The willful ignorance of Libby Spencer on “Hispanics and electability” caused me to take a look at the question of whether (or how) the GOP nomination of John McCain affects the Hispanic vote. After all, the Hispanic vote has been a factor in the Democratic race, though the media was generally slow to pick up on it. Moreover, an October 2007 Pew poll notes that while they may make up only about 6.5% of those who actually turn out to vote in November,
Hispanics constitute a sizable share of the electorate in four of the six states that President Bush carried by margins of five percentage points or fewer in 2004 — New Mexico (where Hispanics make up 37% of state’s eligible electorate); Florida (14%); Nevada (12%) and Colorado (12%). All four are expected to be closely contested once again in 2008.
Incidentally, for the benefit of people like Spencer who have no clue about why Hispanics cannot be assumed to be Democratic voters, the Pew poll offers some answers, and you can find anecdotal evidence that McCain may draw Hispanic votes. But I went looking for more than anecdotes.
It turns out that the media — and pollsters — are being just as slow to pick up on Hispanics in their general election polling. The recent polls from Pew, the L.A. Times and Fox I reviewed when looking at the white male vote do not break out numbers for Hispanics — which means those numbers are more characterized as black and non-black. The ABC News/Washington Post poll fails here also (moreover, it is a poll of adults — contrary to how I have seen it described at RCP and elsewhere). Ditto with the Cook/RT Strategies report (.pdf). Same with Newsweek and Rasmussen (it is not clear if you get those numbers when you pay for the crosstabs, either).
A TIME/Abt SRBI poll taken over a month ago suggests McCain was drawing between 33%-38% of the Hispanic vote. The TIME poll also suggests that Obama would do better than Clinton with Hispanics against McCain. Given that Clinton has generally fared much better with Hispanics than Obama, I would take the TIME result with a grain of salt.
Review these results in light of recent history:
Democrats have traditionally enjoyed a strong advantage among Hispanic voters, though Mr. Bush changed all that, gaining 35 percent in 2000 and as much as 44 percent in 2004. Two years later, however, Republicans’ support among Hispanics collapsed under the weight of the immigration debate, falling to 30 percent for Republican congressional candidates.
Thus, the best data available suggests that at the moment, McCain is doing at least a bit better than the GOP did nationally in 2006, perhaps as well as Bush did in 2000. But the bigger story at the moment may be that pollsters and the establishment media are generally not bothering to break out the Hispanic vote in their published poll results.
Update: Insta-lanche!
I’m sure I don’t know. I’m no wonk myself and frankly, stats and demographic analysis bores me. I believe in people, not numbers…
Yeah, Barbie, math *is* hard.
However, I’m pretty sure of one thing. Even if Hispanics prefer Clinton now, I find it difficult to believe they would vote for McCain over Obama, when McCain is going to be preaching the GOP party line on immigration. I see no reason why they would.
I thought it was pretty well-known – even among the math-is-hard crowd – that legal and especially native born, bilingual Hispanics are more inclined to favor enforcement because illegals make life more difficult for them. There’s a recent report here that is interesting in this regard.
NB, it includes numbers and graphs, so here’s a number free summary:
In addition to this wide variance in views between Hispanics and non-Hispanics, the survey finds less pronounced–but still significant–gaps within the Hispanic community on a range of matters, from perceptions about discrimination to attitudes about illegal immigration to support for tougher enforcement measures. For example, on questions about enforcement policies, native-born Hispanics take positions that are closer to those of the rest of the U.S. population than do foreign-born Hispanics. Also, the native born are less likely than the foreign born to report a negative personal impact from the heightened attention to immigration issues.
Oh, yeah, my point (sheesh): legal and especially native born, bilingual Hispanics.
You know, ones who can vote.
You know, ones who can vote.
That is the tell in arguments like Libby’s, they only make sense if you are assuming that illegals comprise a significant part of the hispanic bloc. I wonder why it is always Democrats who think such things?
The GOP line on immigration? If there is one, or if it is what I imagine Libby thinks it is, McCain has long been opposed to it. I’d suggest that she have a look at the Obama immigration policy and see if she can find where it differs from the “GOP line.” Secure the borders, crack down on employers, create a system for legal guest workers to be documented. How is this different from McCain’s position? Well, Obama’s plan is less illegal friendly than McCain’s.
Karl – seriously, man, do you sleep?
