I still say I should get to be "latino" because my grandmother's family was Sicily. :-p The government's racial classifications make no sense.... full blooded Caucasian guy who immigrated to America from the Iberian Peninsula in Europe = "non-white minority". dark skinned Arab guy from a northern African country like Libya = "white". Whatever.
In any case, I agree a mexican-american on the ticket would probably sway alot more hispanic voters than a cuban or puetro rican (seriously, I don't think Mexicans care about a puetro rican on the ticket anymore than Irish-americans are likely to vote for an Italian on the ticket because he's a "fellow Catholic"). However, there's just not alot of good conservative mexican-americans in office that we could put on the ticket.
Since Romney's a former Governor, I think he's far more likely to pick an conservative Senator or Congressman with an anti-Obama record as his running mate, than pick another Governor. Thus Rubio and Cantor are probably being looked at more closely than Martinez or Fortuno (Martinez would be have been preferable if the GOP nominee was Santorum or Gingrich though). Despite being pro-life and cutting government, Fortuno has been cozy with Obama's policies and sucked up to him, making him a terrible choice for running mate. He's on my "unacceptable" list with other names like John Thune, Peter King, Condoleezza Rice, and so on.
I don't see any problem with a Mormon-Catholic ticket and I'm really tired of hearing the media line about "evangelicals" being upset "because they don't consider Mormons to Christians". First off, I hate to break the news to the mainstream media and freeperdom, but Catholics, Orthodox, and "mainline" protestants don't consider Mormons to be Christian, either. Secondly, I don't care whether we have a "Christian" candidate for President as I would sooner vote for a conservative constitutional Hindu before I would vote for a socialist "Christian" who tells everyone he's accepted Jesus Christ as his savior and been born again (can you say Jimmy Carter?). As I've said 1000 times before, Romney's problem is his liberalism, not his religion. The "Mormon" card is just being played the media to make excuses of "right-wing bigotry" if Romney loses, and avoid the fact he's a RINO that the GOP base can't get excited about.
But in any case, I don't think "Evangelicals" will vote for Obama, or even "stay home" in states where they play a big factor. I can't imagine the media reporting "this just in... in a huge upset, it appears Alabama will go to President Obama this evening, as evangelical voters stayed home in massive numbers". In the swing states we NEED to win... Wisconsin, Ohio, Pennslyvania, etc., the "evangelicals" are a non-factor.
Evangelicals are by no means a non-factor in OH—why do you think that Romney almost lost to Santorum there despite all of his money and endorsements? And increased Evangelical turnout was one of the main reason why President Bush was able to hold off Kerry in OH in 2004.
Having a Puerto Rican or Cuban-American VP nominee might help the GOP attract some extra Mexican-American voters, provided that such candidate spoke Spanish. But it probably wouldn’t have *that* much of an effect, and if the GOP ticket doesn’t carry OH it will take a huge swing in the Mexican-American vote in NM, NV and CO to get the GOP to 270 EVs.
Since Romney's a former Governor, I think he's far more likely to pick an conservative Senator or Congressman with an anti-Obama record as his running mate, than pick another Governor. Thus Rubio and Cantor are probably being looked at more closely than Martinez or Fortuno (Martinez would be have been preferable if the GOP nominee was Santorum or Gingrich though). Despite being pro-life and cutting government, Fortuno has been cozy with Obama's policies and sucked up to him, making him a terrible choice for running mate. He's on my "unacceptable" list with other names like John Thune, Peter King, Condoleezza Rice, and so on.Thanks BillyBoy.
“Hispanic” is not a “race” it’s a catch-all ethnicity of every Spanish speaking group. People who are called Hispanic have to pick a “race” on the US census form to go along with Hispanic status. I guess most of those that are mixed White and Indian check White. Apparently some are Hispanic Asians, I guess that means Filipinos?
It’s confusing ethnicity and race. Which is probably the government’s fault.
I wouldn’t dub Portuguese as “Hispanic” because Portuguese is not Spanish. Portuguese-American politicians though love to say they are to woo voters. 3 Cali Congressman in the Central Valley. My uncle’s ex-wife was part Brazilian, next time I see my cousins I’ll ask them if they consider that Hispanic or “Latino”. They probably consider it “Brazilian” just like they consider their Norwegian ancestry “Norwegian “, just like most Hispanic people consider themselves “Mexican” or “Cuban” or what have you.
And Arabs, Turks, and Iranians they don’t have a separate category for, they don’t consider it “Asian” (Indians from India along with East Asians who look very different) but White. Some Arabs have dark skin, some not. Turks look a lot like Greeks.
Some British people call dark skinned Pakistanis and Indians “Black”.
It’s all stupid and confusing.
As for Mormons and Christianity, I’m no theologian and I couldn’t care less but I’d say they are, they have Jesus in their official title after all. In either case we’ve had Unitarian Presidents, if Mormon isn’t Christian then Unitarian probably isn’t either, right?