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The former head of the RNC's Hispanic outreach committee in Florida is so fed up with the national party's stance on immigration that he's switching teams and registering as a Democrat. The final straw for Pablo Pantoja, who worked for the RNC in the 2010 and 2012 elections before quitting last summer, was apparently the new, flawed Heritage Foundation study on the cost of immigration, co-authored by Jason Richwine who previously wrote that "No one knows whether Hispanics will ever reach IQ parity with whites." The Tampa Bay Times and the Miami Herald picked up on the Monday email from...

"But what if Romney had been able to reach a mind-blowing 70 percent of the Hispanic vote? Surely that would have meant victory, right? No, it wouldn't. Romney still would have lost, although by the narrowest of electoral margins, 270 to 268. (Under that scenario, Romney would have won the popular vote but lost in the Electoral College; he could have racked up huge numbers of Hispanic votes in California, New York and Texas, for example, and not changed the results in those states."

He's already being treated like the 2016 GOP presidential front-runner, and now there is another reason Republicans are excitedly buzzing about Florida Sen. Marco Rubio: He alone would reverse the party's slide among Hispanic voters. A new nationwide poll from JZ Analytics found that Rubio would get 48 percent of the Hispanic vote, about twice what Mitt Romney won in 2012. Republican strategist told Secrets that a win among Latino voters that big would assure Rubio the presidency, since he would also likely keep the regular GOP base. "If he does that good, then he's the next president," said a...

Biden says something "profound" happened with the enormous Latino support for Obama, and he says the Latino community underestimates its power. He told the audience that they "spoke in a way that the world ... could not fail to hear." Biden said "America owes" Latinos and declared, "This is your moment"

The biggest story of the past election was how President Obama’s team was able to get his interest groups to the polls and how correspondingly the Republicans feel behind on certain interest groups. It is clear Republican failed to capture the votes of Hispanics, Asians and other groups. So let’s take a look at where they are and what they need to do. To discover what happened one has to look at what the Republicans have been doing and why they failed to attract certain voters. The first and most important point is not that they have failed policies or...

As Republicans ponder how to win over Hispanics in future election cycles, there may be a light at the end of the tunnel. A poll of Illinois Hispanics conducted by pollster Mike McKeon found that a majority shared views generally considered to be sympathetic to the Republican party. The poll found Hispanics in the conservative camp on social issues in particular. Fifty-one percent said they opposed legalizing gay marriage, compared to just 40 percent who favored legalization. Fifty-six percent called themselves pro-life, while just 33 percent said they were pro-choice. A small plurality of those surveyed said they did not...

As national Republican leaders fret about their party’s showing among Hispanics in the Nov. 6 elections and consider the GOP’s future, they might want to check in with a couple of prominent New Mexico Republicans. Rep. Steve Pearce, who represents New Mexico’s border with Mexico, and Gov. Susana Martinez, who hails from the border-area town of Las Cruces, both have plenty to say about their party and Hispanic politics. In a telephone interview Monday, Martinez said Romney’s weak result among Hispanics, who chose Obama by a more than 3-1 ratio nationally, isn’t necessarily a harbinger of things to come for...

Over the last three weeks, I think I have read most of the post-election op-eds written on the Latino vote. I have studied exit polling, read sophisticated demographic analyses, and talked to as many Latinos in my hometown as I could. The result is that I would not advise Republicans to go down the identity-politics route. I don’t wish to live in an America where Steve Lara or Bob Martinez is reduced to an anonymous “Latino” and Victor Hanson is just a “white male.” But if Republicans really believe there is a monolithic Latino vote, and if those of Hispanic...

During his appearance on the Univision program "Al Punto," Gutierrez claimed that the Republican Party's extremism was the reason for Mitt Romney's resounding defeat last week.

"We have to start electing people who look like their communities..."

While Latinos are gaining in political clout, they are also falling down the economic ladder, new Census numbers show. Latinos poverty rates climbed to 28 percent after the census reconfigured its algorithm to take into account medical costs and government programs. The Hispanic poverty level rose after the government took into account safety-net programs such as food stamps and housing, which have lower participation among immigrants and non-English speakers.

After a week of election postmortems, one thing is clear: Mitt Romney’s failure to understand America’s changing demographics led to his undoing. But there was another killer: Geography. Deep blue cities and their inner suburbs came out for Barack Obama, pulling the president through in battleground states like Colorado, Ohio, Virginia, and Florida. And they put him so far ahead in places like Wisconsin, Nevada, and Pennsylvania that Romney never really had a chance (not to mention his home base of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, which went 78 percent for the president). Of course, this isn't a new phenomenon. In 2008,...

