Why the GOP Lost Voters Like Me (Geraldo Rivera on Immigration)

New York Post ^ | February 24, 2008 | Geraldo Rivera

[lowbridge]

No political party can prevail nationally on Anglo votes alone, so the long-term danger to Republicans is that their party is sending a message to Latinos that it doesn't want us.

"There has been too much of an anti-immigration tone," Rep. Lincoln Diaz-Belart, a South Florida Republican congressmen, told USA Today. "When people start to perceive that immigrants are being put in the same category as a threat to national security, it's hard to get your message across."

-snip

"Bush has worked incredibly hard for his Hispanic vote share. He reversed historic Republican Party positions on issues of importance to Hispanics and showed a willingness to listen to the needs of the Latino community."

That respectful romance with Latinos ended abruptly in the lead up to the November 2006 elections, when extremists on immigration hijacked the GOP.

One of them, Sen. John Cornyn of Texas, may wish he had taken a more moderate stance instead of essentially adopting the position of the Minutemen and similar radical anti-immigration groups. These groups promulgate their wildly exaggerated portrayal of a cascade of brown people overwhelming our southern borders, running loose to rape, steal and murder on the streets of our cities.

[JillValentine]

I know you’ll get flamed for saying that, but I agree with you. It wasn’t the substance of the debate that was unpleasant, it was the tone.

There’s a big difference between guys like Duncan Hunter, who can stand strong against illegals without alienating Hispanics, and guys like Tom Tancredo, who alienated a lot of Cuban-American Republicans with his stupid rant against Miami.

[maggief]

It’s all about ME ME ME.

... and ratings.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P84OKTUx6LY

[oldbill]

That respectful romance with Latinos ended abruptly in the lead up to the November 2006 elections, when extremists on immigration hijacked the GOP.

Uhh, Jerry, the Republicans lost the election because they DID take sides FOR the ILLEGAL aliens, not because they didn't. Conservatives and believers of the rule of law saw that photo of Hagel, McCain, Graham, Martinez, Lott, and Specter cackling over their Senate bill and walked out on a party that no longer seemed to care for them, but more for the Wall Street Journal and Chamber of Commerce crowd.

And with McCain at the head of the ticket and still arrogant is his defense of amnesty and goal of getting a new amnesty bill rammed through, 2008 will make 2006 look like Republican victory.

The guaranteed-to-fail Obama Administration is the only hope for the future. Only after seeing the Dems screw things up (like Carter) will the people come back to their senses.

[Fiddlstix]

ROTFLMAO!!!
Geraldo voting GOP!
What a laugh!
(He also "owns" a certain "bridge" in Brooklyn that he wants to "sell")

[Cicero]

I’m not sticking up for Geraldo, but regretably he has a point.

Bush did a lot in his first four years to increase the Hispanic vote for Republicans. But then he showed his real hand last year, and the whole thing fell apart.

What he needed to do was reach out to legal Hispanics. Instead, he shilled for the Kennedy-McCain Amnesty bill. That not only angered the conservative base, it has also ended up giving the MSM and the Dems ammunition to anger the Hispanic voters as well.

Of course there is a distinction between Hispanic citizens and Hispanic illegals. It’s a critical distinction. But Bush lost sight of it, and the result will be a LOT of Hispanic voters being persuaded that the Dems are their friends. Not true, but Bush has managed to make it seem that way. It’s a real mess. And McCain can only make it worse.

[MarMema]

The Serbs did what you said, refused to surrender to an invading force.

[Da Coyote]

One of our biggest problems is that we have voters like him. I simple competency test would solve that.

[ears_to_hear]

You are right on ! He is a liberal Democrat and always has been.

[no-to-illegals]

I almost agree with everything you typed, but I want to add a little diddy...oil money going overseas to the saudis and oil money going to medico from our nation is helping to fund terrorists and an invasion of illegals to help hide terrorists inside the illegal community....our politicians and media are being paid with oil money (our money, Americans buy the oil) while the politicians keep Americans from drilling for the oil on American soil. It works out quite well for our enemies to utilize our own money to fund our demise....geraldo is only playing the role of a person to spread lies and propaganda for the enemy.

[Domandred]

when extremists on immigration hijacked the GOP

70% of US Citizens must be extremist, because it wasn't only Republicans that were burning down the DC phone lines. It was Democrats too.

