Posted on 03/24/2002 5:09:11 PM PST by americanpatriotUSA
Hasta la Vista, Baby Bush's Hispanic strategy comes unraveled.
By John O’Sullivan From the April 8, 2002, issue, of National Review
n March 12, two quite separate events combined to undermine the Bush administration's strategy for building a new GOP majority by winning Hispanic votes with such policies as an amnesty for illegal Mexican immigrants. The first event was the result of the Democratic primary in Texas, in which conservative millionaire Tony Sanchez handily defeated former attorney general Dan Morales with a campaign that stressed the rise of Hispanic power. The second was the near defeat in the House of Representatives of Section 245(i) — a measure to allow more than 200,000 illegal immigrants to remain in the U.S. while regularizing their status, rather than requiring them to return home to apply for U.S. entry from there.
The Texas primary strengthened the evidence that the Hispanic vote is drifting firmly into the Democratic camp — irrespective of the GOP's immigration policies. And the House vote signaled that in the aftermath of September 11 most Republicans want to tighten immigration policy rather than liberalize it. Together, they suggest that the Bush administration's Hispanic strategy is falling apart.
In particular, the House decision — in which the Republican leadership averted defeat by a single vote — established that the White House no longer has the Re publican votes to push through its larger plans to amnesty 3 million illegal Mexican "guestworkers" as a favor to Mexico's President Fox. Not only did a clear majority of Republicans, including some close to the leadership, rally to the standard raised by Colorado representative Tom Tancredo in opposition to 245(i); but those who voted against it included all the Republicans (and some Democrats) who are considering a run for higher office this year, with the sole exception of New Hampshire representative John Sununu Jr. The measure achieved its narrow victory only with the support of congressmen like Lamar Smith of Texas and Judiciary Committee chairman James Sensenbrenner of Wisconsin, who generally favor tighter immigration controls and would almost certainly oppose the broader amnesty proposal.
The measure now faces an uncertain future in the Senate, where Robert Byrd of West Virginia has announced that he will prevent its passage under the "unanimous consent" provision that was its best hope of an early win. He expressed theatrical astonishment that the House and the White House should be so keen to pass "what amounts to an amnesty for hundreds of thousands of illegal aliens, many of whom have not undergone any background or security check." The politics of an immigration amnesty just got more perilous.
It may have helped the opponents of 245(i) that the previous week President Fox, in between eloquent appeals for a warm American welcome for Mexican immigrants, had handed back to Castro's secret police the handful of Cubans who had sought asylum in his own embassy. But that merely provided them with a nice secondary justification: Their main incentive was changing public opinion. Those Republicans with the most urgent reason for getting public opinion right — their own electoral interests — voted against the White House. One congressman, when taxed by a loyalist, gave his reason simply as "September 11th." Tancredo's immigration-reform caucus, which a year ago had a membership in the low teens, now boasts more than 60 adherents. And Robert Byrd has just reminded the GOP that even if the national Democratic party favors Hispanic immigration even more fervently than the White House does, local Demo cratic candidates may still flay them for a vote that seems to endorse and encourage illegal immigration.
The lesson for the White House is — or should be — clear: It can only pass the broader immigration amnesty it has been promoting over and against the votes of the majority of Republicans. That course will doubtless be urged upon it by some political analysts and pressure groups, citing the precedent of Clintonian "triangulation." That precedent, however, suffers from an obvious flaw: Clinton's triangulation meant supporting a welfare reform that was overwhelmingly popular with the American public, whereas illegal immigration is highly unpopular. Indeed, pollster John Zogby reports that 83 percent of Americans believe immigration laws are too lax. So the GOP majority would have public opinion on its side in resisting any move to make immigration easier. In which case the White House cannot deliver the goods on which its electoral outreach to Hispanics is based — and it would therefore be well advised to adopt a different strategy.
The good news from the Texas primary is that this may not matter very much, since the old strategy was doomed to fail anyway. It was based on a whole series of assumptions about Hispanic voters, each one of which was either plainly false or highly questionable: for instance, that Hispanic-Americans favor high levels of immigration. In fact, opinion polls clearly show that Hispanics differ only slightly from other Americans on immigration. A clear majority of Hispanics favor either the current or lower levels of immigration. Hispanic voters are swayed much more by the general policy stances of both parties than by immigration.
