegal immigrants, wherever they are from. The biggest supporters of illegal immigration are the US Chamber of Commerce, Countries that receive money from people wiring it back home and other special interest groups. If we cared about helping people in need so much why wouldn't we help refugees from war torn countries like Somalia, Iraq, et al. Trying to turn this into a racial argument makes no sense whatsoever. Most hispanic people in this country are here legally, why should any race get preference over another?