Immigration Law

HISPANIC PANIC

By Greg Siskind

Conservative hand wringing over the implications of the dramatic shift of Hispanic votes away from the GOP is becoming more evident. There have been a slew of articles in both general news publications and in the conservative press discussing the point. Aside from the Karl Rove article I wrote about a few days ago, one that is likely to get a lot of attention is a piece by Duncan Currie in the conservative The Weekly Standard.

And The Hill reports that influential conservative Hispanics are not content to let the Democrats gain permanent loyalty with Latinos. But while the group's members state that the GOP has to "atone" for the rhetoric of some in the party like Tom Tancredo, they believe that simply emphasizing the GOP's alignment with Hispanics on social and economic issues will be enough. But these guys are in denial if they think the GOP can be a party that blocks immigration reform and still curry favor with Hispanic Americans. The massive defection to the Democrats was not just because of nasty rhetoric. Hispanic voters saw two major votes on immigration reform in 2006 and 2007 and formed their views based on concrete positions staked out by the GOP. This was not just about hurt feelings.

Full post as published by Greg Siskind's Blog on November 25, 2008 (boomark / email).