Another questionable idea is that Hispanic voters are "natural Republicans" because of their conservatism on moral questions such as "gay marriage" or abortion. Sure, in a California referendum on gay marriage, Hispanics voted disproportionately against it. But Hispanics tend to be liberal on economic questions, and when it comes to voting and party identification, in the self-satisfied but accurate words of liberal California analyst Harold Meyerson (now of The American Prospect), "their economic progressivism has consistently trumped their moral conservatism."
Are Hispanics likely to become more Republican the longer they stay in the U.S., and the more they rise up the income scale? No. A study by political scientists James G. Gimpel and Karen Kaufmann showed that Hispanics became more Democratic the longer they stayed in the U.S., and though Republican identification did indeed rise with prosperity, the Democrats retained a 10-point lead even at the highest levels of income.
The Texas primary confirmed these gloomy results for the GOP even before the results were tabulated. Hispanics were 12 percent of the Texas electorate in 1998, and are expected to be 20 percent — the "tipping point" at which their rise will make Texas a Democratic-leaning state — within six years. As GOP pollster Matthew Dowd, a longtime booster of the Hispanic/amnesty strategy, conceded to Dan Balz of the Washington Post: "The question this year is whether the Sanchez campaign advances that [i.e., making Texas a competitive swing state rather than a reliably Republican one], compressing six years into six months." It might do so; Sanchez combined an ethnic appeal to Hispanics — objecting to his opponent's wish to answer questions in English and Spanish rather than solely in Spanish in a televised debate — with an economic appeal to moderate middle-class whites, calling for low taxes.
For that very reason, however, his looks like a transitional candidacy even if he wins in November. For as Hispanic voting strength grows, so it is likely to reflect in Texas the liberal economic voting patterns celebrated by Meyerson in California.
What lies behind this political drift in Texas? Exactly the same force that is pushing once-reliable GOP states like California and Florida into, first, the "undecided" and eventually the "Democratic" column: demographic change driven by immigration. The Hispanic share of the population has risen sharply in these major states in the last 30 years; the Hispanic share of the electorate is now catching up, as immigrants become citizens and register to vote; and their votes heavily favor the Democrats. What has happened in California and now Texas is destined to happen in all the states with large concentrations of His panic immigrants. This is not a political prediction; it is a mathematical relationship.
As the study by Gimpel and Kaufmann demonstrated, moreover, this drift will be very hard to reverse. Republican hopes for major gains in the Hispanic electorate are without foundation. Democrats lead the GOP by large margins in every Hispanic group except Cuban-Americans. There is no sign that any significant group of Latino voters is "in play." Because Hispanic voters lean to the Democrats on economic and social grounds, the GOP would have to change almost all its policies (on taxes, welfare, regulation, labor law) to have any hope of attracting Hispanic crossovers in the long term. Above all, insofar as there is a modest drift rightwards among Hispanics as they rise economically, that is more than canceled out by the fact that continuing immigration channels new, poor Hispanic voters into the Democratic ranks.
Of course, there are Hispanics — between one-quarter and one-third of the total Latino electorate — who loyally pull the Republican lever. But they are the very voters who are least likely to favor sectional appeals to a separate Hispanic identity, such as an amnesty for illegals, and most likely to respond to traditional Republican arguments for patriotic assimilation. In the post-9/11 atmosphere, other Hispanics might be won over to their side by a patriotic appeal of that kind. But unless the Bush administration wakes up to the electoral impact of continuing immigration, the most the GOP can hope for is to slow the pace of its decline.
I am sure you have the data to back up that claim. Mind sharing it with us?
You're just another ignorant, big mouth troublemaker, who wouldn't know the truth, if it bit you in the balls...
Sir, please kindly watch your language. I shouldnt have to remind you this is a moderated forum. Please stop the personal attacks or there will be consequences.
Too bad. Take it up with WRhine and the Moderator.
Please stop the personal attacks or there will be consequences.
Don't threaten me!
