Who in the Republican presidential field is going to win the Hispanic vote? In Florida the Hispanic vote is important for the Republican nomination because of the large number of Republican Cubans.
John McCain was winning this effort by far because of his stance on immigration and because of his friendly rhetoric towards Hispanics. During one debate he pointed out that many of the names on the Vietnam memorial were in fact Hispanic. But since then, John McCain's campaign has all but died. He's not even considered a top tier candidate anymore.
Because of the heated immigration debate, Republicans are scared that any targeting towards Hispanics may seem like pandering to illegals. In Florida this is not the case; although we have many Hispanics, very few of them are actually illegal. Who's going to have the guts to go after that vote?
Univision, the Spanish television channel, planned two debates, one for Republicans and one for Democrats both in South Florida. Hillary Clinton has announced that she will attend, I'm sure the other Democrats will have no problem also attending. John McCain is the only Republican who has agreed to attend and Mitt Romney has rejected the invitation. I think this is an opportunity for Romney and others to explain to the Hispanic community that they are not anti-immigration, but they are just anti-illegal immigration.
Of coarse this is a calculation that every candidate has to make for himself. For example it wouldn't make sense for Tom Tancredo to attend because he is indeed anti-immigration because of the cultural problems he thinks it brings. If the candidates feel they are just going to get beat up than they will not attend. If they don't attend, which I suspect is what is going to happen, then I feel like an opportunity was lost to heal some of the wounds created between the Republican party and the Hispanic community by the immigration debate.
1 comment:
Hi Felix: I sent the following to a conservative Hispanic:
You and I communicated awhile ago regarding my being a conservative Republican who strongly supported CIR. I've moved from Townhall (where I had a lot of technical problems) to http://camp2008victorya.blogspot.com. I've been working for several months (successfully for the most part) trying to build the Republican Party in ways that makes it attractive to family-oriented, conservative, Christian Hispanics -- in other words, attractive to most Hispanics. My main efforts have been on behalf of Sarah Heath Palin, Gov. of Alaska, a Christian conservative (and a caring individual) who should have great appeal not only to Hispanics, but to just about everyone else. She has an approval rating approaching the 90s and a disapproval rating of 5%, which means the only people who like her are Republicans, independents, AND Democrats. I hope you and your readers will visit my site and learn more about this fine woman. Anyone who wants to support our efforts should so indicate by leaving a comment. In the meantime, all the best.
steve maloney
national coordination team, palin 4 VP
Would love to have you on board.
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