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]

On March 12, two quite separate events combined to undermine the Bush administration's strategy for building a new GOP majority by winning Hispanic votes with such policies as an amnesty for illegal Mexican immigrants. The first event was the result of the Democratic primary in Texas, in which conservative millionaire Tony Sanchez handily defeated former attorney general Dan Morales with a campaign that stressed the rise of Hispanic power. The second was the near defeat in the House of Representatives of Section 245(i) — a measure to allow more than 200,000 illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S. while regularizing their status, rather than requiring them to return home to apply for U.S. entry from there. The Texas primary strengthened the evidence that the Hispanic vote is drifting firmly into the Democratic camp — irrespective of the GOP's immigration policies. And the House vote signaled that in the aftermath of September 11 most Republicans want to tighten immigration policy rather than liberalize it. Together, they suggest that the Bush administration's Hispanic strategy is falling apart.

In particular, the House decision — in which the Republican leadership averted defeat by a single vote — established that the White House no longer has the Re publican votes to push through its larger plans to amnesty 3 million illegal Mexican "guestworkers" as a favor to Mexico's President Fox. Not only did a clear majority of Republicans, including some close to the leadership, rally to the standard raised by Colorado representative Tom Tancredo in opposition to 245(i); but those who voted against it included all the Republicans (and some Democrats) who are considering a run for higher office this year, with the sole exception of New Hampshire representative John Sununu Jr. The measure achieved its narrow victory only with the support of congressmen like Lamar Smith of Texas and Judiciary Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, who generally favor tighter immigration controls and would almost certainly oppose the broader amnesty proposal.

The measure now faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where Robert Byrd of West Virginia has announced that he will prevent its passage under the "unanimous consent" provision that was its best hope of an early win. He expressed theatrical astonishment that the House and the White House should be so keen to pass "what amounts to an amnesty for hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens, many of whom have not undergone any background or security check." The politics of an immigration amnesty just got more perilous.

It may have helped the opponents of 245(i) that the previous week President Fox, in between eloquent appeals for a warm American welcome for Mexican immigrants, had handed back to Castro's secret police the handful of Cubans who had sought asylum in his own embassy. But that merely provided them with a nice secondary justification: Their main incentive was changing public opinion. Those Republicans with the most urgent reason for getting public opinion right — their own electoral interests — voted against the White House. One congressman, when taxed by a loyalist, gave his reason simply as "September 11th." Tancredo's immigration-reform caucus, which a year ago had a membership in the low teens, now boasts more than 60 adherents. And Robert Byrd has just reminded the GOP that even if the national Democratic party favors Hispanic immigration even more fervently than the White House does, local Demo cratic candidates may still flay them for a vote that seems to endorse and encourage illegal immigration.

The lesson for the White House is — or should be — clear: It can only pass the broader immigration amnesty it has been promoting over and against the votes of the majority of Republicans. That course will doubtless be urged upon it by some political analysts and pressure groups, citing the precedent of Clintonian "triangulation." That precedent, however, suffers from an obvious flaw: Clinton's triangulation meant supporting a welfare reform that was overwhelmingly popular with the American public, whereas illegal immigration is highly unpopular. Indeed, pollster John Zogby reports that 83 percent of Americans believe immigration laws are too lax. So the GOP majority would have public opinion on its side in resisting any move to make immigration easier. In which case the White House cannot deliver the goods on which its electoral outreach to Hispanics is based — and it would therefore be well advised to adopt a different strategy.

The good news from the Texas primary is that this may not matter very much, since the old strategy was doomed to fail anyway. It was based on a whole series of assumptions about Hispanic voters, each one of which was either plainly false or highly questionable: for instance, that Hispanic-Americans favor high levels of immigration. In fact, opinion polls clearly show that Hispanics differ only slightly from other Americans on immigration. A clear majority of Hispanics favor either the current or lower levels of immigration. Hispanic voters are swayed much more by the general policy stances of both parties than by immigration.

Another questionable idea is that Hispanic voters are "natural Republicans" because of their conservatism on moral questions such as "gay marriage" or abortion. Sure, in a California referendum on gay marriage, Hispanics voted disproportionately against it. But Hispanics tend to be liberal on economic questions, and when it comes to voting and party identification, in the self-satisfied but accurate words of liberal California analyst Harold Meyerson (now of The American Prospect), "their economic progressivism has consistently trumped their moral conservatism."

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. A study by political scientists James G. Gimpel and Karen Kaufmann showed that Hispanics became more Democratic the longer they stayed in the U.S., and though Republican identification did indeed rise with prosperity, the Democrats retained a 10-point lead even at the highest levels of income.

The Texas primary confirmed these gloomy results for the GOP even before the results were tabulated. Hispanics were 12 percent of the Texas electorate in 1998, and are expected to be 20 percent — the "tipping point" at which their rise will make Texas a Democratic-leaning state — within six years. As GOP pollster Matthew Dowd, a longtime booster of the Hispanic/amnesty strategy, conceded to Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "The question this year is whether the Sanchez campaign advances that [i.e., making Texas a competitive swing state rather than a reliably Republican one], compressing six years into six months." It might do so; Sanchez combined an ethnic appeal to Hispanics — objecting to his opponent's wish to answer questions in English and Spanish rather than solely in Spanish in a televised debate — with an economic appeal to moderate middle-class whites, calling for low taxes.

For that very reason, however, his looks like a transitional candidacy even if he wins in November. For as Hispanic voting strength grows, so it is likely to reflect in Texas the liberal economic voting patterns celebrated by Meyerson in California.

What lies behind this political drift in Texas? Exactly the same force that is pushing once-reliable GOP states like California and Florida into, first, the "undecided" and eventually the "Democratic" column: demographic change driven by immigration. The Hispanic share of the population has risen sharply in these major states in the last 30 years; the Hispanic share of the electorate is now catching up, as immigrants become citizens and register to vote; and their votes heavily favor the Democrats. What has happened in California and now Texas is destined to happen in all the states with large concentrations of His panic immigrants. This is not a political prediction; it is a mathematical relationship.

As the study by Gimpel and Kaufmann demonstrated, moreover, this drift will be very hard to reverse. Republican hopes for major gains in the Hispanic electorate are without foundation. Democrats lead the GOP by large margins in every Hispanic group except Cuban-Americans. There is no sign that any significant group of Latino voters is "in play." Because Hispanic voters lean to the Democrats on economic and social grounds, the GOP would have to change almost all its policies (on taxes, welfare, regulation, labor law) to have any hope of attracting Hispanic crossovers in the long term. Above all, insofar as there is a modest drift rightwards among Hispanics as they rise economically, that is more than canceled out by the fact that continuing immigration channels new, poor Hispanic voters into the Democratic ranks.

Of course, there are Hispanics — between one-quarter and one-third of the total Latino electorate — who loyally pull the Republican lever. But they are the very voters who are least likely to favor sectional appeals to a separate Hispanic identity, such as an amnesty for illegals, and most likely to respond to traditional Republican arguments for patriotic assimilation. In the post-9/11 atmosphere, other Hispanics might be won over to their side by a patriotic appeal of that kind. But unless the Bush administration wakes up to the electoral impact of continuing immigration, the most the GOP can hope for is to slow the pace of its decline.

[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