[M203M4]

On the energy front, in addition to confounding efforts aimed at making America less dependent on foreign oil by expanding our domestic oil activities, the media has been complicit in crippling nuclear power generation for decades. There is a concerted effort aimed at provoking popular emotion (wildlife issues, environmental fabrications - see any presidential candidates this election cycle who want to explore in ANWR?) and introducing to those in government a collection of interests in conflict with pro-America policies in order to distort the markets and prevent any movement toward reduced energy dependence.

Frankly, given this political and media environment, I think the best we can hope for on the issue is lip-service. They will say that we need to be more energy independent, but then block policies which advance that cause. They will say that we need to build more nuclear power plants, but then maintain or increase regulations and taxes, prevent the opening of waste storage sites (at least on this count, McCain has it right wrt Yucca mountain), etc. You can get a lot of leverage with trillions of dollars in holdings.

[Mr. Mojo]

"their party is sending a message to Latinos that it doesn't want us.",

"Us"? Are you an illegal alien, Jerry?

Blurring the line between legal and illegal immigration is one of Rivers' favorite pastimes. ....after committing adultery and fabricating stories in desperate attempts to make himself look tough and heroic, of course.

[calcowgirl]

Geraldo needs to go back to his search for Al Capone’s Vault.
He was a joke then; he’s a joke now.

His gig with FauxNews was one of the first signs that we were being fed garbage.

[no-to-illegals]

thank you for the picture of the truth. somewhere in the picture is the corrupt medico government, doing the same thing. Thank You, Again.

[cowdog77]

Thank God for Senator Cornyn.

He’s having to fight US Senator Kay Bailey Hutchinson and Tx. Gov. Rick Perry who are finding ways not to get a Texas border fence built.”
____________________

Good post, glad to know there are other Texans who have seen Hutchison and Perry dragging their feet.

[fieldmarshaldj]

Doesn’t impress me at all. He was one of the worst Governors in the country on illegals. His convenient conversion AFTER he left office when he was running for President following his public derisions of his “fellow Christians” for opposing his appalling posture of keeping Tyson’s factories well stocked with slave labor has absolutely ZERO credibility.

Awful Governor, even worse party leader (destroyed the AR GOP, left no Republicans in state office, and only 1 in federal office, the same one we’ve held for 42 years), terrible on illegals, 100% phony.

[tennteacher]

One-issue voter. I’ve got no use for them.

[radar101]

Who listens to this reverse racist?

[marron]

One of the biggest problems we have is the fact that this debate, the wider debate, is being held in the mainstream media. What do most people know about what “most” hispanics supposedly think, except as its presented by the mainstream media?

Who is Geraldo, for example, if not “mainstream media”?

The assumption that hispanics knee-jerk favor illegal immigration comes from, where? There have been polls that, in fact, tell us exactly the opposite, but they get filtered out by, who, the mainstream media.

Tancredo made the mistake of assuming that hispanics would by and large dislike what he was saying, assuming that they are a hegemonic voting bloc, when the truth is quite the opposite, they are not hegemonic, and many would be inclined to agree with him. He assumed it because he gets pounded daily in the press, and by the press’s chosen hispanic spokesmen.

Bush is right that more hispanic voters belong in the GOP. We are the rightful home for many more than there are in the party right now. He was right to make the effort. But he made the mistake of thinking that outreach to hispanic voters meant going easy on illegal immigration. The case for the GOP has to made as a moral one, but who in the media is capable of making the moral case for the GOP? Its usually boiled down to a soundbite about tax cuts, and if thats all you’ve got, you’ve lost the debate.

I have never had any trouble explaining GOP positions to anyone, foreign or domestic, hispanic or otherwise. But it is usually the first time they’ve ever heard Repub views from a Repub mouth. You can’t count on the press to communicate your views for you.

The “illegal” part of the discussion is normally fuzzed away by the media, until it sounds like you’re discussing all immigration, when most GOP’ers I know are very careful to make that distinction. But that never gets transmitted by the press.

For such a xenophobic country, how many legal immigrants do we admit each year? About a million a year. Of that million, xenophobes that we are, which country has pride of place as having the largest quota? Mexico.

You will never hear that in the press, and I doubt many people know that. And Repubs dependent upon the mainstream media to transmit their views are never going to be able to persuade anyone. If they make the mistake of thinking hispanic voters are forever lost to them, they’ll make the mistake Bush made of trying to pander, or that Tancredo made of not trying. Tancredo could have made exactly the case he made, directly to hispanics, and a fair number would have agreed, and most of the others would have respected him anyway.

[anglian]

Those parades last year, waving the Mexican flags, was one of the stupidest things ever done by the pro-illegal lobby.

Here is their website - They even list their DEMANDS.

http://www.mayday2007.org