Free Republic

With his angry rants against undocumented immigrants, Donald Trump is a stark reminder of the GOP’s terrible problem with Latino voters. In short, Latinos don’t like—or trust—the Republican Party. But Trump also illustrates a second, more complicated problem. As long as his rhetoric has a place in Republican politics—as long as it has defenders—it won’t just alienate Latinos. It will offend and turn off voters who have conservative ideas and beliefs but won’t sanction or support anti-immigrant sentiment. Before looking at this other side to the “Latino problem,” it’s worth examining the first one. In the past two presidential elections,...

When Donald Trump described Mexican immigrants as rapists and drug smugglers last month, Latinos took to social media to express their outrage and urge businesses to sever ties with the billionaire presidential candidate. In short order, more than 10 organizations canceled their deals with Trump, in what Latino activists are calling an unprecedented recognition of their economic clout. Latino spending power will hit $1.5 trillion this year, up 50 percent from 2010, according to the Nielsen Co, which analyzes consumer spending trends. At an average age of 27, the Hispanic population is a decade younger than the U.S. average and...

Scott Walker has yet to launch his presidential campaign, but the Wisconsin governor is already talking both privately and publicly about a running mate: Marco Rubio. This comes as news to Rubio, the freshman Florida senator who is running his own campaign to be president. The constant prodding from Walker has become an irritant between the two GOP rivals, neither of whom knows the other all that well. The goal for Walker is clear: to calm the nerves of Republican power brokers who love his conservative message and anti-union pedigree but who worry about the appeal of a white male...

Doesn't give Republicans or conservatives "a fair shake" In an interview with Univision's Jorge Ramos (which was deceptively edited in its rebroadcast), Republican presidential candidate Sen. Ted Cruz called out the Latino media for failing to give Republicans and conservatives a "fair shake." When Ramos pushed back, Cruz asked Ramos how many times during Barack Obama's presidency he'd discussed on air the ways in which the Hispanic community has been hurt by the Obama economy. Here's the exchange: TED CRUZ: The media, the Latino media I think doesn’t give Republicans or Conservatives a fair shake.JORGE RAMOS, HOST: We’re talking....

In a video uploaded several days ago by YouTube user Rafael Rivero, an unnamed Hispanic construction worker tells celebrity plutocrat Donald Trump to get bent in response to Trump’s comments calling Mexican immigrants rapists and murderers. “Donald Trump? That son of a gun who says we’re all thieves?” the worker said in response to an unidentified interviewer’s question. He then took a sledgehammer and begins work on a house frame. “Look, [expletive], how we rape…these stakes! How we work ourselves to death just to eat. I make $1,100/week and the government takes $350 to feed your lazy, unemployed drug addicts....

Motormouth Donald Trump isn’t doing the Republican Party any favors — and his fellow GOP candidates are adding to the damage by being slow to condemn him, Latino advocates said Friday. “Trump’s comments are causing irreparable harm to the brand. It’s going to be very hard to come back from it,” said Felix Sanchez, chairman of the National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts. The billionaire candidate sent the debate over border control into overdrive — and cost himself business deals — by saying Mexico exports “rapists” and drug dealers to the U.S. He upped the ante Friday after Kate Steinle,...

Indomitable Donald Trump, the pompously outspoken American business mogul, investor, and television personality who recently announced his bid for the 2016 presidential race candidate has finally met his waterloo, and it was not about Barack Obama. His bigmouth has finally landed him in a provocative political terrain – trouncing a presidential ambition that has only been announced. Trump, a Republican presidential entrant was announcing his readiness last month when he made some horrible remarks about Mexicans. His comments were obviously offensive. He said in part that “When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending their best. They’re sending people that...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX), the most conservative presidential candidate for 2016, was recently interviewed by Hispanic TV channel Univision on a variety of subjects including the recent U.S. Supreme court opinion on counterfeit marriage. The interview turned out to be a great opportunity to inform the Hispanic community about the U.S. Constitution and conservative values. The Univision Leftist interviewer Jorge Ramos seemed to think “love wins” (translation: “perverted lust wins”), but Senator Cruz said that (like any patriotic American) he would rather the U.S. Constitution wins. He pointed out that the U.S. Supreme Court opinion on counterfeit marriage was “fundamentally...

Unless, you've been living under a rock watching only Fox news in a cave, you haven't felt the wrath of Latinos and Hispanics in social media, a raging "radio bemba," the term for Latino word of mouth. Once adored and imitated by many, today, Donald Trump, is hated and scolded by major media moguls and celebrities alike for his anti-Mexican comments. Former Miss USA co-host Roselyn Sánchez and Christian De La Fuente have publicly condemned Donald Trump for his behavior and have withdrawn their support from the competition. Natalie La Rose will no longer be performing at the Miss USA...

Hispanic leaders are warning of harm to Republican White House hopes unless the party's presidential contenders do more to condemn Donald Trump, a businessman turned presidential candidate who's refusing to apologize for calling Mexican immigrants rapists and drug dealers. Trump's comments, delivered in his announcement speech last month, have haunted the GOP for much of the last two weeks and dominated Spanish-language media....

