Posted on 01/11/2006 4:03:05 AM PST by ninenot
It was from their success in Texas that George Bush and Karl Rove devised their grand strategy for regaining the "lock" on the presidency that had been the legacy of Nixon and Reagan.
Nixon's "New Majority" and the "Reagan Coalition" were built on the same foundation: a united Republican Party to which was added the socially conservative Democrats who would defect to the GOP on "God, gays and guns," and other battleground issues of the culture war.
Rove and Bush correctly perceived that, due to immigration, the Nixon-Reagan coalition, composed almost entirely of white voters, was shrinking in relative terms. Where, in 1960, European-Americans were nearly 90 percent of the population and an even higher share of the voters, today, they are less than 70 percent of the population.
Today, a Republican can sweep the white vote 55 percent to 45 percent, and still lose. And as President Clinton merrily predicted a few years ago, white folks will be just another minority in 2050, as they are already in California and Texas.
In short, Republicans need minority voters to survive as America's Party. The Bush-Rove solution to the looming demographic disaster is to go all-out to court the nation's fastest growing minority, Hispanics, who now number 40 million and 13 percent of the U.S. population. But, in seeking to win the Hispanic vote, the inherent defects of the Bush-Rove strategy have become manifestly clear.
First, Hispanics have never voted Republican in any presidential election. In his 49-state landslide in 1984, Reagan, despite a macho image that appealed to Hispanics, managed to win only 44 percent. In national elections, the Hispanic vote ranges between 56 percent and 75 percent Democratic. Thus, the more Hispanic America becomes, the more Democratic America becomes.
California, which Nixon carried on five tickets and Ronald Reagan never lost, is a harbinger of what is to come. With a fifth of the electoral votes needed to win the presidency, California has moved beyond the reach of a conservative Republican.
Reason: Though many Hispanics may be social conservatives, they believe in Big Government. Understandably so. For, as lower-income voters, they pay far less in income taxes than the average American, while benefiting far more from the welfare state: free education for their kids, food stamps, welfare checks, housing supplements, Medicaid, subsidized day care, student loans and grants, affirmative action, and earned income tax credits. At the local, state and federal level, Hispanics vote for the party of government.
Here, we come to the first hurdle in wooing Hispanics. The GOP is a small-government party whose faithful are appalled at President Bush's fiscal imprudence. But if Bush, who has governed as a Great Society Republican, starts to imitate Bob Taft, he will have to slash spending and open himself to charges he is "balancing the budget on the backs of the Hispanic poor."
In short, there is an inherent contradiction between being the party of small government and being the party of Hispanics, and that contradiction is tearing the Bush-Rove coalition apart at the seams.
Now, an irreconcilable conflict looms. In a House vote before the Christmas-New Year's break, Republicans endorsed a 700-mile security fence on the U.S.-Mexican border and tough sanctions on corporations that hire illegal aliens. No issue more fires up the populist base and white working-class Democrats than the issue of unprotected borders and the flooding of our cities and towns by some 12 million illegal aliens and counting.
For five years, President Bush has refused to deal with the crisis on the border, denouncing the Minutemen who went there to serve as spotters for a beleaguered Border Patrol as "vigilantes." For Bush and Rove believe that taking a tough line on illegal immigration will do to the national GOP what they think Gov. Pete Wilson's hard line on illegal immigration did to the California GOP.
But now that immigration has become the hot domestic issue and Republicans are taking a tougher line, repudiating Bush's guest-worker plan as amnesty, Bush is being compelled to come down harder himself against illegal immigration – or become irrelevant.
The question Bush and Rove face is this: Can the GOP be both the party that secures the border against Hispanic invaders and sanctions employers who hire them, and still be the party Hispanics will vote for? In the old imagery, if Bush reaches for the bird in the bush, the Hispanic vote, by favoring open borders and amnesty, he may lose the bird in the hand, the support of the white working and middle class that is the heart of the Republican coalition.
Bush and Rove think they can have both. They can't. But if George Bush's father, 15 years ago, had only sealed and secured the border and begun to deport illegals, his son and Rove would not be facing the seemingly insoluble problem the GOP is presented with today.
Either Bush and Rove secure the border now, or we can kiss the GOP goodbye.
Another discussion of the topic.
The GOP needs to stick to its core values of low taxes, national security, ownership society and add border security. Politicians should know just because a group screams loudly doesn't mean that translates into votes. As a matter of fact, our governor in Texas ran against a successful Hispanic Dem and beat him soundly, Perry even had commercials with Hispanic cops testifying on his behalf.
He speaks the truth.
IMO the republicans should start to play hardball about the fact that the republican party was founded to keep slavery from spreading out west. Both the northern and southern democrats pass jim crow laws while the reps were trying to get civil rights for blacks.
Technically correct, but do you really believe that they don't?
A clue as to how Hispanics vote (and will vote) in the US is how they vote in Mexico.
I'm really tired of this racial pandering.
Has it ever occurred to politicians that even Hispanics want what is best for their kids? Color or ethnicity is not the issue. It's such a shallow and racist view to embrace - demographics by race.
I don't believe they vote in significant numbers, but that would be an easy problem to clean up. Expose the Dem hustlers who are bringing them to the polls and telling them who to vote for.
Like him or not. Pat plays it as it lays. No frills. Just the truth as he sees it and in this case he's right
Get back on your meds Pat. Some see the GOP glass as half full. Some see the GOP glass as half empty. Pat and novak don't see the glass.
Starting in January of each even year since 96, we can bank on at least two things: A) there will be a story about how Big Labor will spend every cent they have and get back the Congress.
B) Some Republican will warn that the sky is falling if we don't do this that or the other thing.
The border problem is very real and very dangerous, but NOTHING will put the Democrats back into power as long as they are the party that sides with our enemies.
It sure is for the white Spanish oligarchy that rules Mexico. Same pale face Euros run Central American nations too. These racist turds shove their ungovernable masses (who just happen to be brown skinned Indians and mixed blood Mestizos) onto the United States of America. They play us for fools
Latin American racism is much greater than whatever we have here
"Has it ever occurred to politicians that even Hispanics want what is best for their kids? Color or ethnicity is not the issue. It's such a shallow and racist view to embrace - demographics by race."
I agree. Hard working folks want what we all want. Lazy a$$holes, on the other hand, want a handout from the Democrats.
"As a matter of fact, our governor in Texas ran against a successful Hispanic Dem and beat him soundly, Perry even had commercials with Hispanic cops testifying on his behalf."
Then he signed a law that allows ILLEGAL ALIENS to get financial aid and pay instate tuition in Texas colleges.
Pandering to Illegals doesen't make me very happy.
"A clue as to how Hispanics vote (and will vote) in the US is how they vote in Mexico."
I disagree with that statement. I know many individuals who have spanish surnames (myself included), who do not understand the spanish language, who consider themselves American first (not Cuban, Spanish, Mexican, etc), and who vote conservatively. I am third generation with alot of intermarriage.
IMO it's time for the Republicans to start playing hardball with the fact that the republican party was formed to keep slavery from spreading out west.
Both the north and south democrats fought against them, and for years the dims both north and south fought republican efforts at civil rights and voting rights.
It's time.
Pat Buchanan's computer is suffering from an ID10T problem.
http://www.opinionjournal.com/extra/?id=110005277
BUMP
Legacy of Nixon and Reagan? What the heck? Nixon wasn't even particularly conservative, in many respects. Why lump those two together?
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