Bush's Hispanic strategy comes unraveled. (A Look Back on the Failed History of Hispandering)

The National Review ^ | April 8, 2002 | John O’Sullivan

[Pubbie]

"Wow, I guess I had better get to learning Spanish as my main speak.."

I stress again, The asians and Blacks and Whites comprise 87% of the US population.

Hispanics aren't a threat to the integrity of the nation, they ARE a mortal threat to the GOP.

I suggest you learn Chinese because Latin America's economy will continue to tank as they adopt Socialist Economic policies.

[CyberAnt]

I have in-laws which are Hispanic. Their vote is not cemented in helping illegals. In fact ... they are totally against amnesty for illegals. They came here the right way - they vote, they work hard - they own their own homes - have their own businesses. They want Estrada confirmed. The sooner that is accomplished the sooner the Hispanics will begin to see Bush in a more favorable light.

[JohnnyZ]

Not one of the men you mentioned got a majority of non-Cuban Hispanics to vote for him.

Still going to cling to your thesis despite all evidence to the contrary, eh? Well, from what I read, Jeb did, and I think Pataki too (although as I mentioned his methods were . . . atypical). But they all did much better than other Republicans, and that's because they actually gave it a shot.

Would you say that a Republican who went after the black vote and got 49% was a failure? Of course not.

A sustained, unified effort is needed to get Hispanics to vote GOP, 'cause we've already let the Rats get a head start with their plan of indocrination. But know-nothings who say "IMPOSSIBLE, NO SENSE TRYIN" sure as heck don't help matters any.

[Ohioan]

You would have a very hard time suggesting that California in the 1960s and 1970s had less economic opportunity than California today. Just what are you talking about.

And the fact that Mexican farm workers are not friendly to homosexual's flaunting deviancy is no basis for a long term commitment to the values of the American mainstream. That is one issue--out of hundreds of potential issues;--and the funny thing is, that Karl Rove has the Republican National Committee moving to the wrong side of that also.

For a more detailed discussion of the Immigration issue, see Immigration & The American Future.

William Flax

[american spirit]

Agree with you and if we don't stop this invasion we're looking at nothing less than an economic, social and political coup d'etat of this country.

[JohnnyZ]

I fail to see the hordes of revolutionary socialist Mexicans that are apparently dancing before your eyes. I think you need a reality check.

The Hispanics I know work hard at not-too-snazzy jobs, raise families, and save every penny they can to spend on a snazzy new car. They are my neighbors, and my friends.

They're nothing to be afraid of. Talk to them. They're friendly. They appreciate America. They don't like Democrats when they hear about them actin' liberal, especially on social issues. They don't like taxes, either. They don't know much about government handouts and are skeptical. Why pay for lazy people to sit on their fat asses when they are working like dogs? They hear about Hillary and how she didn't shave her armpits as first lady of Arkansas. They suddenly feel like becoming Republicans.

[FITZ]

? They hear about Hillary and how she didn't shave her armpits

Hillary has something like 80% support by the Hispanics here ---and there are many here. Depends on where you live I think on what you say. Some of the old traditional Hispanic families of the SW USA and those who left Mexico during it's revolution and of course the Cubans really are Conservatives, most coming over the Mexican border right now are not Conservatives. Not by a long shot.

[texastoo]

"But know-nothings who who say " IMPOSSIBLE, NO SENSE TRYIN" sure as help don't help matters any."

The unemployment rate is 11% here. 9 out of 10 use the Lone Star food stamp card. Their medical care is free. A great many are on welfare. The schools all have free breakfast and lunch for every child. Many are on government housing programs.

Now,Johnny Z,tell me just what kind of speech you would give to these people to vote conservative. What can you promise them? Convince me!

[sarcasm]

Con Game The GOP is being taken for a ride.

he GOP is being tricked into supporting another amnesty for illegal aliens, and post-American libertarians like Paul Gigot of the Wall Street Journal are accomplices in the con game.

Gigot's August 17 column says that "A Bush amnesty is precisely the kind of large political event" that could shake Hispanic voters loose from the Democratic party. Given that blacks were the only major group to vote more heavily Democratic than Hispanics last year, it is hard to believe that serious people could believe such a thing, but there appear to be some who do, at least in the White House. (For an analysis of GOP prospects among Hispanic voters, see "Impossible Dream or Distant Reality?: Republican Efforts to Attract Latino Voters.")

