“Let’s see ... who got a higher percentage of the non-Cuban Latino vote in Florida three months ago? Rubio, or Romney?”
While I’m in agreement with you regarding Rubio (he’s a candidate for 2016 whom we should consider strongly), I don’t think your comparison above holds water. You have to look at the opponents of both Romney and Rubio to assess which was the greater accomplishment. And it’s still entirely possible, if not very likely, that Rubio would lose the Hispanic vote if he faced any Democrat in a general presidential election. Though Rubio would do better than Romney did in the last election, conservatives will never offer enough “gifts” to the Latino population to win over their majority.
Lose the Latino vote by the most slender margin of any Republican nominee in this century? That would be awesome. I would be perfectly fine with that. Bush got 40% of the Latino vote in 2004, and even less in 2000. And both times, he won the election.
I would be more than happy to see Rubio lose the Latino vote, as long as he loses it by a slim margin. That would still be an enormous step in the right direction, because Romney only got 27% of the Latino vote. Democratic Party operatives have built an enormous wall between the GOP and the Latino voter. We'll have to take it down one brick at a time.