It's not semantics, it's simply the truth. There is no amnesty!
Sir, if you continue, it wont be neccesary, the Moderator will take it up with you. That goes for WHRine as well, if you feel he has attacked you.
However, this issue, like any other, can be debated without resorting to crude terms. No one has to agree with anyone elses point of view, but personal attacks and vulgar language are not necessary to making a point.
Don't threaten me!
No one is threatening you. You are simply being politely informed of the rules. It is your choice to obey them or ignore them and as was said before, should you choose to continue to ingore them, there will be consequences.
You Bush-Bots are an interesting study in groupthink. Just to let you know, I am one of those conservatives that campaigned for and financially supported Bush in 2000. Unlike you though I am not another Bush shilling moron that spins away and ignores one broken campaign pledge after another as Bush tries to foolishly appease the left and help the democrats build a new constituency of future democratic voters by encouraging more illegal immigration. Numb Nuts like you won’t figure out that your conservative values and your country's sovereignty have been sold out by this president until the Republican Party is reduced once AGAIN to minority party status.
BTW, FR is a “Conservative” forum. Not a "Republican” forum. You knee "jerk" Bush Apologists should start your own Rah Rah forum where "A Day In the Life Of Bush" is the standard intellectual fare.
If you find something that offensive, hit the abuse button and report it. OTOH, a private email would have been more then appropriate. Those are two options you have.
Frankly, I find your continued air of condescension and indignation, over the top.
Unlike you, I can tell the difference between the factual truth and the lies and distortions you've spewing tonight. Like I told before, you wouldn't know the truth, if it bit you in the cojones! That makes you the numb nut around here.
BTW, FR is a “Conservative” forum.
Oh really! Well I know that, but you're no conservative. You're a political neanderthal. LOL.
You are so right. It is amazing some people just don't get it.
I am? I'll tell you what, why don't you do a archive search on my posts during the fall of 2000 and come back and tell me again that I am a liar. Hey, it's all there on FR. Maybe then you will be a little more careful of who you call liar in the future because of your inability to deal with reality.
What a hypocrite... I guess "human rights" only apply to his expatriate countrymen who suffer under the cruel conditions of El Notre.
My ability to deal with reality, isn't in question. Your so-called past support for President Bush, is what's in question. I've invested a lot of time, effort and money in President Bush over the last three years. I don't cut and run from a someone I supported as a candidate for a year and a half, after just 16 months in office. You haven't done your homework properly and have rushed to judgment, over issues you clearly don't understand. Too many people on FreeRepublic have let their emotions get the better of them. This is a time for thinking, not feeling. When the going gets tough, the tough get going. I don't think the going has gotten tough yet. Far from it.
I don't have the time to waste looking up anything on someone like you. If what you say, is true and you once supported President Bush, you're now a political turncoat. The only way Republicans can win elections and the conservative movement can advance its agenda, is for everyone to remain loyal to the cause and stick together. I support Bush most of the time. He has disappointed me on a some issues and I've been critical of him on several occasions, but this is no time to jump ship. Bush is riding high in the polls. He's handling a very difficult military conflict and doing a remarkable job leading the country, like no one has since Ronald Reagan. Wake up already.
If you don't like being called a liar, get back with the program and stop attacking Bush and his supporters.
No, I'm afraid that I am guilty of being able to think independently from the party from time to time. If that makes me a turncoat then fine, I am a turncoat.
Maybe you should think about this: If everyone that voted for Bush patted him on the back and defended his every move, no matter how far to the left he drifted, do you believe this would help the conservative cause? Or would Bush take the path of least resistance and move further to the left? You shouldn't be surprised when heated inner-party struggles emerge over policy decisions. It's part of the political process and ultimately beneficial to Bush and the GOP if they listen to what people of their party are saying about the issues.
They don't want to understand, they want to bury their head in the sand and pretend everything is alright. I also believe a few of these people have a vested interest in illegal aliens and the cheap labor they provide. One even admitted he hired some of them and what wonderful workers they were (for a paltry sum, I'm sure), lol. Yes, the country can be turned into another Mexico for the benefit of the greedy people who have to have cheap labor.
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