"
. . . Then Hispanics learned that catholics need not apply. . . ."
I think this was a real factor outside of Florida, where many Hispanics already have opened up to the Republican Party.
Check out the following which you can "pop up" by clicking on this link:
http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/metro/20041105-9999-7m5latino.html
"
. . . The preliminary results of a voter turnout study released yesterday by the William C. Velasquez Institute indicate that 7.6 million Latinos voted in this year's election, 1.6 million more Latino voters than four years ago. . . . Nationwide, some exit polls have indicated that Latino voters showed more support for President Bush than they did in 2000, with 44 percent of Latino voters supporting Bush – up from 35 percent in 2000 – and 53 percent supporting Sen. John Kerry. . . ."
Do the math. If Bush received 9% more of the Latino vote this time around and the total Latino vote was 7.6 million then:
7,600,000 * .09 = 684,000
Now do the "flop" on that number, which means you multiply it by two since you subtract the number from Kerry's total and add it to Bush's vote:
684,000 * 2 = 1,368,000
Now take that number as a percentage of Bush's margin of victory in the popular vote nationwide, which is 3,510,358:
1,368,000 / 3,510,358 = 38.97%
So roughly 40% of Bush's margin of victory nationwide came from his increased percentage of the Hispanic vote. And I might add that, when looking at the vote in the individual states, 61% of Hispanics in California went for Kerry, so in light of the fact that California has the largest population of Hispanic voters, Bush's percentages across the rest of the country will be quite a bit higher than 44%. The Hispanics may very well have given Bush his victory and clearly played an important part in winning Florida, New Mexico, and Nevada for him.
I'm hoping George W. Bush will nominate a Hispanic Catholic for the first Supreme Court position that opens up in his second term. Let the Democrats commit political suicide. It'll be fun to watch.