Saturday, November 18, 2006

So, this is a surprise?

Remember the presidential election two years ago, and how well the Republicans did with Latino voters? Remember that the President's brother, Jeb Bush, speaks Spanish fluently, and his wife is a Mexican-American? If you don't remember, don't worry. Two years can be a political lifetime, and according to this article in the Washington Post, the GOP has effectively destroyed their chances with Latino voters for now, and perhaps years to come.

The end result of the negative attack ads, where the party paraded nativist adds that blamed Latinos for job loss, crime (or worse, terrorism), being unAmerican and not adequately committed to the U.S., and otherwise ruining "our" country, is that now Latinos know that they cannot trust the GOP, and they spoke out in the mid-term election, coming out for the Democrats with between a 10-14% increase. In many cases, they probably shifted the election away from the GOP.

This election cycle Latinos learned a tough lesson about Republican politics: if they think it will win an election, they'll sell you out in a heartbeat. Even worse, they'll make you an enemy of the state, which is what many of the GOP candidates did in their anti-immigrant ads.

This might also be a good time to pause and remember the Census Bureau predictions for 2050: Latinos will be the majority population. If they are incorrect about this, as they were in 2000, then Latinos will most likely take the majority sooner. Imagine what will happen if that Latino majority is registered to vote.

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