Posted on 05/16/2002 12:24:37 PM PDT by hchutch
For its political survival, the Republican Party must court the Hispanic vote. Totally shut out among black voters and badly defeated among Hispanics, the GOP is having a hard time finding enough white voters to overcome the deficit. With blacks and Hispanics casting one vote in four, a Republican must win two-thirds of the white vote to have a shot at 51 percent in the average election.
And the situation will only get worse for the Republican Party. The Hispanic population, which swelled from 7 percent to 12 percent of the U.S. population in the past 10 years, is forecast to grow to 18 percent by the end of the decade. If they continue to vote Democrat, the GOP will run out of white people — and face death as a political party.
Only by taking the bold and dramatic step of providing amnesty to illegal Mexican immigrants can the GOP, at a stroke, become competitive among Hispanic voters. This legislation, the equivalent for Hispanics of the 1964 Civil Rights Act for blacks, holds the potential to reposition an entire slice of the electorate and move Hispanics to the Republican Party.
But, at the same time, the Republican Party needs to hang on to its base of angry white men who largely oppose immigration — and illegal immigration most of all. They are the base that insisted on English-only initiatives in the 1980s and 1990s, battled to cutoff aid to illegal aliens, and demanded a halt to bilingual education.
How are Republicans to reach out to Hispanics while appeasing their truculent base?
President Bush has already taken the lead in pulling the Republican Party back from the issue precipices on which it was dancing. By stopping Republicans from opposing bilingual education or affirmative action, and by demoting English-only initiatives to the bottom of the party’s agenda, he has moved mightily to strengthen GOP outreach to Hispanics.
But it is his amnesty proposal for illegal Mexican immigrants that holds the real hope for his party to avert demographic extinction.
The key to resolving the Republican dilemma of having to choose between outreach to Hispanics and alienating its Anglo political base is to condition amnesty with good citizenship requirements.
Republicans should offer conditional amnesty to Mexican illegal immigrants. Here’s the deal: If you want to stay in the United States, you must enroll in a good-citizen program. The immigrant has to agree to become functionally literate in English within two years, work for six of the next eight quarters and pay taxes to FICA (Federal Insurance Contributions Act) for each of these quarters — no off-the-books work — and avoid arrest for 24 months.
At the end of the two-year period, those who meet the requirements would become citizens in good standing, eligible to vote and participate in civic life. Those who refuse to enroll or who fail the meet the requirements would face deportation. If the program works, it can be expanded to other categories of illegal immigrants.
Polling shows that most voters, even among the GOP base, are willing to forgive the illegality of their arrival if these Mexican immigrants show a willingness to earn their legal status in America. The compromise has the contractual opportunity/responsibility formula that sold so many of Clinton’s programs and that lies at the core of the highly successful welfare reform program. By asking something in return for giving something, the resulting transaction acquires a moral impetus that it sorely needs to win national support.
At the same time as the Republicans offer the olive branch to illegal Hispanic immigrants, they must use this year’s review of immigration statutes to close down immigration from nations that sponsor or harbor terrorists — including even such so-called allies as Saudi Arabia and Egypt. By closing one spigot as they open the other, Republicans can master the political hat trick of reaching out to Hispanics while appeasing their political base.
Otherwise, the GOP will go the way of the Liberal Party in Great Britain, to the political grave.
True, but most of that opposition is in the theme of being opposed to sin and in favor of motherhood. However, most prostitutes are mothers.
When you get into the nitty-gritty details of what opposing illegal immigration will cost Joe Average, in terms of money and personal convenience, Joe Average will turn right around and tell you you're out of your mind, and no WAY will he buy off on that.
Welcome to America, where everyone wants to go to Heaven, but very few are willing to buy a ticket.
Right now, the thing to do is to amend Bush's 245(i) proposal to something that reflects the setup Morris proposed. That's the best you can do, and if the Dems oppose it, you can nail them hard, because you're setting these people up to succeed in this country, and they're trying to get them hooked onto the dependency cycle.
1) Why should Hispanic American citizens care whether illegal alien Mexican nationals are given amnesty? If several million Englishmen snuck into the US illegally, I wouldn't be dancing a jig at the prospect of them getting a free ride to citizenship.
2) Why would the illegal alien Mexican national, upon obtaining amnesty and then citizenship at some future date, not say "Thank you, Mr. Republican," and then vote Democrat anyway because of the generous social welfare benefits that party is using to buy votes?
Most American hispanics support controls. They turn went they sense racism. It is arrogant liberal P.C. expectations that have promoted the contrary. Of course, this view is accepted by Morris because it coincides with the financial forces that support mass immigration. If rampant immigration were explained for what it really was, a policy to decrease their wages, there would be little problem. Also, blacks would join up quickly since mass immigration affects disproportionately their labor rates and voices.
