Latino Voice Alfonso Aguilar also conservative voice for immigration reform

Wash Post ^ | 12/5/2012

[Altura Ct.]

Alfonso Aguilar shouts into the mike, gesticulating wildly to no one in particular on a recent Saturday morning. He is taping his radio show, which is recorded in the District and beamed into nine cities, including Houston, Chicago and Miami.

News has broken that Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney blames his election loss in part on “gifts” President Obama gave Hispanics and other minorities.

Aguilar — “La Voz de Los Latinos” (the Latino Voice) — is incredulous.

“He thinks Latinos voted for entitlements,” he tells listeners in Spanish. “Mr. Romney, Latinos didn’t vote for President Obama because they liked Obamacare. No, they voted for Obama because of your stance on immigration. In the primary, you moved to the far right.”

Not the kind of talk you’d expect from a committed Republican, a guy who stumped for Romney and whose employer ponied up $400,000 in anti-Obama campaign ads that focused on the administration’s record deportation rates. It’s a set of curiosities not lost on a caller from Los Angeles.

“How could you have supported him at all?” Francisco wants to know.

“I’m a conservative,” Aguilar responds.

But not just any conservative. Aguilar is a 43-year-old Puerto Rican-born former official in the George W. Bush administration; an opponent of abortion and same-sex marriage; a supporter of free markets and limited government. But on immigration, he has differed sharply with his party’s orthodoxy, unapologetically embracing comprehensive reform, including a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

With Obama promising to push immigration reform early in his second term, Aguilar is poised to be a driving force in the debate, helping to shape how Republicans respond to an issue of paramount importance to about 12.5 million Latino voters — a growing segment of the electorate that has continued to skew Democratic.

[ought-six]

I think Mr. Aquilar puts ethnicity abover all else.

[skeeter]

Yes, the Post thinks we're that stupid.

"Go-olly, you mean all we have to do is legalize 25 million illegal aliens and their families and we'll start winning elections? Where do I sign?"

[wac3rd]

“He thinks Latinos voted for entitlements,” he tells listeners in Spanish. “Mr. Romney, Latinos didn’t vote for President Obama because they liked Obamacare. No, they voted for Obama because of your stance on immigration. In the primary, you moved to the far right.”

Wrong. They voted for entitlements. You lie.

[GeronL]

This guy is no conservative

[ExTxMarine]

Go-olly, you mean all we have to do is legalize 25 million illegal aliens and their families and we'll start winning elections?

Ask Reagan how that worked - let me give you a hint, he got LESS Hispanic votes AFTER he gave citizenship to all those illegals, than he did in 1980! Bush, Sr., got even less than Reagan in 1984!

This is a DOCUMENTED lie! We conservatives complain that the GOP cannot understand the Constitution and our history; hell, they cannot even understand RECENT events which many of them were party to in the 1980's!

[Rastus]

FUAA.

[cradle of freedom]

And he is a Puerto Rican too which has NOTHING to do with the immigration question since they have the right to travel back and forth between Puerto Rico and the USA. I don’t like the tone of many of these Hispanic voices, they seem to have no concern for our rights. They expect the sensitivity to only go in their direction, no sensitivity for us. Of course he is a Bush flunkie, so what do you expect. It looks like the Bush family is bringing out the brass band and circus parade for Jeb. Cue the theme from Dynasty.