Now, there are plenty of reasons unrelated to politics to oppose the president's amnesty/guestworker plan: It rewards lawbreakers and sends the message overseas that we are not serious about enforcing our laws; it is guaranteed to encourage new, parallel streams of illegal immigration; it will create additional demands for government services, since illegals are not eligible for welfare, whereas fully one-third of legal Mexican immigrant households use at least one major welfare program; it will create millions of new candidates for dual citizenship, eating away the very basis of our polity; and last but not least, there is simply no way the INS could administer such a large program without permitting massive fraud.

These drawbacks to amnesty should alarm all Americans. But what about Gigot's assertion that it would be a good deal politically for the GOP?

If that's true, why are the Democrats promoting amnesty too? Gigot tries to make the case that, in this one instance, amnesty is good even though the Left embraces it. But elections are a zero-sum game — in our two-party system, if the Democrats win, the Republicans lose. And both parties believe that amnesty would serve their political interests. Only one can be right.

Here is what Frank Sharry, executive director of the National Immigration Forum, said of Bush's amnesty proposal: "On the left, it was electrifying." He should know; the forum is the leading lobby for high immigration, cofounded by the National Lawyers Guild, a former Soviet front group which still sits on forum's board. What does Gigot know that Sharry doesn't?

And recall that immediately after the White House floated the amnesty trial balloon in July, Senate majority leader Tom Daschle one-upped the president by demanding amnesty for all illegals, not just Mexicans, thus presenting the Democrats as the defenders of all those immigrants who aren't from Mexico (nearly three-quarters of the total). When the president was thus forced to concede that "We'll consider all folks here," the Democrats upped the ante again with a new list of demands: Amnesty for any illegal from any nation who has worked at least 90 days in the United States during the past year and a half; an end to any limits on the legal immigration of immigrants' family members; and the right for guestworkers to bring their families with them. There is nothing the president can propose that the Democrats can't top. Or, as Eliseo Medina, executive vice president of the Service Employees International Union, said, the Democratic demands "take the White House's immigration plans one step further in the right direction."

In one sense, this jockeying over amnesty simply confirms the stupid party/evil party stereotype. For years, Republicans have been confusing two aspects of this broad issue — immigration policy vs. immigrant policy. Immigration policy is whom we admit, how many, and how we enforce the law. Immigrant policy concerns how we treat those we've admitted to live among us. In the mid-1990s, Republicans responded to public concerns over the harmful impacts of bad immigration policy by enacting changes in immigrant policy instead. So, rather than embrace the modest cuts in legal immigration suggested by Barbara Jordan's bipartisan Commission on Immigration Reform, the Congress, led by then-Sen. Spencer Abraham, targeted legal immigrants already here for sweeping welfare bans and vindictive deportation rules.

But there's more than just stupidity at work here. The greed of short-sighted elements in the business community, abetted by libertarian idealogues who reject the legitimacy of national borders (recall the Journal's frequent call for a constitutional amendment, "There shall be open borders"), has driven much of the amnesty discussion. A lobbying alliance called the Essential Worker Immigration Coalition, including construction, hotel, restaurant, landscaping, and other trade associations, has been instrumental in pushing Republicans to support the amnesty/guestworker plan in order to secure cheaper, more servile workers. Even Cracker Barrel Old Country Store, that exemplar of Americana, is a member, apparently because it's tired of having to entice American grandmothers to wait its tables.

So it's no surprise that, as Gigot notes, "Business, labor, Catholic bishops and even the media like the idea." We are seeing a replay of the odd-bedfellows coalition that thwarted immigration reform in 1996: Leftists and their ethnic pressure-group allies joining with rope-selling businessmen and libertarians. Business will get short-term benefit of a pliable workforce, while the Left will benefit in the long term through the importation of a vast new poverty class on whose behalf it can excoriate American society.

But the Republican party, not to mention the American people, are bound to lose.

[Ohioan]

I have nothing against the people to whom you refer, as individuals--other than that some of them may have broken the law in coming in. In fact, I have represented some of them in Court. You elect to wholly miss my points, which go to much deeper issues than the immediate work ethics, and/or friendly demeanor of the Mexican emigre.

See Immigration & The American Future, for a more in depth discussion of immigration issues.

On the purely political front, you need to consider, also, not only the general immigration and ethnic issues, but the vulnerability of people to demagoguish manipulation. As long as we have universal suffrage--or something very close to it--one has to consider questions of how well any group may be expected to exercise the suffrage from an American standpoint.

You are dealing with people who have a different set of images with which they identify. They are not primarily the images of Western Civilization, nor the more recent images of the Founding Fathers, and the pioneer settlers of the United States. When the chips are down, this differences in the images with which one identifies can be crucial--and would be crucial, even if the people involved had ever displayed the same capacity for participation in political self-government as the early Americans. (I do not find any evidence in Mexican History to suppose such an equivalent capacity; do you?)