Anyway, thanks for all the work. This is my first stop for election stuff.
“I find it difficult to believe they would vote for McCain over Obama, when McCain is going to be preaching the GOP party line on immigration.”
Wasn’t the party line basically amnesty? And isn’t that, along with BCRA, one of the serious problems conservatives have with McCain?
Actually, there wasn’t one. Bush and McCain were pro-amnesty, but in places like the House of Representatives (before the 2006 election) the Republican line was pro-border-security-first.
With McCain as nominee though, the party line for this campaign will almost certainly be amnesty-lite. But when you factor in jdm’s point in #1 above that does actually turn around to putting Hispanic voters against McCain’s election.
In the end, though, I’m firmly in the “WhoTF knows/cares?” camp when it comes to this election. It’s been years since even “se3rious” campaign coverage has been useful to anyone who wants to try to make the right choice.
Belvediere,
I do not sleep as much as I would like. That being said, I often write a post later at night and time-stamp it to publish the next morning.
Republicans are racist. George Bush hates black people.
I don’t believe any of it….first the so-called “Hispanic community” is made up, to a large extent, of illegal aliens – who are foreign nationals, illegal squatters that deserve nothing but deportation. Therefore, a great many Latinos are inelligible to vote. Are some voting? You damn right they are. Why? Because we fail to require proof of citizenship and registration for voting, because Democrats and Republicans are both LIBERALS.
Secondly, American-Latinos have an unusually low percentage of voting participation.
Lastly, the “worry” over the “Hispanic” vote is mostly nonsense pushed by Jorge Bush, Carlos Rove, Juan McAmnesty and Miquel Medved and company.
Remember folks, we’re being invaded from ol’ Meh-hee-co. Do you care at all?
The problem is that Republicans in general doesn´t know how to attack Illegal Immigration without attacking all Hispanics or comparing all of them with terrorists…
Yes Andre Kenji all Republicans are racist. The word illegal is a racist slur against Hispanics.
Yeah, and that’s John McCain’s problem…thinking that all hispanics are terrorists. I, Pablo, have that problem too.
I have the mistaken impression people here illegally are committing a crime. That shows what little I know.
first the so-called “Hispanic community†is made up, to a large extent, of illegal aliens –
This is apparently just your opinion. You offer no evidence and I think its quite obviously false. Can we discuss this topic without distortion? I served with plenty of hispanics in the Army and I am sure that there are several millian real americans with Hispanic surnames.
>Lastly, the “worry†over the “Hispanic†vote is mostly nonsense pushed by Jorge Bush, Carlos Rove, Juan McAmnesty and Miquel Medved and company.Remember folks, we’re being invaded from ol’ Meh-hee-co. Do you care at all?
“Lastly, the “worry†over the “Hispanic†vote is mostly nonsense pushed by Jorge Bush, Carlos Rove, Juan McAmnesty and Miquel Medved and company.”
“Remember folks, we’re being invaded from ol’ Meh-hee-co. Do you care at all?”
You know, I’d like to argue we have no bigots in our party and I’m even willing to take for granted and believe that you’ve never committed a discriminatory act in your life.
It does nothing to advance their side of the debate when a few members of our party argue, like they implied during the amnesty debates, that everybody who disagrees with them is a racist.
But there our comments of ours that appear during these debates, like the above, that are so obviously dripping with Hispanic-phobia (whatever you want to call it) vs. reasoned concise thought, that it is detrimental to our party, our politics, conservatism, and any rational debates over immigration not to call them out on it.
And please spare me any responses of “I’m only against illegal immigrants.” Either you can engage in these debate without tossing “Jorge”, “Juan”, Meh-hee-co–or you can’t.
In fact, this is so obvious, I’m almost tempted to say this is a liberal posting here just to make us look bad.
I’m sure you have well thought out and intellectually honest reasons for supporting your positions, argue them.
Please don’t embarrass us all in the process.
I work with a good number of Hispanics that are ctizens and many feel that the illegals are making it difficult for them. And they tend to be very lawabiding, family oriented citizens, not looking for a handout but a fair shake. The illegals are thought to put them ( the citizens/green card holders) in a bad light because they are lumped together in the sterotype.
Some have said that they resent the freen pass the two parties are trying to give the illegals.
Well “red”, let me say this. I have watched this topic closely since 2000, when my brother was killed by an illegal amigo, who ran back to Mexico, never to be found let alone extradited.
