Latino Support for GOP Drops Amidst Increasing Hysteria Over Immigration

Democracy Now! today:
http://www.democracynow.org/article.pl?sid=07/11/02/1336244

Latino Support for GOP Drops Amidst Increasing Hysteria Over Immigration


Although immigration is not yet a major campaign issue, it is one that Presidential hopefuls cannot afford to ignore. At fifteen percent of the population, Latinos form the largest non-white community in the United States and Latino voters are an increasingly important constituency. We speak with Jorge Mursuli of Democracia USA and Deepak Bhargava of the Center for Community Change. The 2008 Presidential election is a year from this Sunday. Although immigration is not yet a major campaign issue, it is one that Presidential hopefuls cannot afford to ignore. At fifteen percent of the population, Latinos form the largest non-white community in the United States and Latino voters are an increasingly important constituency.

And Latino support for the Republic Party is steadily dropping. Lionel Sosa, a longtime Republican supporter and Hispanic marketing consultant, announced Tuesday that he will no longer back the Republicans and is instead supporting New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson. Sosa said Republican Presidential hopefuls are “fighting to see who is more anti-immigration.”

Sosa’s defection comes on the heels of the abrupt resignation of Senator Mel Martinez of Florida as the chairman of the Republican National Committee. Martinez also cited frustration with his party’s anti-immigrant tenor. Countrywide, Latino support for the Republicans has been slipping since 2004, when over 40 percent of Latinos voted for George W. Bush. By 2006, this had dropped to less than 30 percent. Pollster John Zogby said last year that the Republican campaign against illegal immigration is “a key factor in Hispanic disillusionment.”

Right-wing radio hosts have played an important role in this anti-immigrant campaign.

* Excerpt from “Savage Nation” host Michael Savage’s radio broadcast, July 5 2007.

To discuss the growing importance of immigration in the coming election I am joined in Washington, DC by two guests.

* Jorge Mursuli. National Executive Director of Democracia USA, a national non-partisan Hispanic civic engagement project founded in 2004 by the People For the American Way Foundation.

* Deepak Bhargava. Executive Director of the Center for Community Change, a four-decade old community building organization based in Washington, DC.

Kanye would say "George Bush doesn't care about brown people, either."

Latinos of voting age are near the quoted 15% in the OP, but way less than half actually register and barely half of them vote. Lets be generous and say that 7 million Americans of Latin descent vote and they all vote as a block. Now lets factor in that 1/3 of all American voters are independent, 1/3 are Republican, and 1/3 are Democrat, over a hundred million. nearly 80% are against outright amnesty, and 2/3 are support some form of crackdown of illegal aliens entering or staying in the US.

Do the math, the Latino vote doesn't add upto nor amount to anything more than the support for Dennis Kucinich for. If you think any politician or Political Party who wants to win will try to pander to that small a group with the guantee that they will anger 2/3 of the voting electorate you are living in a different universe.

No sane person believes you are going to wall off or roundup and export every single alien, but they DO want a workable(or as near workable as possible) solution to what they see as a very real problem: One which they link to jobs, to crime, to health issues.

So lets quit with the 'mythological' threat of the 'Latino' vote. Besides being in Texas you become well aware that legitimate Latinos are as varied in their opinions as any other pseudo-group. In fact most don't like being grouped at all.

....

First, with the exception of a now aging older generation of conservative Cubans, Latinos vote with the Democrats. (And it's been shown that the younger generation as well as those who came after the early 80s also are voting with the Democrats.) And as Amy's segment reported, the rampant abuse and racism is mobilizing us right now. (Thanks, BushCo!)

Ignore that mobilized block at your peril.

And, btw, what is a "legitimate" Latino? Do you have any idea how offensive it is to call undocumented workers "aliens"? Either you don't or perhaps you don't understand that the outright hatred for these workers has spilled over to all Latinos and that we all are listening to this rhetoric.

What I see in these posts is two things. One, arguing against an amnesty that no one is calling for and two, a pandering to Republican memes and positions. Democrats will indeed have a problem if their response to this issue is reactive. They won't convince independents AND they will lose Latinos. Lose - lose.

May I remind you, many of us read English very well.

:thumbsup:

...nothing which rebuts any contention I have made, nor disproved and factual statements.

As for the term 'Alien', I find it sad that it is necessary to point out to someone that the word is a LEGAL description, not a euphemism, not a denigrating term, not a group specific term, nor slang: It is the LEGAL term used in the laws of the United States of America. Specifically to differentiate between the citizens of this nation and all others. It is used to describe ALL non-citizens residing in this country, Bulgarian, British or Mexican. If you wish to play word games and juggle euphemisms I suggest you do so in subject matter that does not apply to legal issues, it will forstall many disagreements and misunderstandings.

I assume you know that as well as I do.

And yes, I have shown you clearly why it is a mistake to ignore the Latino vote. Unless you are hoping that Latinos will simply not vote in the next election, in which case, your argument begins to make unlovely sense.

...and respond either here or in that thread to it. If you agree say so, if you disagree, take it apart and explain item by item. This is a crucial issue and deserves all the well reasoned discussion as can be summoned.

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=389&topic_id=2189393&mesg_id=2190538

1. They need to inform the public that they will change course in Latin America, i.e., that unlike Bush, they will support democracy in Latin America so working people there are no longer driven out of their homes and forced to come north where they don't want to be and where they are not wanted.