Of all the misguided, corrupt and deranged ideas floating around inside the D.C. bubble, perhaps the single worst one is giving illegal aliens amnesty as part of some sort of attempt to capture the Hispanic vote. If the GOP were to pursue a policy that primarily benefits corrupt business owners, the government of Mexico, and Democrats at the expense of our country and our own base, we'd truly deserve the "Stupid Party" moniker that has so often been hung around our neck. This policy wouldn't be a calculated risk or even a longshot; it would be a game of Russian...

Gingrich: GOP needs to be "inclusive" In the aftermath of Mitt Romney's presidential loss last week, Newt Gingrich is joining the cadre of Republicans calling for the Republican Party to more actively reach out to a more diverse electorate, arguing on Monday that the party needs to become more "inclusive." "I think we need to be inclusive, and I emphasize the difference between inclusive and outreach," Gingrich said Monday morning in an appearance on ABC's "The View." "Outreach is when five white guys have a meeting and call you. Inclusive is when you're in the meeting. And I think we...

APIn Ryan Lizza's story in this week's The New Yorker, Texas' newly-elected Republican Senator Ted Cruz worries about the changing electoral landscape --- and how it could get even less favorable for the GOP in coming years.  Cruz provides what must be a truly terrifying thought for the Republican Party:"In not too many years, Texas could switch from being all Republican to all Democrat," he said. "If that happens, no Republican will ever again win the White House. New York and California are for the foreseeable future unalterably Democrat. If Texas turns bright blue, the Electoral College math is simple. We...

After its second defeat at the hands of Barack Obama, under whom unemployment has never been lower than the day George W. Bush left office, the Republican Party has at last awakened to its existential crisis. Eighteen states have voted Democratic in six straight elections. Among the six are four of our most populous: New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois and California. And Obama has now won two of the three remaining mega-states, Ohio and Florida, twice. Only Texas remains secure -- for now. At the presidential level, the Republican Party is at death's door. Yet one already sees the same physicians...

A lot can change in just four years. For former Florida Governor Jeb Bush a four-year timetable is enough for a significant shift for the Republican party. He tells Joe Hagan of New York magazine: “It’s a math question. Four years from now, Texas is going to be a so-called blue state. Imagine Texas as a blue state, how hard it would be to carry the presidency or gain control of the Senate.” Hagan starts the article for New York magazine with this idea that Texas’ rapidly changing demographic will unfavorably affect the Republican party. He writes: “Sitting down across...

As we go to press polls show America’s largest swing state in a dead head between Romney and Obama. Florida has 29 electoral votes and the third largest “Hispanic� population in America. Normally this means a cakewalk for any Democrat. But whoops! Turns out that about a third of these Florida Hispanics (Cuban-Americans) are actually so—as in Americans whose ancestors hail almost exclusively from Europe’s Iberian Peninsula known as Hispania by the Romans. So as a broken clock is right twice a day, the term “Hispanic� as used by the mainstream media can actually be correct about 1/1000 of...

Road Trip: The Effect Of The Hispanic Vote In Las Vegas May Not Stay In Vegas By Bob Sacha & Zach Wise LAS VEGAS—This city has seen more political commercials than anywhere else in 2012, more than anywhere else in the history of presidential campaigns: 73,000 TV ads, according to The New York Times. In an election with only a handful of states that are considered up for grabs, the importance of Nevada's six electoral votes was highlighted when President Barack Obama chose Lake Las Vegas, a golf resort east of here, as the place to spend three days preparing...

Comedian Paul Rodriguez is not joking. The man who made his mark in Hollywood finding humor in just about everything is – in a deadly serious way -- hitting back at fellow Latino celebrities Eva Longoria and Rosie Perez for their recent biting jabs at Mitt Romney. "When it gets personal, like they did, it goes below the belt,” he said. Rodriguez is featured in a new Latino-targeted ad for Romney, whom he is supporting after what he says is disappointment over President Obama. Rodriguez says he’d been a lifelong Democrat and voted for Obama in 2008. Longoria drew fire...

President Obama has Eva Longoria pitching his candidacy to fellow Latinos. Now, Mitt Romney has comedian Paul Rodriguez, an erstwhile Democrat who voted for Obama in 2008.

