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Why Hispanics Don’t Vote for Republicans
National Review Online ^ | November 7, 2012 | Heather Mac Donald

Posted on 11/07/2012 4:10:27 PM PST by neverdem

The call for Republicans to discard their opposition to immigration amnesty will grow deafening in the wake of President Obama’s victory. Hispanics supported Obama by a margin of nearly 75 percent to 25 percent, and may have provided important margins in some swing states. If only Republicans relented on their Neanderthal views regarding the immigration rule of law, the message will run, they would release the inner Republican waiting to emerge in the Hispanic population.  

If Republicans want to change their stance on immigration, they should do so on the merits, not out of a belief that only immigration policy stands between them and a Republican Hispanic majority. It is not immigration policy that creates the strong bond between Hispanics and the Democratic party, but the core Democratic principles of a more generous safety net, strong government intervention in the economy, and progressive taxation. Hispanics will prove to be even more decisive in the victory of Governor Jerry Brown’s Proposition 30, which raised upper-income taxes and the sales tax, than in the Obama election. 

And California is the wave of the future. A March 2011 poll by Moore Information found that Republican economic policies were a stronger turn-off for Hispanic voters in California than Republican positions on illegal immigration. Twenty-nine percent of Hispanic voters were suspicious of the Republican party on class-warfare grounds — “it favors only the rich”; “Republicans are selfish and out for themselves”; “Republicans don’t represent the average person”– compared with 7 percent who objected to Republican immigration stances. 

I spoke last year with John Echeveste, founder of the oldest Latino marketing firm in southern California, about Hispanic politics. “What Republicans mean by ‘family values’ and what Hispanics mean are two completely different things,” he said. “We are a very compassionate people, we care about other people and understand that government has a role to play in helping people.”

And a strong reason for that support for big government is that so many Hispanics use government programs. U.S.-born Hispanic households in California use welfare programs at twice the rate of native-born non-Hispanic households. And that is because nearly one-quarter of all Hispanics are poor in California, compared to a little over one-tenth of non-Hispanics. Nearly seven in ten poor children in the state are Hispanic, and one in three Hispanic children is poor, compared to less than one in six non-Hispanic children. One can see that disparity in classrooms across the state, which are chock full of social workers and teachers’ aides trying to boost Hispanic educational performance. 

The idea of the “social issues” Hispanic voter is also a mirage. A majority of Hispanics now support gay marriage, a Pew Research Center poll from last month found. The Hispanic out-of-wedlock birth rate is 53 percent, about twice that of whites. 

The demographic changes set into motion by official and de facto immigration policy favoring low-skilled over high-skilled immigrants mean that a Republican party that purports to stand for small government and free markets faces an uncertain future.  



TOPICS: Culture/Society; Editorial; Politics/Elections; US: District of Columbia
KEYWORDS: hispanics; latinos; republicans
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1 posted on 11/07/2012 4:10:34 PM PST by neverdem
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To: neverdem

go look at big latino families... there will be a swishy...one in the group.....


2 posted on 11/07/2012 4:13:53 PM PST by ptsal (E)
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To: neverdem

“a more generous safety net” Exactly the reason they voted for Obama. That is just a not so subtle way of saying “More Free Stuff”.


3 posted on 11/07/2012 4:16:50 PM PST by radioone ( Main Stream Media. The Government built that.)
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To: neverdem

Heather ain’t too smart. Surrender monkey.


4 posted on 11/07/2012 4:17:23 PM PST by SaraJohnson
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To: ptsal

Give us Texas, Louisiana, and a couple of other Red states. The Mexicans and Muslims can have the rest.


5 posted on 11/07/2012 4:18:03 PM PST by EQAndyBuzz (Media goes nuts in 2004 because Bush went to the dentist 20 years ago. Benghazi? Nothing.)
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To: neverdem

Let me see now, -——— ??? To merit the electoral approval of “hispanics,” however they may be defined, Repubs must cease fretting about unrestricted flow of “hispanics” across our borders.


6 posted on 11/07/2012 4:18:44 PM PST by Elsiejay
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To: neverdem

Too many Republicans intentionally never wanted to do anything about controlling the border because too many business constituencies wanted the cheap labor. Now that same cheap labor is voting for candidates who will implement regulations and laws that will overcome any labor cost savings to the extent of making commerce cost prohibitive in the 1st place. I’m an upperlow to lower middle income person myself and even I saw this scenario coming years ago, but GOP big whigs couldn’t figure it out. Go figure.


7 posted on 11/07/2012 4:18:58 PM PST by MachIV
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To: neverdem

We had Trick or Trunk at church. Trick or treating candy distribution out of our cars which were decorated. All of the White Catholics came early and brought the candy. Not one Mexican family was there. Then when the event started, all the mexicans showed up with all of their kids and got all the candy. I learned a lot at that even. A lot of those mexicans could have brought something but they didn’t they showed up and just took. OK?


8 posted on 11/07/2012 4:18:58 PM PST by DOGHEAD
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To: radioone

Exactly right. They come here for jobs and the free stuff. The rino talking heads were already on this bandwagon last night. They can KMA.


