The question is, how in the world are they going to get it?
Via HuffPo:
"On the issue of the Hispanic voter, we have to do a lot more. We Republicans have to recruit and elect Hispanics to office," McCain told CNN's State of Union. "And I don't mean just because they're Hispanics, but they represent a big part of the growing population in America. And we have a lot of work to do there. And I am of the belief that unless we reverse the trend of Hispanic voter registration, we have a very, very deep hole that we've got to come out of."While he was one of only a handful of Republicans willing to tackle immigration reform in 2007, McCain faced a massive deficit with Hispanic voters in the 2008 election. His aides have said that, were he not the home state senator, he would have lost Arizona to Barack Obama, in large part because Hispanics had left the Republican Party in droves.
It's hard to imagine how a party which is staunchly anti-immigrant, anti-social programs, anti-bilingual education, who is opposing the first Latina Supreme Court Justice nominee, is going to find a way to lure more Latino voters.
Thanks for stating the obvious McCain, that the Latino population is a growing minority in the United States and you're in trouble if you don't get some of them into the ballot box for you. Some estimates are that by 2050 one in every four person in the US will be Latino.
There is no way your party is going to get the support of Latinos until you change your politics. Favoring immigration enforcement (aka border fences, raids and inhumane treatment of immigrant detainees) over immigration reform isn't going to win you much favor with a primarily immigrant community. Even Cuban-Americans (of which I am one) who have traditionally voted Republican because of the Republican anti-Castro hard line, are starting to swing toward the Democrats.
Maybe the changing demography of this country will finally force the party to realize it can't only support the interests of a small sector of upper-middle class white folks and be successful. Here's to hoping.
UPDATE: McCain declared today that he will oppose Judge Sotomayor's confirmation. Thanks for proving my point McCain.
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I think the only chance the GOP has w/Hispanic voters (assuming the GOP does not changing some of the aspects of the party such as the views on immigration, social programs, etc.) is the anti-choice angle. It's superficial, sure, but when most Hispanic cultures are anti-choice/contraception because of a heavy Catholic and/or evangelical following (and assuming those same Hispanics base their votes on the issue(s) of sexuality/abortion) the GOP may have a crowd.
That is my superficial observation, though.
"Changing" should be "change".
Yea, that's actually a myth that really needs debunking. While many Latinos are anti-choice, not all of them are. And their stances may look very different than the Catholic Church's or the GOP.
I work with an organization that does reproductive rights organizing with Latinas, and we found that people's opinions actually vary pretty widely and on things like sex education and contraception many Latinas are much more supportive than the GOP seems to be.
Also, the younger generation of Latinos are more pro-choice than their parents.
Thank you for clearing that stereotype. I shall scrap my comment, then...or at least consider it scrapped.
That's awesome to hear that you work w/an organization that does repro. rights organizing with Latinas.
I suppose my generalization came from an idea that those groups are stereotypically seen as anti-choice/contraception because of the religious aspects of the culture but the gender aspects of the cultures of well. It seemed to have reminded me about how I was listening to a talk radio show the other day and a woman called in basically expressing how girls need to be taught how to be women first, how to be a dutiful wife, and to be a good mother instead of worrying about playing sports while leaving sports up to males. The woman had an accent and I suppose the knee-jerk reaction to her accent was "Okay, this woman sounds Hispanic so..." then I became culturally aware of the stereotypical role(s) women play in Hispanic cultures therefore getting fired-up about how men try to be (or act) so "macho" in Hispanic cultures, etc.
But, as I have said before, it felt good to be informed that Latinas are getting involved in repro. rights. Thank you for that.
:o)
While I could spend hours showing how this post is wrong, I'll just point out that an infamous far-left "reconquista" type was kicked off a school board in part because he supported bilingual education. That was in Santa Ana; look it up if you aren't familiar with that city.
Yeah I don't think this is going to happen any time soon (if at all). If you don't speak to a certain demographic/community you aren't getting their vote...if you belong to a party that's constantly working against them, I think it's pretty obvious you aren't going to get their vote.
As for what LP said, I truly believe it has more to do with a generational gap than Hispanics traditionally being Catholic. Even my mother's generation (I am 19 by the way) isn't really so conservative, I think it's a matter of fitting in between their parents generation, which was very conservative in general I think whether they were Catholic or not, and our generation which is typically more accepting. I can easily tell where my mother stands on many issues, thinking my grandmother is outdated but I'm a bit too liberal. You can always look at a general demographic and see what their beliefs are, but I think people would be surprised to see that a lot of us have varying opinions.
McCain can most certainly hold his breath, and if anything has better luck with older Latinos than the younger ones.
McCain is voting against Sonia Sotomayor because she's latina to the same degree that Feministing opposed Sarah Palin because she's female.
you do realize, of course, that feministing's commentary around Palin was focused on (a) attacking her policy statements and (b) railing against the sexist attacks on and promotions of her, right? in fact, didn't feministing defend attacks on Palin "because she's female" (such as the VPILF crap and the "cunt" shirt garbage)? so, no, feministing didn't oppose Palin "because she's female".
on the other hand, an overwhelming part of the GOP commentary surrounding Sotomayor is about her being a "racist" ... they made it about race and, particularly, about fear that a moderate Latina judge would use her power to attack white people or some such garbage ... so, yes, the GOP's critique of Sotomayor hinged on race... "because she's latina."
aleks, as is so often the case, your comparison doesn't bear out... the degrees turn out to be 180.
Of course Feministing didn't attack Palin because she's female. That was, I think very obviously to anyone not looking to pick a fight, my point.
McCain is a specific Republican senator.