Mitt Romney aides say he has made crucial gains among Florida's Hispanic voters by portraying Obama as fatally weak, a perception they argue has particular power in the Latino community. A new Florida International University/Miami Herald poll released over the weekend shows President Obama leading Romney among likely Latino voters by just seven points, 51-44 percent. A Tampa Bay Times/Miami Herald poll released late last week actually showed Romney ahead of Obama by two points—an 11-point shift from a month earlier. And a third poll, released Sunday by Public Policy Polling, shows Romney down just three points among Florida Hispanics....

Mitt Romney is closing the gap on President Barack Obama among likely Hispanic Florida voters, a majority of whom say they’re not better off than four years ago, according to a new Florida International University/Miami Herald/El Nuevo Herald poll... Obama is ahead of Romney 51-44 percent among Hispanics, a relatively narrow lead that could spell trouble for a Democratic campaign... This poll of likely voters — those who say they’re sure to cast a ballot —differs sharply from a poll two weeks ago of registered Hispanic voters that was sponsored by America’s Voice, a liberal-leaning immigration advocacy group. That survey...

Whoever trained OBOZO with the TelePrompTer forgot to train him how to say the word "ningun." The message was about "removing obstacles " from students...

Mitt Romney is closing the gap on President Barack Obama among likely Hispanic Florida voters, a majority of whom say they’re not better off than four years ago, according to a new Florida International University/Miami Herald/El Nuevo Herald poll. Obama is ahead of Romney 51-44 percent among Hispanics, a relatively narrow lead that could spell trouble for a Democratic campaign that’s counting on minority support as non-Hispanic white voters flock to the Republican ticket in droves. In the rest of the country, however, it’s a different story for Obama when it comes to likely Hispanic voters. The president wallops Romney...

ST. PETERSBURG -- There are two million Hispanic voters in Florida. It's a constituency that has the power to shift a tight election, so both political parties have tried to sway the Hispanic vote their way. An exclusive Tampa Bay Times/Bay News 9 statewide poll shows many Hispanic voters dropping their support for Obama. Last month, 52 percent of Hispanic voters polled said they would vote for the president. That has now dropped to 44 percent. Romney picked up some ground among Hispanics, from 43 percent to 46 percent. And the number of undecided Hispanic voters has doubled from 5...

We saw a pathetic turnout among Hispanics in the Texas Democrat primary.   In fact, District 33 was created for the sole purpose of electing a Hispanic Democrat.  It elected a black Democrat because Hispanics stayed home.   Only 19,000 voted in the runoff.     Hispanic apathy is nationwide, as explained by Chuck Todd of NBC:   "And then let me give you this last one here, because this is, I think, the most important one. And that's Hispanics. The President's winning Hispanics by 50 points. He hit the 70% mark. However, look at this in terms of interest in the...

The Operation Fast and Furious scandal may hurt President Barack Obama’s re-election chances with Hispanic voters in November, conservative group American Future Fund thinks. On Monday, American Future Fund (AFF) released two new Spanish-language political ads — “Confienza” and “Cuentas” — that the group says will run on television and radio in Albuquerque, N.M.; Raleigh, N.C.; Washington; Las Vegas and Denver. “December 2010,” an anchor reads in the television ad, “U.S. Border Patrol agent Brian Terry is gunned down along the Arizona-Mexico border.” “Under Fast and Furious, President Obama’s Justice Department puts thousands of weapons in the hands of dangerous...

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT RUSH: ABC News/Univision: "Fast and Furious Scandal: New Details Emerge on How the U.S. Government Armed Mexican Drug Cartels." Now, none of this is gonna be new to you. But it is new to the audience of Univision. What impact, if any, it's going to have? Who knows? The authors here are Gerardo Reyes and Santiago Wills. "On January 30, 2010, a commando of at least 20 hit men parked themselves outside a birthday party of high school and college students in Villas de Salvarcar, Ciudad Juarez. "Near midnight, the assassins, later identified as hired guns for the...

Just starting now. It's supposed to have English subtitles.

New voting laws in 23 of the 50 states could keep more than 10 million Hispanic U.S. citizens from registering and voting, a new study said on Sunday, a number so large it could affect the outcome of the November 6 election. The Latino community accounts for more than 10 percent of eligible voters nationally. But the share in some states is high enough that keeping Hispanic voters away from the polls could shift some hard-fought states from support for Democratic President Barack Obama and help his Republican rival, Mitt Romney. >>SNIP<< That imposes onerous and sometimes expensive documentation requirements...

