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HISPANICS: KEY TO GOP'S FUTURE
New York Post ^ | January 15, 2004 | Dick Morris

Posted on 01/15/2004 7:07:05 AM PST by cricket

January 15, 2004 -- PRESIDENT Bush's im- migration/amnesty proposal will probably be remembered in history as the idea that saved a political party. By taking the lead in extending the benefits of legal protections to more than 10 million illegal immigrants now living in the United States, Bush has taken a bold and dramatic step to avert the extinction of his own party.

Until Bush acted, the grinding inevitability of demographic change was likely to doom the GOP to an early death. As America became 1 percent more Hispanic each year, the Republicans could not concede this growing group to the Democrats by 2-1 ratios without risking total annihilation down the road.

The Republicans have got to break the solid demographic phalanx that sustains the Democratic Party: Blacks, Hispanics and single white women. Together, this group cast 25 percent of votes in 1990, 32 percent in 2000 and will account for 40 percent in 2008.

But by embracing the cause of Hispanic immigrants and extending to them elemental civil rights and minimum-wage protections, Bush has struck a blow on their behalf that will resonate in their voting habits for generations to come.

His legislative proposals are akin to the sponsorship of a sweeping civil-rights bill in 1963-65 by Presidents Kennedy and Johnson and will have a similar effect in binding Hispanics to the Republicans as the civil-rights legislation did in linking blacks to the Democrats.

For decades, Republicans systematically alienated Hispanics by insisting on English-only initiatives, opposing benefits for illegal immigrants and demanding an end even to free public schools for the children of those who came here illegally. These measures drove Hispanics into the waiting arms of Democrats. Bush has now acted to reverse the legacy of these initiatives and to welcome Hispanics into the GOP.

As Catholic voters, who take their religion seriously, Hispanics are a natural Republican constituency. Recent data that closely links the frequency of church attendance to party-voting habits supports the theory that this very religious voting group is likely to adhere to the Republican Party once its platform stops repelling them at every turn.

Republican efforts to win black voters have proven largely fruitless. Even the appointment of blacks to the two top jobs in the Bush foreign policy apparatus has failed to generate any significant African-American support for Bush in the polls. But candidates who appeal to the Hispanic vote - Gov. Pataki in New York, Gov. Rick Perry in Texas and the Bushes in Florida and Texas - have shown a real ability to get large shares of Hispanic voters.

As Hispanics follow the traditional paths of upward mobility that immigrant groups have trod before them, they are likely to lean more and more toward the Republicans - just as Irish and Italians do these days, abandoning the Democratic orientation of their ancestors.

Hispanics hold the key to the political outcomes in many major states. California, Texas and Florida are heavily influenced by their participation as are New York, New Jersey and Illinois. These are the key battleground states that hold the balance of power between the parties.

Apart from the politics of the issue, the merits also dictate the Bush initiative. America has 4 percent of the world's population but 25 percent of its wealth. It is incumbent on us to open our doors to those who seek upward mobility.

The only thing standing between subsistence and starvation in Mexico, and much of Central America, is the money sent home to needy families by hard working men and women in the United States who tend our gardens, wash our dishes and clean our floors. It is not American workers who they are putting out of jobs, it is American robots. The alternative to their low wage work is not American labor but machines.

The United States needs the skills, energy, savvy and willingness to work hard of our illegal immigrants. They are illegal only because our laws have been nativist and short-sighted. Now Bush is setting them right.


TOPICS: Government; News/Current Events; Politics/Elections
KEYWORDS: aliens; gop; hispanics; immigrantlist; latinovote; trends
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To: k2blader
"Is this really what Republicanism has come down to? Basing policy on "demographic phalanxes"?"

The language is that of a Democrat operative and a smart one; think what gives rise to the language are larger realities but not those that exclusively drive George Bush.

81 posted on 01/16/2004 7:14:40 AM PST by cricket
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To: Dave S
Explain the Triune God? If you can, then you're superior to all the worlds theologians. If thats the case maybe you are God, heh?

Facts are facts. I won't you let you redefine Christianity - the bible is the authority for Christians. The bible says Jesus Christ is God and that there is One God expressed in 3 persons (a compound unity). If you don't believe it, you are no Christian. My authority for saying that is the bible, the apostles, and 2000 years of Christian history.

Muslims say Jesus is NOT God and that God is not triune which directly contradicts the Christian view.

Simply put, muslims and Christians disagree on the very nature of God, on who He is. Both cannot be true logically. You lose the argument.

82 posted on 01/16/2004 7:59:19 AM PST by exmarine ( sic semper tyrannis)
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To: Dave S
So what if the Muslims dont accept Christ literally as God, some Christians dont. Also Jews are supposed to believe in the same God as the Christians and they dont accept Jesus...so are you saying that when they address their father they are talking to the wind and nothing else.