2. They need to reassure the public that they will bring undocumented workers out of the shadows for the public good. That immigrants with clean records will be given some kind of legal status and that immigrants with bad records will be deported. That's reasonable, and given the very low crime rate among those immigrants, practical.

3. They need to formulate a plan to really monitor our borders (just as they need to formulate a plan to secure our ports) that can be communicated easily. They need to point out that Bush actually CUT the funds to border guards and that they will rectify that. Not because nannies and gardeners are a threat but because in an orderly society, border guards are a deterrent to people who do come here with some kind of criminal intent.

That's what they need to do for this election. And it will be difficult because BushCo has managed to merge working people with terrorists in the public imagination. The Democrats are in part to blame for that. They let it happen; they didn't at any point try to dispute this conflation.

Aside from this election, the Democrats need to stop supporting NAFTA and CAFTA which also drives people north. I doubt they'll do that. They are too much a part of the class that benefits from the poverty of others.

You see it is that sort of response to the Immigration issue that is what I am trying to elicit. Simple emotional stuff only inflames and hardens a mindset. Do I agree 100%? Of course not, nor will any completely acceptable amswer be found that satisfies me or anyone else, but emotions are the worst enemy of this issue...of that I am certain!!!

I was not in any of my posts intentionally injecting hyperbole, I noted PC-incorrect data, and arguably sustainable conclusions from polls etc and positions publicly stated by non-bigotted or agenda driven sources. You will not find me using anything from the MCDC or LULAC.

My sole purpose is and always has been to confront this issue in a manner that does NOT cause the loss of the election for any Democratic candidate...once they are in then the issue can be addressed with some probablity of movement in a fair direction. If the Republicans get back in it is a leadpipe certainty that they will push through the Corporations version and the backlash from the public will do irreparable harm to Latinos!

with the knee jerking emotionalism that the Republicans have been fanning up for so long, no one wins. :)

:toast:

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How deliciously ironic.

It's almost a meal.

Aside from the obvious, my favorite irony is that my culture puts family and community first (yes, that's a broad brush stroke but, in general, true). Imagine what it would be like to have an infusion of activists and campaign workers with those values.

lol

revealed in 2004 that ran counter to number crunching consultants thinking.

with the Thuggery. Yep.

Whaaaaa? Heck, probably way more than that vote right here in Los Angeles county alone.

for the puke party at all. Obviously there is with the likes of alberto gonzalez and wannabe's like him. But for myself growing up in San Antonio, which is 60-70% Hispanic, I would estimate 80-90% of the Hispanic population was Democrat.:shrug:

based on what Bush has done to this country.
Maybe some would like the status quo to continue simply for the fact that Corps have given the illegals(you know what I mean), a way to work in this country without going through the legal channels. If even cheap labor/wages is better than they could getr in their own homeland, why would they want it to be changed.
Seems like Dem or Repub will only garner their vote by allowing them to freely enter and leave, or enter and gain immediate amnesty.

Maybe leaving it as it is, seems like its been working so far, at least until some of the US citizens started bringing to attention that it may be unfair to those who earned their citizenship in other ways.

Lots of variables to think about.
Everyone has an opinion, usually based on how it affects their own life.

But what with NAFTA and CAFTA, their jobs or farms are disappearing.

And, our government has been colluding with corporations to prop up dictators that will play ball with the strip mining of those countries. CF the last stolen election in Mexico, Paraguay and Venezuela right NOW, Costa Rica was bullied into approving CAFTA a week or so ago against the better interests of those people. It's really, really, really ugly.

Nobody enjoys being driven from their homeland. And that's the case with the vast majority of the people who are called "aliens" here.

Its in line w/Bush's overall plan. It is ugly. For those who are driven from their country, and for those who are left by the wayside in the country they flee to.
I realize your resentment for the words "alien & illegals", & do respect that. However it has become a way to identify the subject of a message, more than anything derogatory. At least in my case. Like people who say 'blacks' in ref to African Americans, or Asians as a group from that part of the world, or those who refer to white skinned people as "those who won't do the work immigrants will." Which is a lie in itself. I know many who have done that kind of labor work all their life. Enough said about that.
OK, I find that an equally wrong and bigoted statement towards citizens and tho it makes my skin itch a bit too, I know what it meant in general.
"illegals and aliens" are to me, people who come to this country for whatever reason without the documentation to say they have made an effort to be here under legal channels.
I would not be offended if the ref were made to WHITE skinned people who are also here under illegal channels.
Its the behavior, not the race.
I believe you may not approve of the terms but you do know what is meant. I won't change the terminology I use as an in general reference to the message posted.
Expect me to continually use the two terms. To me it refers to people who are in this country with no documentation.
The undocumented ones.

to a voting block that is listening.

and I guess he does not realize that if they got their way he'd be on the boat back to his home country

Hell, he has even gone to party events in his home state, and been shocked that they don't want to even say hi to him

But he defends them to the ends of the earth

I don't get why they think Bush is ever going to do them any favors. They don't have money or prestige.
They pay more for everything since Bush came to be, and have no idea what politics is about other than their standard mantra of "support the troops". They are patriotic to bush not America.
and really dumb.

was the night they killed Bobby. And shortly after, the Teamsters screwed him out of his pension. No kidding.

We just don't go there.