The GOP is an enormous (though shrinking) organization composed of, among other things, 40 senators. When I said McCain instead of saying the GOP, I was talking about McCain, not the GOP in total, whose racist attacks on Sotomayor I've criticized many times.
As is so often the case . . .
okay, aleks, so illuminate me as to what McCain's real motivations were.
he sure hasn't. his statement that his no vote is due to her "judicial activism" doesn't actually hold water, considering her record. i mean, wow, law.com even did a writeup on her behavior on the bench that concluded she is "in the mainstream, clearly, and less activist than the average judge -- more deferential to district courts than the average judge among the five circuits I've looked at."
claiming that someone is a "judicial activist" is basically a smokescreen for the GOP. in the political context, it barely means anything (considering that non-activist judges are considered activist because of their political associations and clearly activist judges are considered constructivist because of their associations).
further, McCain has left his statements vague enough to keep us guess. unless he provides a believable argument that departs from his party's line (which he's been really good at following since his 'maverick' run for president), i'm disposed to believe he's just sticking to that line and the hearings made that line eminently clear.
GOP Senators (of which McCain is one, though not yet the only) generally vote against SC Justices nominated by Democratic presidents whom they expect to vote in accordance with the Democratic Party's general political objectives. Republicans refer to a liberal view of the law as judicial activism, because they don't like it and do like to pretend that applying conservative politics to the law is unbiased "strict constructionalism." What on earth does that have to do with McCain voting against Sotomayor because she's latina?
Do you think Obama voted against Roberts and Scalia because they're white, or because they're Catholic? He didn't. Bush, a Republican president, appointed them to push conservative politics. Obama, a Democrat, opposing those politics, opposed those judges. Do you think the Democrats filibustered Miguel Estrada because he's latino?
Educate yourself regarding McCain's (failed) advocacy of immigration reform, his (failed) insistence that Republicans treat immigrants as "God's children too," and his economically clueless ($50/h, etc.) but respectful comments about how hard immigrant laborers work and what a vital role they play. He took an immense amount of criticism from his party, and suffered a major loss of support during the election for this radical position (a.k.a. basic human decency). If you're going to pick fights and be this patronizing, you should pick ones you might win.
(Actually it was appellate court nominees the Republicans blocked under the last Democratic president, it's Democrats who started blocking SC nominees).
((Not counting Bork, of course, who was insane.))
This is interesting on many, many levels. First, the Hispanic vote covers a lot of territory & factions. Second, just looking at the two biggest states, TX & CA, there is a vast amount of difference in their cultural & political leanings. Third, George W. (and Karl Rove) worked hard as Gov & then somewhat as Prez to reach out to Hispanics only to watch the blue collar contingent of the GOP squander the effort.
That said, don't believe that immigration enforcement is an issue just for the GOP. There are a lot of blue collar Democrats, and a lot of minority Dems, for whom immigration enforcement is a big issue. Hell its even a big issue for the Hispanics who've been here 4 or 5 generations (or more).
McCain won reelection in 2004 with over seventy percent of the Arizona vote. About a quarter of Arizona voters are thought to be Hispanic. Not much of a margin if many Latinos really viewed him as Tancredo's big brother.
Was this meant as a response to my comment? I never compared McCain to Tancredo...Tancredo called La Raza "the Hispanic KKK"...I don't think there's a semblance between the two.
As far as McCain's standing with Hispanics now, I think more could be gleaned from the closeness of the Presidential race in AZ--which BO flirted with mounting a serious campaign for--than by '04 results. But in any event McCain is certainly no Tancredo.
I meant it as a contribution to the conversational thread you started, not as a contradiction of your comment.
And McCain got whipped across the board, because he was running for G.W.Bush's third term and we made sure to remind everyone of that every day. Obama did better than Kerry had among Hispanics, as well as blacks, and whites, and probably Asians.
I would oppose Sottomayors confirmation too. You cant have somebody on the supreme court who thinks a white man can judge better than a black woman, or a latino woman thinking that her being Latina means she is a better judge than a white man.
Not saying there havent been judges on board who think that way, but at some point they kept it at least to themselves. But when you openly make such an racist statement, something ought to happen.
As far as I have seen, there have been since the 80s a lot more republican presidents than democratic presidents. Well, the GOP can not win them all.
Um... there have been several posts on Feministing clearing up the "Wise Latina" quote fiasco. Not only have many people put the quote into the context in which it was actually said, but the discussion has gone much deeper than that into the complex history of race relations in America and what it means to be a white man in fear of losing power. Sotomayor said nothing racist. Try reading these links:
http://stuffwhitepeopledo.blogspot.com/2009/07/gradually-realize-that-race-is-actually.html
http://www.feministing.com/archives/016756.html
http://www.feministing.com/archives/016743.html
http://www.feministing.com/archives/016720.html
http://www.feministing.com/archives/016693.html
There have been since the 80's a much larger proportion of white voters than there ever will be again. I doubt anyone would deny that Nixon/Reagan's Southern Strategy was a roaring success, but it has kind of screwed Republicans going forward.
The GOP might gain ground in the latino with small business owners. I'm not sure of the percentage of latinos that are, but I imagine it's a growing number.
However, it seems to me that latinos don't necessarily buy into the "less government" line---they want their government working for them when there's a need(like anyone else).
But that's just speculation on my part.
I think Republicans are going to be killed on that front by their need to pander to the anti-immigration freakshow they've created or at least embraced and encouraged. It's going to be pretty hard for them to be the party of angry white no-nothing nativists and a party that can capture enough of the latino vote to stay competitive. The Democrats were the party of blacks and of white supremacists from FDR to Johnson, but I don't see the GOP managing that balancing act any time soon, and the Angry White Southern share of the vote is shrinking quickly.