“The ascendancy of Marco Rubio may eventually reveal the democrats’ hypocrisy on the issue of illegal immigration. Suppose that Rubio becomes the v.p. candidate in 2012, or even heads the ticket in 2016. What would happen to all those left-wing plans to enfranchise the illegals if there were a pretty good chance they would vote republican?”
EXACTLY. If the Reps can pick up a sizable chunk of Hispanic votes (40% or more), they are effectively neutralized as a voting block. That leaves the Dems with gays, blacks, and single women living with cats. That’s a lot of people, but not nearly enough to compete with the other 75% of the country, voting more or less as a block.
It’s game over - but the key is the Hispanic vote, we should be able to get it, but we should also be careful. It is easy to upset even solid conservative Hispanics, if we’re not careful. For example, Arizona’s law may be good policy (for a country that intends to last longer than another 10 years), but legal Hispanics have to be convinced that they won’t get thrown in jail just because they forgot their passport when going to the supermarket. It is easy to deal with (in this case, just a stamp on their Driver License would work fine), but we have to understand their concerns.
P.S., I know this because of a co-worker who owns about 20 nice guns, hates liberals, but still worries A LOT about the AZ law. It’s easy for us to fix so everyone’s happy, but we have to understand their concerns to do that.
“If the Reps can pick up a sizable chunk of Hispanic votes (40% or more), they are effectively neutralized as a voting block”
Fearless prediction:
This won’t happen in your lifetime. The Republicans will be lucky to see 20-25% of “the Hispanic vote”, if that much.
For EVERY Hispanic vote the Pubbies pick up, expect two or three more to go to the ‘rats.
Rubio will have as much success gaining respect among Hispanics as Clarence Thomas had with blacks.
I wouldn’t mind being proven wrong.
But I don’t expect to be.