Muslims do not believe in the "Father". The authority is the Koran for them - and their God is not the same God as the God in the bible. They contradict completely. Both can't be true - logic doesn't allow it. And they are speaking to a false God as much as the Philistines were speaking to a false God when they prayed to Dagon. So, yes, they might as well be speaking to a doorknob if they are praying to a non-existent God.

83 posted on 01/16/2004 8:02:09 AM PST by exmarine ( sic semper tyrannis)
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To: Dave S
Your point about Ozzie is a quibble. Even if Bush didnt' invite him, he recognized him in the audience, which is just as bad. What about the litany of other gripes against Bush. Got any defense?
84 posted on 01/16/2004 8:03:19 AM PST by exmarine ( sic semper tyrannis)
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Comment #85 Removed by Moderator

To: cricket
If the future of the GOP lays with the hispanic vote - maybe they should just move to Mexico.
86 posted on 01/16/2004 8:20:45 AM PST by familyofman
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To: exmarine
So now it's all the same?

You admit that Bush didn't invite Ozzie but it doesn't matter that you and the website you cited said he did?

Lying is not a Christian value.
87 posted on 01/17/2004 10:17:09 AM PST by Columbine
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To: DustyMoment
However, I have lived and traveled throughout the southwestern US and my eyes and ears support the claim.

Please. Give me a break.

88 posted on 01/17/2004 11:15:36 AM PST by manfromlamancha
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To: manfromlamancha
Consider it given.
89 posted on 01/18/2004 9:20:01 AM PST by DustyMoment (Repeal CFR NOW!!)
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To: diotima
ping
90 posted on 01/18/2004 9:51:37 AM PST by Bob J (www.freerepublic.net www.radiofreerepublic.com...check them out!)
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To: joesnuffy
President Bush - stand up and tell us the truth

~ Take the FReeper Immigration Reform Poll ~

A FReeper's Guide To Immigration Reform

"What remains to be seen is if this country has the capacity to accommodate, and assimilate, an unending wave of mass immigration ¯ because failure to do so will result in a balkanized, fragmented, strife-torn and dysfunctional America."


91 posted on 01/18/2004 1:31:48 PM PST by Happy2BMe (Liberty does not tolerate lawlessness and a borderless nation will not prevail.)
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To: cricket
ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION: KEY TO THE DEATH OF THE U.S.
92 posted on 01/18/2004 1:32:46 PM PST by Paul C. Jesup
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To: cricket
I am afraid that negativity is too ingrained for many to even open their minds to change. Conservatives have never been known to accentuate the positive.
93 posted on 01/18/2004 1:35:18 PM PST by Eva
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To: Eva
I am afraid that negativity is too ingrained for many to even open their minds to change. Conservatives have never been known to accentuate the positive.

8 years under the Clintons have burned away most of the positivity Conservatives have in this country.

94 posted on 01/18/2004 1:40:51 PM PST by Paul C. Jesup
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To: Eva
Conservatives have learned during 8 years of the Clintons that to trust anything in government is to put your life in the hands of psychos and sadists.
95 posted on 01/18/2004 1:42:23 PM PST by Paul C. Jesup
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To: Paul C. Jesup
I am afraid that the negativity started way before the Clintons. It is the negativity of the far right that allows them to be such easy targets for the extreme left. It is this negativity that the left uses to alienate the right from the disadvantage masses and the negativity that the left turns around and uses to divide the right against itself.

For the first time the left has been placed in the position of obstructionist, negative ranting and all the extreme right seems to do is help them along, making one side as bad as the other.
96 posted on 01/18/2004 1:49:42 PM PST by Eva
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To: cricket
What we have to do is assimilate them, and unless we make English the national language and enforce it, this is very hard to do.
97 posted on 01/18/2004 1:50:04 PM PST by hershey
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To: Paul C. Jesup
"ILLEGAL IMMIGRATION: KEY TO THE DEATH OF THE U.S."

Agree. . .so better to put some legal parameters around it; more control for us; less sympathy for the uninvited illegals.

98 posted on 01/18/2004 3:09:14 PM PST by cricket
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To: Eva
"Conservatives have never been known to accentuate the positive."

Well, I guess 'change' is not the highest ranked word in the Conservative vocabulary; and perhaps that is why this is met with such resistance.

But the realities are 'what they are' and for sure it is a reality that we cannot turn the clock back on millions of illegals currently employed here; nor the economic benefits of said employment.

Will say,however; that I think if they are found guilty of a crime. . .or participating in a gang or somesuch. . ."OUT/HOME THEY GO"; and with no legal interruptions whatsoever.

99 posted on 01/18/2004 3:15:17 PM PST by cricket
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To: Eva
I am afraid that the negativity started way before the Clintons. It is the negativity of the far right that allows them to be such easy targets for the extreme left.

No, that is where you are wrong, it is spinelessness on the right that is the problem.

But if we show strenght by shuting the (pro-socialist) press in this country, we can start fixing it.

But the problem is that it would take a armed revolution or a military couq to do that.

100 posted on 01/18/2004 4:01:10 PM PST by Paul C. Jesup
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