GOP is losing friends and alienating people

By Max J. Castro
majcastro@gmail.com

MIAMI – In the 2012 U.S. presidential election, dollars – transubstantiated into persons with speech rights by the U.S. Supreme Court – battled demos. Demos won.

This year demagogy collided with demography and demography won. 

By now everyone with a political pulse knows that President Barack Obama won a whopping 71 percent of the Latino vote to Mitt Romney’s 28 percent, a margin that likely determined the result of the election.

Of course, what on election night MSNBC’s political director Chuck Todd called a “demographic shellacking” wasn’t just a Latino phenomenon. Blacks voted for Obama in as near unanimity as it gets in a democracy. But more than 90 percent of blacks also voted for Clinton, Gore and Kerry. Obama’s race and the brazen racism directed at him by so many on the other side made for a higher black turnout and a few extra percent, important but neither a surprise nor a game changer.

Women are a majority of the electorate and their support of Obama was critical. Still, for good reasons, the gender gap has bedeviled the Republicans for some time, although this time around the GOP outdid itself, finding new and outlandish ways to offend and threaten women. According to one Republican running for Congress, there is something called “legitimate rape” and when it happens it triggers a response in a woman’s body that prevents pregnancy! Who knew? Not the medical profession. Not historians. You mean all those millions of women who, since the beginning of time, bore children after being raped by rampaging warriors were impregnated by the Holy Spirit?

Yet this time the kill shot – and the most ominous sign for the Republican Party – was the unprecedented size and sheer lopsidedness of the Latino vote. For the first time ever, on election night all the network talking heads were underscoring the importance of the Hispanic electorate. As well they should have since the size and therefore the significance of the Latino vote will only continue to increase rapidly, election after election, as far as the eye can see or the demographers can project.

It’s true that Romney was an especially hard sell because, in a Republican primary field rank with anti-immigrant rhetoric, Mitt was the most extreme. It is also true that Romney did worse with Latino voters than other recent Republican presidential candidates. But the really good news is that the Republicans’ problem with Latinos goes way deeper than Mitt. It’s built into the very DNA of today’s GOP.

Less than five years ago, John McCain joined Ted Kennedy in sponsoring comprehensive immigration reform, a position also supported by President George W. Bush. Bush’s push was blocked by members of Congress from his own party. And when McCain ran for president, in order to win the primaries and secure the nomination, the base of the party virtually forced him to reverse his immigration stance. McCain won 31 percent of the Latino vote, only 3 percent more than Romney and far less than the 40 percent obtained earlier by Bush.

The real problem is the deeply-rooted Latino-phobia among core elements of the Republican Party, which makes up a big chunk of the people who bother to vote in primaries and who thus play a huge role in selecting the nominee. The fact that Romney and Republicans in Congress vehemently and successfully opposed the Dream Act while Obama used an executive order to stop the deportation of some of the young people who would have benefitted from that law spoke volumes.

But the Republicans’ Latino problem doesn’t end with immigration, although the extent to which the issue hurts Republicans with this constituency is not always well understood. By definition, the Latino electorate is made up of U.S. citizens. So why should they care about those “illegal aliens?” Republicans fail to understand that for these voters GOP rhetoric on immigration is like a spit in the face. Unlike a punch, it doesn’t cause pain or physical harm but the insult is even more wounding.

Beyond such symbolic politics, the Republicans have some other big differences with Latinos: material interests and political philosophy. Republican policies systematically favor the class at the very top of the social pyramid while Latinos are much more likely to inhabit the social basement than the penthouse. Moreover, research shows that Latinos just don’t buy into the Republican Utopia: a government small enough to drown in a bathtub. Latinos favor government spending on education, health and social programs more than they favor cutting taxes.      

Even with Latino unemployment and loss of wealth much higher than the dismal national picture, within the Latino electorate Obama gave Romney a sound whooping. If they can’t win at a time of economic hardship and record deportations, when can they win? If they are not careful, Republicans may alienate so many rising constituencies – minorities, women, young people, gays – they may become a party you can drown in a glass of water.

It takes two to tango. This election showed just how out of step Republicans are with Latinos and how much danger that fact portends for their party.   