9 posted on 11/07/2012 4:19:57 PM PST by stilloftyhenight
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To: neverdem

Apparently, the Univision reveal of Fast & Furious decimating Latinos had no impact.


10 posted on 11/07/2012 4:20:27 PM PST by mikrofon (+ Prayers for America +)
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To: neverdem
Proof that illegal hispanics now rule CA - while every imaginable tax increase passed a proposition that would have enabled auto insurance companies to offer discounted rates to policy holders who've carried coverage for a certain period of time failed to pass.
11 posted on 11/07/2012 4:21:57 PM PST by skeeter
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To: EQAndyBuzz

Seems as if your attitude is one of the reasons Mexicans won’t vote for Republicans.


12 posted on 11/07/2012 4:23:01 PM PST by righttackle44 (I may not be much, but I raised a United States Marine .)
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To: neverdem

I doubt this is why Romney barely won NC, and lost Michigan and PA. Maybe it explains Colorado and Nevada.

That being said, Hispanics are NOT republicans waiting to be asked to join. They’re poorer, resistant to assimilation, and want plenty of social services.

The GOP will probably cave for amnesty, thinking it’ll get them cred. All it will do is legalize millions of new democrat voters, and further decay.


13 posted on 11/07/2012 4:24:36 PM PST by Shadow44
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To: DOGHEAD

oh I have a better one.
We had a rememberence event for the death of a kid.
Everyone brought hotdogs etc but then this family must have seen an event, they pulled in , took the hotdogs for themselves and kids and then got into the car.
A person went over and tried to tell them that this was a closed event and they said they couldn;t understand and then left whilst the guy was stil talking


14 posted on 11/07/2012 4:24:49 PM PST by manc (Marriage =1 man + 1 woman,when they say marriage equality then they should support polygamy)
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To: neverdem

The people that lost us this election were the libertarian and third party voters, and I doubt that they were Hispanics.

If we had had a stronger approach, I think we would have attracted more Hispanics, who, like anybody else, appreciate somebody who is confident in their message. The GOP barely even had a message, since Romney’s advisors had decided that he should present himself as just a better dressed, more polite and more successful version of Obama.

But the people who lost it for us in Florida and Ohio were the (mostly middle-aged white male) libertarians who voted for one or another of their flaky candidates because they were too pure to vote GOP. They forgot that the candidate is only a part of it, and that what they would have gotten would have been an entire change at the top that might actually have brought in some people who sympathized with them. But if you want to look at a shoot-yourself-in-the-foot group, look at the third party voters and not the unconvinced and unwooed Hispanic voters.


15 posted on 11/07/2012 4:25:49 PM PST by livius
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To: MachIV

I put blame on Bush for this pro-Dem demographic change that could put us out of power forever. I know he was dealing with the wars, but we needed the border closed. You failed, George. Thanks a lot.

On another note, maybe we just need our own “Hispanics”. Why don’t we move to attract as many Eastern Europeans to America as possible? They have kind of awful conditions back home in the current climate, love hard work, hate communists, and are usually committed Christians. They should be prime targets for us to counter the Latinos.


16 posted on 11/07/2012 4:26:01 PM PST by Viennacon
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To: neverdem
The demographic changes set into motion by official and de facto immigration policy favoring low-skilled over high-skilled immigrants...and ironically that policy is often supported specifically by Republicans - close relative who's been in farming all his life and is a good conservative in so many ways strongly supports having Mexican farmworkers - legal or not, he doesn't care and looks the other way - available to work in the fields - I suspect a lot of Republican farmers and contractors are about the same.....
17 posted on 11/07/2012 4:27:51 PM PST by Intolerant in NJ
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To: neverdem

(generally speaking... brought to you by 70+/95+ homogenous voting blocks)

The GOP has about as much of a chance of courting Hispanic votes as they do Black votes - they are a homogenous group bound together first and foremost by race, perhaps second only to government goodies. They cannot and will never be swayed by ideas. I don’t believe it is possible at this point. And that is all conservatives have to offer - ideas (not goodies).

Nonetheless, I will not abandon my conservative principles. I will only focus them, locally. Family first, then local elections. The nation took such a hard-left turn that the USA isn’t recognizable. And sitting out federal elections will have little to no consequence in my life. In a post-Constitutional America, Putin has as much power to sway the U.S. as the punks who live across the street from me.

But I’ll be damned if I let them into my home!


18 posted on 11/07/2012 4:30:47 PM PST by kropcke
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To: All

It really is this simple. They don’t come here for the freeDOM. They come here for the freeSHIT!!


19 posted on 11/07/2012 4:31:12 PM PST by Ferris (Man will come to learn that galaxies are consciousness factories)
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To: DOGHEAD

On “Trick or Trunk” - exactly. I started today. One by one, I told all those i encountered who have mooched off me that I am done. They can solve their own problems, do their own work. Each small business I patronize, I will ask, what did you think of the election? Wrong answers and I will tell them they have lost my business.


20 posted on 11/07/2012 4:31:27 PM PST by Belle22
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