From the beginning of the 2012 presidential campaign, one of the sidebars to which commentators have consistently returned is the impact of the Hispanic vote on the November election. Republicans have been cautioned, not without reason, to remember that the growing percentage of Americans of Hispanic background didn’t think much of their obsession with illegal immigration. And they have been tempted to think that the presence of a Hispanic — most notably Florida Senator Marco Rubio — might not only deliver his home state to the GOP but also allow the party to make inroads nationally on a demographic group that tilts heavily to the Democrats.
Josh Kraushaar writes today in the National Journal to point out that a lot of the assumptions about Hispanic voting trends may be myths. Most notable is the idea that Hispanics are likely to stick with the Democrats even generations after they have arrived in the country. He also is correct to point to that the assumption that Republican attitudes on immigration are similarly set in stone. But there is one more point about the Hispanic vote that also ought to be taken into consideration when discussing 2012 and the future.
The assumption that Hispanic voters are a monolithic group with similar backgrounds and points of view about the issue is also a simplification that has a lot more to do with the desire of pundits and political scientists to make points than it does with political reality.
Those voters who fall under the Hispanic rubric are actually members of a diverse set of groups that are often defined more by their national origin than their language. Puerto Ricans (who are already American citizens before they arrive on the mainland), Cubans and Mexicans are distinct groups with often very different ideas about identity and politics. Thus, the notion that Rubio, the son of Cuban émigrés who would have a real impact on the outcome in Florida, would have a natural appeal to immigrants from Mexico and their descendants or Puerto Ricans may be more of a GOP fantasy than anything else.
Kraushaar, however, is spot on when he punctures the widely held idea that Hispanic political identity is static rather than dynamic and likely to be heavily influenced by economic and social advances by immigrant communities. As he writes, it appears that Hispanic political identification with the left decreases markedly as immigrants and their children become settled. That means that unlike African-Americans, whose social mobility has been more affected by a past history of racism, and Jews, an immigrant group many of whose members have embraced liberalism as part of their religious faith rather than as merely a political avocation, Hispanics are getting more Republican the longer they are in the country. That will present a problem for President Obama and other Democrats who assume they can use the immigration issue to increase their electoral advantage.
Kraushaar may be a bit over-optimistic about Republicans dropping immigration as a conservative litmus test. A harsh response to illegal immigration may be losing traction as a wedge issue in the country at large, but as we saw this past winter and spring, it remained an applause line for GOP audiences at the presidential debates. And because it provided Mitt Romney with the one issue on which he could outflank some of his more conservative opponents on the right, it probably received more attention than it ordinarily would have. However, there has always been a constituency for common sense on immigration within Republican ranks as the support of President George W. Bush and the editorial page of the Wall Street Journal and now Marco Rubio demonstrated in the last decade.
All these factors point the way to a political future in which an explosion of voters with Hispanic backgrounds might not be the bonanza for Democrats that they and their cheerleaders in the mainstream media think it is.
Heh. Hispanics are probably far less likely to remain generation to generation democrats than are Jews. Like most normal people, they will vote their pocketbooks. Good for them.
> Hispanics are probably far less likely to remain generation to generation democrats n> than are Jews. Like most normal people, they will vote their pocketbooks. n nUm, why do you think Hispanics voting their pocketbooks will favor REPUBLICANS? The Dems typically win less affluent voters. n— nAs for Tobin's comments, I will point out that California used to be a Nixon and Reagan-voting GOP stronghold in national elections before the influx of Hispanics from Mexico tipped the scales. Is there any reason to assume the same thing couldn't possibly happen to e.g. Arizona?? n nMARCU$
I suggest that soliciting a larger share of the hispanic vote will require a more active approach to those who pose as the activist leaders of that community. While those pseudo leaders are mostly in the Obama camp, there is a new opportunity to arouse some interesting political excitement in those leaders by making them commit to the support of the "white hispanic" Zimmerman. Promote the persecution of Zimmerman by the usual African American culprits and their organized vigilante approach to getting Zimmerman "dead or alive". Get a hispanic movement that is willing to confront the almost monolithic black war on Zimmerman and war on anyone who tends to support Zimmerman's self defense motives. Republicans have zero hope of garnering any of the black vote, but the hope of reaching hispanics can be enhanced by raising the issue of black persecution of Zimmerman, emphasizing Zimmerman's ethnicity.
Considering Zimmerman makes me think the fact that Hispanics aren't marching and confronting the blacks who are is evidence that this article is making valid points. There are other voting blocs, like seniors, collegians, women, Catholics, farmers, techies, public sector, unions, gays, etc. that possibly Hispanics, who are assimilating or already have or have as much as any group in the age of diversity actually do now, belong to as well. Still, no one knows what's discussed in anyone else's living room.
A lot of good points here, especially about how united Hispanics are in their thinking. I saw in my family [my parents came from Mexico in 70s] a reticence to be politically active at all – I chalk it up to the fact that in Mexico it’s discouraged and any time a citizen sees a public official, it’s not to help, but to coerce. However much I’d like to hope that Hispanics would see how the free market benefits them and they should support those defending it, there are two things that get in the way. While Hispanics are hard working, we generally do not have a culture that values education. For those who stay uneducated, they are prime targets for race-baiting “community organizers” who sell them a victim mentality in order to increase their own political power. On the other hand, for those who become educated, they are often indoctrinated away from the traditional conservative values of their parents by left-leaning public schools, and Marxist education on the college end.
The idea that either political party would stoop so low as to pander to any ethic group is beyond me! I get the impression, according to the article above, that it”s okay to ignore the real reason the Hispanic population is growing so fast is it illegal component! In my state of Kentucky, the illegal lmmlgrant is the fourth fastest growing! Twenty years ago there were no large numbers of persons of Hispanic decent, in fact there were none! The census bureau has admitted in the past that will count every man, woman, and child residing in the country illegal or not! If I were a legal Hispanic I would have decide where my loyalities lie-with my adopted country, or with my old r n country! I think politician need to consider that as well!