TAMPA, Fla. — Former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush (R) on Tuesday said Republicans aren’t going to close the gap with Hispanic voters until they “stop acting stupid.” Bush said many Hispanic voters share the GOP’s commitment to faith, family and small government but have been alienated from the party by exclusionary rhetoric on immigration. But that, he said, is finally changing. “I promise you this is where the conservative cause is going, and thank God it is,” he said to cheers at a lunch sponsored by the center-right Hispanic Leadership Network. The advantage that Democrats have with Hispanics is a...

"My personal view is that we need to get beyond where we are," said the former Florida governor, adding a moment later, "You can't ask people to join your cause and then send a signal that you're really not wanted. It just doesn't work." Bush has previously stated his concerns about the party's hard-line immigration stance and seemed careful on Sunday's "Meet The Press" to balance his views with a hearty endorsement of nominee-to-be Mitt Romney.

Hispanic candidates have suffered political disappointments because of low turnout from their own voters.If there was any doubt about the importance of the Hispanic vote this election year, President Obama laid it to rest with his recent, aggressive courtship of Latino voters. But this month also provided fresh warnings to the Obama campaign that Hispanic voters, despite their growing numbers, aren't all that interested in turning out to vote.The evidence can be drawn from the House primaries that took place in states with significant Hispanic populations over the last month, particularly California, New York, and Texas. In contests from Southern...

A new USA Today-Gallup poll shows that President Obama holds a big lead among Hispanic voters in his general election matchup against presumptive GOP nominee Mitt Romney — and that unemployment and economic growth, not immigration, remain the top issues for these voters. The survey of a random sample of 1,753 adults between April 16 and May 31 showed Mr. Obama leading Mr. Romney by a 66 percent to 25 percent margin. "Given the current dampened support for Obama among non-Hispanic whites, Obama's ability to build support or, more specifically, registration and turnout, among Hispanics in 2012 is widely seen...

Wink News Hispanic Voters Targeted In New Ad Blitz For Obama KMGH Denver - 36 minutes ago DENVER -- One of the nation's largest unions and a Democratic super PAC supporting President Barack Obama launched a joint $4 million Spanish-language advertising campaign on Monday, targeting Hispanic voters.

Pandering to Hispanics will be a serious mistake for the presumptive Republican nominee. A new Public Policy Poll (PPP) – a self acknowledged Democrat surveying firm – of a large number of Hispanic Florida Colorado and New Mexico respondents, spoken to in both English and Spanish, provides a clear warning for “What’s His Name” not to pick a Vice Presidential candidate merely based on ethnicity. The poll results make it very clear that Hispanics should be appealed to on the same grounds as everyone else who realizes we are in danger of losing our country. It found the economy is...

The Republican Party faces a threat to its existence. It’s not an ideological threat, but a demographic and mathematical one. Unless the GOP acts to change the math by broadening its appeal to minorities, it will cease being a major force in American politics. If you have any doubt about this, look at the numbers: In 1960, white Americans made up 94 percent of the electorate. By 2010, the figure had dropped to 75 percent. Among African-Americans, more than 90 percent vote Democratic, and in the 2008 presidential race, 96 percent chose President Obama. For Asian-Americans, a clear majority consistently...

In it’s last survey Pew found that among White Catholics Barack Obama is trailing Mitt Romney 57/37. As clear as these numbers are, left alone and not attacked by the Left they portend “game set match Mr. Romney” in November. In the history of such polling no Democrat has ever lost the Catholic vote and won the general election for president. Obviously this is a very dangerous statistic for Democrats and the fact that it is so easily confirmed makes it more so. Enter Gallup.To obfuscate the power of Obama’s deficit with Catholics, Gallup has ridden to Obama’s recue with...

The Obama propaganda for Hispanics is on, full force. His interview will air today, on both main Hispanic channels, [liberal] NBC's Telemundo (known for original programming such as 'caso cerrado.') and on the higher rated Univision (the champion in 'telenovelas.'). On Univision, Obama promises to tackle immigration reform in second term. Jose Diaz-Balart has an extensive interview, noon time, today.

It’s election time so that means Democrats rolls out one of its favorites weapons: the “Hispanic vote bogyman” threat. The script goes this way: The Democrat supporting Hispanics dictate a demand list to Republicans then watch them squirm and pander. To add some salsa to the threat they promise retaliation at the polls if Republicans dare to ignore them. This kind of knuckling under has never gone well for Republicans. Endless concessions and saying things like, “We’ll give your cousin amnesty. We’ll give your kids our kids’ college classroom seats – and throw in our jobs food stamps and ignore...