GOP is losing friends and alienating people

By Max J. Castro
majcastro@gmail.com

MIAMI – In the 2012 U.S. presidential election, dollars – transubstantiated into persons with speech rights by the U.S. Supreme Court – battled demos. Demos won.

This year demagogy collided with demography and demography won. 

By now everyone with a political pulse knows that President Barack Obama won a whopping 71 percent of the Latino vote to Mitt Romney’s 28 percent, a margin that likely determined the result of the election.

Of course, what on election night MSNBC’s political director Chuck Todd called a “demographic shellacking” wasn’t just a Latino phenomenon. Blacks voted for Obama in as near unanimity as it gets in a democracy. But more than 90 percent of blacks also voted for Clinton, Gore and Kerry. Obama’s race and the brazen racism directed at him by so many on the other side made for a higher black turnout and a few extra percent, important but neither a surprise nor a game changer.

Women are a majority of the electorate and their support of Obama was critical. Still, for good reasons, the gender gap has bedeviled the Republicans for some time, although this time around the GOP outdid itself, finding new and outlandish ways to offend and threaten women. According to one Republican running for Congress, there is something called “legitimate rape” and when it happens it triggers a response in a woman’s body that prevents pregnancy! Who knew? Not the medical profession. Not historians. You mean all those millions of women who, since the beginning of time, bore children after being raped by rampaging warriors were impregnated by the Holy Spirit?

Yet this time the kill shot – and the most ominous sign for the Republican Party – was the unprecedented size and sheer lopsidedness of the Latino vote. For the first time ever, on election night all the network talking heads were underscoring the importance of the Hispanic electorate. As well they should have since the size and therefore the significance of the Latino vote will only continue to increase rapidly, election after election, as far as the eye can see or the demographers can project.

It’s true that Romney was an especially hard sell because, in a Republican primary field rank with anti-immigrant rhetoric, Mitt was the most extreme. It is also true that Romney did worse with Latino voters than other recent Republican presidential candidates. But the really good news is that the Republicans’ problem with Latinos goes way deeper than Mitt. It’s built into the very DNA of today’s GOP.

Less than five years ago, John McCain joined Ted Kennedy in sponsoring comprehensive immigration reform, a position also supported by President George W. Bush. Bush’s push was blocked by members of Congress from his own party. And when McCain ran for president, in order to win the primaries and secure the nomination, the base of the party virtually forced him to reverse his immigration stance. McCain won 31 percent of the Latino vote, only 3 percent more than Romney and far less than the 40 percent obtained earlier by Bush.

The real problem is the deeply-rooted Latino-phobia among core elements of the Republican Party, which makes up a big chunk of the people who bother to vote in primaries and who thus play a huge role in selecting the nominee. The fact that Romney and Republicans in Congress vehemently and successfully opposed the Dream Act while Obama used an executive order to stop the deportation of some of the young people who would have benefitted from that law spoke volumes.

But the Republicans’ Latino problem doesn’t end with immigration, although the extent to which the issue hurts Republicans with this constituency is not always well understood. By definition, the Latino electorate is made up of U.S. citizens. So why should they care about those “illegal aliens?” Republicans fail to understand that for these voters GOP rhetoric on immigration is like a spit in the face. Unlike a punch, it doesn’t cause pain or physical harm but the insult is even more wounding.

Beyond such symbolic politics, the Republicans have some other big differences with Latinos: material interests and political philosophy. Republican policies systematically favor the class at the very top of the social pyramid while Latinos are much more likely to inhabit the social basement than the penthouse. Moreover, research shows that Latinos just don’t buy into the Republican Utopia: a government small enough to drown in a bathtub. Latinos favor government spending on education, health and social programs more than they favor cutting taxes.      

Even with Latino unemployment and loss of wealth much higher than the dismal national picture, within the Latino electorate Obama gave Romney a sound whooping. If they can’t win at a time of economic hardship and record deportations, when can they win? If they are not careful, Republicans may alienate so many rising constituencies – minorities, women, young people, gays – they may become a party you can drown in a glass of water.

It takes two to tango. This election showed just how out of step Republicans are with Latinos and how much danger that fact portends for their party.