There are millions of Latinos who are American citizens, many born here, many naturalized. But when the media and politicians talk about the “Hispanic community” today, that includes huge numbers of illegal aliens. Have you paid attention for the last ten years or so? Just a few months ago, the states of Florida and Texas both estimated that two-thirds of all Hispanic “immigrants” in their states were ILLEGAL. Look it up on the ‘net. I wonder what Arizona and California’s proportions are, probably even higher. Think there is 12 million here? The real number is probably over 20 million.
Approximately 3,000 identity stealing, social security fraud commiting, driving without a license, income tax evading, “hard workin amigos” cross our southern border each and every day.
Remember folks, illegal aliens have no way to work in this nation legally. They are either using fake or stolen documents or they are getting paid under the table. The illegal and the employer are both commiting crimes. But everyone is afraid to point this out for fear of being called a bigot or racist. I don’t give a flippin damn about name calling. These illegal Latinos are criminals and deserve nothing but deportation. That is not execution, that’s not life in prison but simply deportation.
Coming here without a visa is a crime. Working here without a visa is a worse crime. Using fake or stolen ID’s is another crime. Get the picture?
Cause I think a lot the polling lacks premises. The hispanic data I use will break it down usually english/spanish and sometimes reach a little further and say acculturated/unacculturated (which can be misleading cause a lot of times that’s what they’re calling english/spanish)… For both acculturated AND unacculturated country of origin can also be a necessary discriminator depending on what’s being looked at.
The premises that are missing is to what degree different subpops value acculturation. Maybe Pew has this, but I haven’t seen it… For marketing it’s a numbers game anyway, since we know certain media vehicles are aggregating an audience that cuts across a lot of this, and they all use, say, laundry detergent. Food is trickier. But for a campaign, you definitely have to target the two groups differently with different messaging.
SB baby! Welcome to the real world. I use derogatory language against politicians anytime I want boy, I served in uniform, have you? Did you father? Did your grandfather? Mine did. That gives me the perogative to slander ass-kissing, lying laywers (aka, politicians). :)
I call Jorge Bush, JORGE because he can’t find enough hours in the day to bend over to a 3rd world toilet like Meh-hee-co, since he called the Minute Men “vigilantes”, since Juan McAmnesty told a bunch of Americans that they were too lazy to pick veggies for $50/hr just last year, that Carlos Rove gave a speech last year when he said he didn’t want his son “working in the fields” and Miquel Medved, who moved his family out of Calif. to 95% caucasian Washington state. Hypocrites.
I know my stuff on this topic, challenge me anytime you’d like. I know the Heritage Foundation’s number crunching on “the invasion” practically by heart baby!
Deal with the reality of the situation. Mexico wants to send another 30-40 million identity stealing, social security fraud comitting, income tax evading amigos here in the next 15-20 years.
Do you want you children speaking Spanish and celebrating “Sink Hole de Mayo”? I don’t. I’m proud of US traditions, customs, the English language, etc. Deal with it.
I got my eye on you Pablo! Si nue something.
“Sink Hole De Mayo”. I’ve got that military background myself and you’re a frickin dipshit. So there. A criminal killed your family member, an illegal alien. The other many millions of hispanics in this country have every single right that you fought for. Must suck, them being brown people and all.
This is the logical fallacy known as “Lying Your Fucking Ass Off.”
Of course, it is in fact the Democrats and their MSM lackeys who conflate illegal and legal immigration in an attempt to smear their opponents.
You keep lying like that, people will stop believing you.
Oh, and another thing. I hate Illinois Nazis also!
“Welcome to the real world. I use derogatory language against politicians anytime I want boy, I served in uniform, have you? Did you father? Did your grandfather? Mine did. That gives me the perogative to slander ass-kissing, lying laywers (aka, politicians). :)”
No to first. Yes to the latter two.
RG, good for you. Ya know as much as I’m criticizing you, I would have laid off if I had heard the bit about your brother.
But I’m not attacking your right to do anything, much less slander politicians.
What I am saying is you are embarrassing and being completely counterproductive to your side in doing it.
you smattered a few politicians with Hispanic epithets. Fantastic. You can now go home tonight feeling better about yourself…
Of course, you’ve completely turned people reading this, you’ve turned a few people away from your positions, and you’ve convinced nobody to come over to your side while doing . . . but they have to deal with it!