Morris is wrong. These "Hispanics" will never turn in significant numbers for Republicans. His argument is a bit liberal racist, that Hispanics would vote this way - and they're all the same. But the argument is just paid-for propaganda for the few that benefit from depressed wages.
Morris is wrong. Until the Republicans get rid of the Wall Street Joural wing of globalism and mass immigration, that only benefits a few, they will be a permanent minority. If they listened to americans they'd have a landslide. Look at very left wing Holland. But the money is not there, it's in undermining American working people's wages and power, seemingly a good thing for about half of the Republican politicians on the national level.
Hey, Sabertooth, is this guy pals with Grover Norquist?
"At the end of the two-year period, those who meet the requirements would become citizens in good standing, eligible to vote and participate in civic life. Those who refuse to enroll or who fail the meet the requirements would face deportation. "
Now your talkin'! I read this and agreed before I saw who proposed it.
Message to White House: Listen to Dick Morris' proposal and act on it immediately. Do the right thing the right way.
Of course you would prefer this 245i option to fighting for your nation and its culture. Typical of the neo-cons. Neo-cons are not conservative at all.
Would you care to address the points that Mr. Morris made in this column, or are you just going to sit on the sidelines and throw rocks?Aw, keep throwing them! hc, are you sure you understand the political realities? I don't think you do at all. All I see are liberal suppositions about how hispanics should think, etc.
Check out Holland. A real life example. Despite the smear, Pim Fortuyn had a lot of "immigrants" vote for him, very strong support in some communities. They were citizens. Once he got through the Liberal P.C./Conservative Globalist propaganda, they understood that he was good for them.
/sarcasm
Read through this. It's propaganda being flagpoled to see if it will fly. It's from the Globalist-mentality financiers who benefit. Not you. You don't benefit one iota. Follow the money. First question: who's paying Morris for this?
BTW, watch out for more of it to come. A demonization of Tancredo may be in the works. Demonize a fellow Republican? Sure, why not. It's about the money, not the people. I bet we see a flurry of "conservative" "grassroots" groups fronting for the money espousing this malarky. I'd bet a lot. They're already working on the trucking industry, trying to depress wages of Americans by giving illegals commercial privileges. Know any truckers? Better warn them they soon won't be able to support a family.
Wow, talk about revisionism. Speaking as a Los Angeleno, you obviously don't know what you're talking about. Prop. 187 was one of the most popular ballot initiatives in the state's history.
The problem with the GOP and 187 was that the leaders at the national level: Newt (serial philanderer), Kemp (talk about a big-tent dumb jock) and Bennett (the man who gave us the 1989 Assault Rifle ban) all conspired to kill the 187 steam roller that was building steam after 187 won in California.
Prop. 187 was targeted at ILLEGAL activities and because it was struck down and not enforced by Davis California is now starring at a a 25 BILLION dollar deficet this year alone.
Also let us not forget that 187 had support in both the Hispanic and Black votting communities, about 51% of hispanic voters and over 60% of Black voters supported Prop 187 so stop with the disinformation campaign that it was a KKK plan to oppress minorities.
If the GOP is in trouble over immigration it is because they backed the ILLEGAL ALIEN constituency.
I'm personally open to modifying the length of time, myself - in fact, it should be lengthened to a couple of years longer than for those who came in legally. But a setup similar to this is the best deal we can get.
Mr. Morris also has a pretty good reputation for reading situations, and he has one heck of a track record.
Sorry, but 187 didn't do us much good among the black population. They're still reliably Democratic.
First of all, Illegal Immigration is AGAINST THE LAW. Do you not seem to understand that? Tolerating law-breaking only encourages more law-breaking. As a society, are we to condone this?
Second of all, you seem to forget how small the registered Hispanic vote there is. By focusing on the rule of law, the majority of the population will support the Republican party en masse. This is a great opportunity for the Republican Party to come out against illegal immigration and win in landslides. However, they, either through the cheap labor profits, or through PC, are unable to bring themselves to do this.
Third, pandering to Illegals ALIENATES the Conservative base and this, right in itself, will cause the Republicans to lose. You can't take oaths of office to uphold the laws and then expect Conservatives to vote for you. Meanwhile, the votes that you may get are infinitely small and do not equate the numbers of votes that you will lose.
Fourth, most Hispanic Americans are opposed to amnesty. It is only the illegal alien mafia that supports it, as well as illegals. Don't you think that an amnesty would alienate their vote, too?
Fifth, the negative social ramifications are too great to be playing with this. If you want a balkanized America, this is the way to do it.
All this talk of amnesty is nothing more than profits for big business, votes for democrats, and, to an extent, part of the new world order agenda. It has nothing to do with the Constitution, votes for the Republican Party, etc. Only the misinformed believe that this is a good strategy.
So, what should we do?
1) Enforce a no-illegal hiring policy.
2) Institute fines for such offenses.
3) Deport Illegals
You would literally watch the votes pour in for the Republican party if they backed this agenda.
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