It’s election time so that means Democrats rolls out one of its favorites weapons: the “Hispanic vote bogyman” threat. The script goes this way: The Democrat supporting Hispanics dictate a demand list to Republicans then watch them squirm and pander. To add some salsa to the threat they promise retaliation at the polls if Republicans dare to ignore them. This kind of knuckling under has never gone well for Republicans. Endless concessions and saying things like, “We’ll give your cousin amnesty. We’ll give your kids our kids’ college classroom seats – and throw in our jobs food stamps and ignore...

Carlos Perez, one of Ronald Reagan's closest Miami advisers and a Radio Mambi talk host who is influential in Florida's Cuban-American community, says there is growing resentment among Hispanics due to “lies and distortions” from GOP candidate Mitt Romney targeting former House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Perez told Newsmax in an exclusive interview Saturday afternoon that a backlash is brewing against the Romney campaign’s allegation that Gingrich tried to undermine former President Ronald Reagan’s agenda. Perez was a close adviser to President Reagan, and Reagan even acknowledged his Cuban-American friend's achievement during a State of the Union address. “Among Cuban-Americans, you...

In the 15 states that are likely to decide who controls the White House and the Senate in 2013, Hispanic voters will represent the margin of victory. For the Republican Party, the stakes could not be greater. Just eight years after the party’s successful effort to woo Hispanic voters in 2004, this community — the fastest-growing group in the United States, according to census data — has drifted away. .Although Democrats hold the edge, Republicans have an opportunity. We also have a record of winning Hispanic voters in certain statewide and national elections. Here are four suggestions on how Republican...

..."Romney cree en nosotros," U.S. Rep.Mario Diaz-Balart, R-Fla., tells viewers of a TV ad in South Florida, amid scenes of swaying palm trees, the Miami skyline and smiling Cuban-Americans. "Romney believes in us." ...Despite his hard line on immigration, Romney has rounded up endorsements from Hispanic Republican leaders across Florida, while pollsters and political analysts predict he will draw solid support from Hispanic voters in the primary..... "...I've already gotten three fliers from Romney - in Spanish," said DarioMoreno, a Miamipollster and professor at Florida International University who focuses on Hispanic voters. "CentralFlorida and the TampaBay area are where Newt...

...“You would be surprised at how many Republican Latinos there actually are in the state of Nevada. There are quite a few of us,” said Alex Garza, a Hispanic Republican activist. “I think the numbers are there; we just haven’t organized as well as the Democratic Latino organizations.” The potential political power of Latinos is an oft-told story in Nevada and elsewhere, though any happy ending at the polls usually is enjoyed by Democrats. ...During the Republican presidential candidates’ nationally televised debate in Las Vegas last month, they were asked how they would speak to the Latino community. Newt Gingrich...

With the nation’s Latino population booming and now the country’s largest minority group, the Obama administration’s top Hispanic official is concerned that the federal government is not giving enough attention to Hispanic history and culture. Interior Secretary Ken Salazar in the past year has pushed the National Park Service to identify more sites or properties related to the histories of women and minorities that could be added to the National Register of Historic Places or be preserved as national parks or historic landmarks.

Mitt Romney has finally found a groove on the right. But he could find himself stuck there if he wins the GOP nomination. With Romney’s recent move to wield the immigration issue as a club against Rick Perry — painting him as “soft” on a topic that resonates with the Republican primary electorate — the former Massachusetts governor is taking advantage of a rare opportunity to outflank Perry on the right among conservatives. After the Texas governor wounded himself with his remarks in the last debate, Romney seized on the issue of illegal immigration, trying to paint Perry as an...

[snip] Over his presidency so far, Obama's support among Jews has run about 14 percentage points higher than his support among the population at large, with some fluctuations largely due to the relatively small number of Jews in any given polling sample, Gallup reports. The gap in the most recent tally is 13 points. A similar point can be made about Latinos – another group whose declining support for Obama is sometimes attributed to group-specific issues, in this case the failure to bring about comprehensive changes in the nation's immigration policies. Again, as with Jews, the polling data show something...

NEW YORK - Rick Perry, on a two-day swing to raise campaign funds here, also appears to be hoping to rob the Democrats of votes. The Republican presidential candidate is scheduled to meet Monday afternoon in Harlem with Hispanic leaders. Some members of the Hispanic community have been disenchanted with President Obama because he has failed to deliver on his promise to enact a sweeping immigration reform bill. While none of the Republican presidential hopefuls has expressed support for giving some of the estimated 11 million people now living in the U.S. illegally a path to citizenship, Perry has broken...