(nevermind that they’ll be the ones setting the rules, they’ll be in a better position to win the debates because of the arguments of people like you, but you’ll feel better about yourself . . . temporarily)
If you’d posted here the bit about your brother, if you’d posted the rest of it – that would have been a powerful argument.
Instead, despite all you’ve done, you wind up sounding like a petulant child who wins over nobody.
Now it takes a lot for somebody with all the stuff you can reference to accomplish that, but you’re doing it – and you’re accomplishing nothing else.
Since we disagree on this position, congrats
But as long as you’re doing it, can you toss in the bit about “leaving the Republicans Party” so you at least don’t taint the rest of us with this.
I think that voting Hispanics tend to vote like Catholics. They are mostly Catholic to begin with and are mostly pro-life. They are also of a diverse background, with the exception that a large number are of Mexican background. Even then, you can’t, IMHO, put all the Mexicans in a box.
“Since we disagree on this position, congrats”
Let me amend that slightly, I am in favor of much greater enforcement, sealing up the borders, etc.
What my guess is-is that I am much more open to loosening all the restrictions on legal immigration than you would be.
This whole business of “the Hispanic community” is a bunch of crap produced by journalists and pollsters who are too lazy to actually take the time and parse out the differences between different groups of Latinos here in the States. Mexicans are not Puerto Ricans are not Cubans are not crypto-Jews; they all have different issues and priorities that cause them to move one way or the other on the immigration issue. Lumping us all together is pretty damned annoying and I wish you Anglos would knock it off.
I want to note that happyfeet had the most serious and nuanced comment in the thread so far.
I also agree with SB that whatever the merits of RG’s side (and some of it has merit) and whatever sorrow I feel for RG’s loss (plenty), the emotion RG feels does seem to result in expressing points in a way that will tend to turn off voters who might otherwise be persuaded on the illegal immigtration issue. I was highly offended when those in favor of the McCain-Kennedy bill suggested those who opposed it are nativists or racists — but to respond by calling people Juan and Jorge and referring to “Meh-hee-co” plays into their hands, even where, as here, there is another reason for RG’s anger.
Steve Malanga reported in the Los Angeles Times last year that Bush did not likely receive 44% of the Latino vote. That percentage was probablly an overestimation. Academics placed Bush’s share at around 35-37%, roughly the same share he received in 2000.
wombat-socho,
I get that, which is why I noted happyfeet had the most nuanced comment so far. No voting bloc is monolithic, though some are more or less so than others. They are over-generalizations created not by journalists so much as pollsters and candidates, who tend to prefer the largest meaningful generalizations to enable marketing, much as one would do with detergent. Indeed, in my prior posts about the white male vote, it is just as easy to see the over-generalizations that are made. But rather than be “annoyed,” understand why it is done; it’s marketing. Incidentally, you might also want to examine your assumption that it is done only by Anglos.
Cody,
The dispute over the 2004 number is why I linked to the Washington Times ppiece that phrased it as “as much as 44 percent.” The article also notes the dispute.
I want to note that happyfeet had the most serious and nuanced comment in the thread so far.
Damn.
Karl, I understand that it’s not just done by Anglos, but since y’all mostly the ones doing the polls and being the talking heads, you see where I’m coming from. The Asians have the same problem: nobody bothers to parse out the Vietnamese from the Koreans/Chinese/Japanese, and they’re not too enthused about it either.
Donald, you fail to discriminate crucial differences. The term “Hispanic” is an almost meaningless, made up (in the 1970’s), politically correct term. Latinos and/or Chicanos are more correct terms. I did not say “Hispanics” should be deported; I said illegal aliens should be deported ASAP. From Meh-hee-co, from Canada, Russia, China, Ireland, everywhere. Why? Because I’m an American and my first love is to the nation – not to a party or an election year scheme to win more votes fro m certain ethnic groups.
Now to the point: The Heritage Foundation, Numbers USA, Bear Sterns all have estimated that there are about 20 million illegal aliens in this nation. Most are Latino, most are from Mexico.
An illegal alien does not have the same rights as US citizens, nor should they, if you accept the notion of sovereign nation.