As an American Conservative, I am devoted to preserving the very unique ethos of American civilization. That is a lot more complex than simply looking for work and a higher standard of living.

William Flax Return Of The Gods Web Site

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

"Are Hispanics likely to become more Republican the longer they stay in the U.S., and the more they rise up the income scale? No."

They hate the rich more than they love the unborn. How sick. Why do we want more people like that in the US?

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

"Can't you see how all those illegals have caused an economic boom in California!?"

ROFL! Let's face it. People with such a strong DNC bent can't be good for much of anything, let alone prosperity. Perhaps when they realise what a mess they are making of CA, they might get a clue. But we shouldn't hold our breath, should we? Donkeys can be such jackaxxes.

[FITZ]

They don't know much about government handouts and are skeptical.

They know quite a lot. Check out welfare rates along the US-Mexican border ----in many counties they are now over 50%. And this ----displaced NAFTA workers who came from Mexico are suing for more handouts ---you don't see them moving to other areas looking for jobs, not even back home to where they came from even if there are jobs there.

Lawsuit over NAFTA will head to court

[FITZ]

Of course, because all Hispanics are liberal. Just like Clarence Thomas is a liberal black.

I hope Estrada gets on the federal court, I don't care if it's a hispanic Conservative or a purple Conservative who gets on the Supreme Court ---just so a Conservative gets on it ----but Clarence Thomas didn't bring black voters over to the Republicans, it's not for buying votes.

[JohnnyZ]

The unemployment rate is 11% here. 9 out of 10 use the Lone Star food stamp card. Their medical care is free. A great many are on welfare. The schools all have free breakfast and lunch for every child. Many are on government housing programs.

Wow, 11%? You live in quite a hellhole.

I'd tell 'em that high taxes hurt the economy and destroy jobs. I'd tell 'em we cut taxes and regulation and businesses will hire more and unemployment will go down, so they can get decent jobs and not be stuck in poverty. I'd ask 'em if they want to live off the government, work for other people, or be their own boss, start their own business? I think they want to start their own business. Well then vote Republican so we can cut capital gains taxes and improve the economy so banks will lend you money for your restaurant and you can become rich. I know you don't want to be here to be poor. Help me cut back on the government and help the economy so your dreams can become reality!

Then I'll talk about gays and how the Democrats love them, abortion and how the Democrats want your little daughter to have them after they screw her, I'll talk about God and how He's what makes this country great. I'll talk about education, how Republicans want your kids to learn English and get a good education, but the Democrats want to keep them down.

I'm not the most eloquent guy in the world but jobs, opportunity, and social conservatism sells itself; the message just needs to be proclaimed.

[FITZ]

There's only a couple of folks who have said "hola" to those folks,

I've said a lot more than "hola" ---and you know what's interesting? Those coming to get on welfare will vote for whoever will give them more handouts ----but what's really interesting ---and I have heard with my own ears hard-working illegals say that lately there are too many and it's hurting them from making a living. Even illegals aren't so stupid that they think their wages will ever rise if there is no limit to immigration, even they know their chances for more work and more money are hurt by this massive flood.

[Arthur Wildfire! March]

"Gee, took me a whole five frickin' words and I've got a strategy to appeal to the Mexicans. That was tough!"

I would like to think that anyone, particularly a Christian group, could be persuaded to think conservatively.

But note, Mexico is largely Catholic, the same as Italy and France. Tell me, how's it going in Italy and France? Do you think those five words would turn on their conservative light bulbs. Having been a Catholic, myself, an alter boy, I have to tell you, it's easy to get cynical when your entire family and most of your friends are Catholic, when that is the church you see every week.

[JohnnyZ]

from an American standpoint.

Yeah, yeah, all Europeans and everyone else understands the American ethos but Hispanics don't. Whatever. Fantasy world.

[JohnnyZ]

But note, Mexico is largely Catholic, the same as Italy and France. Tell me, how's it going in Italy and France?

So you're a bitter Catholic? Spare me the drama.

I'm Catholic and I love the Church. It's truly magnificent. Italy and France are no longer very religious; more a problem in France, as Italians still have their religious instincts even though they don't go to church. Latin Americans that I've seen have been very enthusiastic about contributing to the Church in America. A Columbian from my church is on the county commission, cutting taxes.

You'd like Mexicans better if they were gay-ordaining, abortion-loving Episcopalians, eh? Well, I don't quite no what to say to that!

[dagnabbit]

I'm sure this administration will be paid back in spades from the "matricula" card stealth amnesty they worked out behind our backs with the goverment of Mexico