WASHINGTON (AP) — Hispanic leaders are warning of harm to Republican White House hopes unless the party's presidential contenders do more to condemn Donald Trump, a businessman turned presidential candidate who's refusing to apologize for calling Mexican immigrants rapists and drug dealers. Trump's comments, delivered in his announcement speech last month, have haunted the GOP for much of the last two weeks and dominated Spanish-language media. It's bad timing for a Republican Party that has invested significantly in Hispanic outreach in recent years, given the surging influence of the minority vote. Yet several Republican candidates have avoided the issue altogether,...

A leftover from Friday’s candidate forum in New Hampshire via Eliana Johnson. I had a sense of deja vu watching this clip, and not just because I’ve blogged roughly a thousand Rubio statements on immigration over the past two years. Didn’t he … give almost this exact answer to Bob Schieffer on “Face the Nation” back in April, up to and including his endorsement of a path to citizenship as the final step in a three-stage immigration reform process? Come to think of it, he did! I wrote about it at the time. In fact, as far as I know,...

From immigration and the “Latino registration machine” to the GOP’s apparent inability to recognize the racial aspects of the Charleston church shooting, Real Time host Bill Maher had a field day with his panelists on Friday night’s show. Yet it’s the “Overtime” segment’s extra nuggets that made for some of the most WTF-worthy viewing, especially for this reaction from MSNBC’s Joy Reid: Of all the possible conversation topics, what could have triggered such a reaction from Reid? Oh nothing, really — just guest Ann Coulter‘s funny-but-serious answer to Maher’s question about “which Republican candidate has the best chance of winning...

There are two Hispanic Americans campaigning for the GOP nomination for the presidency, Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio. They have many similarities; they are both US senators, Cruz from Texas and Rubio from Florida. Both are sons of Cuban immigrants, both are 44 years of age and both are social conservatives. From all indications these two men will rise to the top 10 contenders list. Regardless of whoever seizes the GOP nomination, their struggle will be for the ever elusive Hispanic vote. Statistics are hard to dismiss in an ever growing Hispanic population. Mitt Romney lost in 2012 and...

The Democrats, and their allies at The NY Times, must be worried about Senator Rubio.    How else do you explain the silly story about Senator Rubio and traffic violations?   How do you explain it in light of The NY Times’s total silence about Senator Obama's driving record? To be fair, a story about reckless driving could be relevant about a person's character, especially if it involves alcohol or drugs.   It may be something we should know about the candidate if there is a pattern of recklessness. There is nothing like that in Rubio's past.  This Rubio...

Smash the patriarchy! New York police allegedly arrested two men for “manspreading” (sitting with their legs far apart) on the subway, according to a report entitled “That’s How They Get You” released by the Police Reform Organizing Project. “On a recent visit to the arraignment part in Brooklyn’s criminal court, PROP volunteers observed that police officers had arrested two Latino men on the charge of ‘man spreading’ on the subway, presumably because they were taking up more than one seat and therefore inconveniencing other riders,” the report states.

The Republican Party doesn’t have a lunatic fringe. It has a lunatic center: a core bloc of white voters and officeholders whose extreme conservatism leads them to indulge again and again in outlandish conspiracy theories and, more seriously, proposed and enacted legislation of disgraceful callousness. The past few weeks have offered two striking examples of how dependent the Party’s base and elected officials have become on spouting and trying to enact as legislation their own worst impulses. One involves the American military’s three-month-long Jade Helm 15 combat-training exercises that will get underway in July and spread over various sparsely populated...

The field of Republicans contending for their presidential nomination does not present grandeur.; in truth, it's a pretty weak roster. Take a look at the top names: --Jeb Bush (actually John Ellis, btw): lots of money, lots of friends, fading fast. His death knell was the inability to answer the most obvious question a three year old could have predicted. And conservatives now think poorly of his brother for spending too much (doughnut hole anyone?), and for the Iraq nation building fiasco. The dream of another Bush presidency is over. --Scott Walker: the last guy who claimed that running a...

Jorge Ramos, the influential host of Univision's Noticiero Univision, said the Latino vote will decide the 2016 presidential election and that Hispanics could see a reward for providing the margin of victory. In an interview with Harvard University's Institute of Politics following a speech to students, Ramos predicted that about 16 million Hispanics will go to the polls, likely to vote Democratic based on past trends.He said that there is a "new rule" in politics — winning the White House can't be done without Hispanics."

Latin Post presents "Turnout," a series featuring leading Latino politicians, government leaders and advocacy groups discussing and debating the most important issues facing the Latino voting bloc. Listen to the Unedited "Turnout" Interview with People for the American Way's Coordinator for Political Campaigns Carlos Sanchez:(AUDIO-AND-VIDEO-AT-LINK)More than two-thirds of the U.S. Latino electorate live in six states -- Arizona, California, Florida, Illinois, New York and Texas -- but one progressive advocacy organization has been working on having anti-Latino and anti-immigrant representatives accountable and heard for Latinos across the country, especially for the presidential election season. With people entering their names for...