Furthermore, I am also in favor of reducing legal immigration, modestly, for a period of ten year or so. For those of you who need a history lesson, from about 1880 to 1925 the US had high immigration (like today) but from 1925 to 1965 we had low immigration. In ’65 Teddy (the swimmer) Kennedy ram-rodded “immigration reform” through Congress, which favored non-Caucasian immigrants, so we are now favoring Latinos, Asians and Arab/Muslims. Anyone have a problem with Muslim immigration? I do most definitely! They will not likely assimilate into the American “norm”. Why? It’s the culture stupid!! Sharia law, there is no separation between mosque and state.
Steve Malanga and Heather McDonald are quite right. el Presidente Jorge Busheron (and his dream of a North American Union) did not get a particularly high percentage of the foreign national, I mean illegal alien, I mean, undocumented worker, I mean undocumented citizen vote in 2000 and 2004. It’s just a Mehlman/Medved/Rove spin story to excuse bringing more slaves, I eman, hard workin, identity stealing, driving without a license amigos here to work the 21st century plantations….shades of the Deep South, circa 18th and 19th centuries. How these change….NOT!
Come to Michigan, Ohio, Indiana, Pennslyvania and see over 7% unemployment as our jobs have moved to the toilet known as Meh-hee-Co while at the same time, 20 million fraudulent amigos have come here! Ain’t NAFTA grand?
I am a Scotto-Hiberno myself.
Jeez, I was expecting some protein wisdom and all I found was soggy starch.
For all of your RINOs and your “Hispanics have family values” crowd……According to such respected researchers as Robert Richter (Heritage Foundation) and Heather MacDonald (City Journal, NY), (look them up) so called “Hispanics” (i.e. Mexicans or Mestizos) have the highest out of wedlock birthrate, the highest high school dropout rate (or conversely, the lowest academic achievement), and the highest incidence of gang membership in the nation. Great family values, amigo!
On average, illegals crossing our southern border (3,000 each day) have a 7th grade education. Even Jorge Bush, in the fall of 2006, said about 10% of everyone crossing the border is a serious criminal. Do the math. Of course, Jorge forgot to mention they are all criminals, (since how are they working here legally?) but we’ll leave that for another debate.
“You must have courage to face the world as it is and now how you wish it to be”. Or put another way, “facts are stubborn things”.
“A nation without borders is not a nation” – R. Reagan
“No manufacturing = no independent nation” – me
Actually my take on immigration (or any other law) boils down to this: if the law is on the books, it should be enforced without fear or favor. If it isn’t going to be enforced, then repeal it, fire the entire bureaucracy created to enforce it, and return the money to the taxpayers.
Must suck to know RG your argument can be defeated by calling you a racist or just spouting “George Bush hates black people”.
By the way just cause you served in the military doesn’t give you the right to spout off like an asshole.
And please remember, Meh-Hee-Co has a LOT OF OIL, lots of fertile farm land, gold, silver and great coastlines. Yet, why, why are they so corrupt and incompetent, purt-near for about a 180 years now?
Hmmm, could it be the culture? Nah, enjoy a breakfast burrito gringo, soon you’ll be eating like a turd-world peasant too! We don’t need no stinkin utensils like a civilized person!
Hey Jorge….how’s our dollar doing? Dropping so fast, soon it’ll be as worthless as the peso! Hmm, maybe it’s a scheme to let it drop to introduce a new currency…… the Amero for a Norte Latino Americano Union! Si se puede!
RG are you the original creator of Speedy Gonzales?
Yeah, I shouldn’t (And frankly don’t) think of any group as monolithic as such. Which is why you pissed me off. I own a construction company. I can’t stand the illegal labor bullshit. And to my financial detriment won’t hire them. I prefer my yankees who bitch about everything and think I’m a dumbass. But I’m not gonna project this illegal activity on to the heritage of anybody. As a dumb redneck it just doesn’t seem cricket to me.
Ah, the North American Union shows up! It was only a matter of time, wasn’t it?
NOR LAUP!!!
Just a friendly “Hispanic” comedian huh?
El Paso Times
1,200 hear George Lopez back Obama
…”It is the time of the Latino, your time to step up, your time to take this country over,” Lopez said, eliciting applause.
“But si se puede doesn’t mean anything unless you go out and make it happen.” — Lopez also spent a few minutes chatting with students after making his formal pitch for Obama.
Nah, can’t lay claim to creating Speedy Gonzales, just as one who’s brother was murdered by a “hard workin amigo, just trying to put food on the table, hee, hee” (Jorge Busheron), my mother and I have lived this issue 24/7/365 since the summer of 2000.
We’ve had to put up with the PC bullcrap from police, politicians, news “journalists”, etc. and their constant “Hispandering” the bending over backwards not to call these people what they are: ILLEGAL ALIENS.
The proper punishment for illegal immigration is deportation, boys and girls, nothing more, nothing less. If you don’t deport illegal aliens, you won’t long have a sovereign country. You’ll just have a loose, economic region, where citizenship is watered down to mean just about anything (like squatter’s rights).
Mexico is a chronically corrupt, narco-nation, that can’t find it’s ass with both hands for almost two centuries now. Again, they plan to send another 20-30 million amigos here in the next 15-20 years. Do you want that?
As Michelle Malkin once said cleverly…..”these people are not undocumented. They have plenty of documents, they’re just all fake.”
Okay, thanks, we get it. An illegal alien did something rotten to you. Hey, didja hear John Kerry served in Vietnam?
Mexico is a chronically corrupt, narco-nation, that can’t find it’s ass with both hands for almost two centuries now. Again, they plan to send another 20-30 million amigos here in the next 15-20 years. Do you want that?
Maybe some, many, or most of the ones coming here want to get away from all that.
And that “they [p]lan to send” claim… who’s this “they” you’re talking about? The Mexican gov’t? The same gov’t that “can’t find it’s (sic) ass with both hands”? All of a sudden their competent enough to run a multi-year, multi-administration conspiracy to take over the US?
This sounds like the leftist truther conspiracy nuts who think Geo Bush is as dumb as a chimp but still managed to set up the A-rabs on 9/11 so he could go after Saddam.
There is no such thing as “the Hispanic vote”. Cuban Americans vote 55%-60% Republican. Puerto Rican Americans 30%-35% Republican. Mexican Americans somewhat less Republican. Which is “the Hispanic vote”?
Robbie, see #32.
In 2004 49% of Arizona’s “Hispanics” (nearly all Mexican) voted for the very restrictionist prop. 200, a higher percentage than voted for Bush.
Can those of you obsessed with the mighty “Hispanic vote” explain that?
I’ll explain it for you. Poor Mexican Americans vote for immigration restrictions ’cause they don’t want to lose their $10/hr. job to someone who’ll do it for $7/hr.
They continue to vote Democrat for the social welfare benefits they need to supplement their crappy $10/hr. job.
Republicans cannot and will not garner these votes by pandering on amnesty.
Reagan signed the last amnesty. How many “Thank You Ronald Reagan” banners did you see in those marches a year and two years ago?
To reiterate what #29 said:
My sister in law is Colombian. Do not call her a Mexican or Puerto Rican, do not lump all Hispanics together and make generalizations. (That would be akin to lumping French and Germans and Poles together because they are all European.) To do so would be to have opened a whole can of latina whup-ass on yourself.
And may God have mercy on your soul, ’cause she won’t.
Forget names like “Carlos,” “Jorge,” etc. These people deserve to be tarred, feathered, and thrown out of office. Then prosecuted for enabling corruption and violating their oath to carry out American law.
But no, we nominate them.
Even if they are honestly trying to the truth, the pollsters will not get reliable results until they can separate the “immigration issue” from the “illegal immigration issue”. I wish I had a dime for every time a pundit or journalist used the PC “immigration debate” when they mean “the ongoing illegal immigration disaster that is degrading health care, ruining education and increasing overcrowded conditions in communities all over the United States, while at the same time greatly benefiting the illegal immigrant and their families”.
Robbie,
If you read my original post, I fault Libby Spencer for being so ignorant as to not have a clue as to why some Hispanics might vote for the GOP.
I suspect that you and RG probably showed up via Instapundit, so you should be aware that this blog’s host Jeff Goldstein, is on record as saying he would never vote for McCain (for a number of reasons, including immigration) and saying so in such a way that it got indirectly quoted by NYT columnist David Brooks as an example of McCain Derangement Syndrome. The regulars here are not who you think they are. I am merely reporting where McCain is with Hispanics and that the media which focused on them in the Dem campaign has yet to do so in general election polling. Whatever one’s opinion is on immigration, bilingual education (lefties love it, Hispanics don’t), etc., it is far better to understand it — with the detail you mention — than to ignore it, precisely because the GOP can get Hispanic voters without pandering.
Mikey NTH,
I get #29, but stand by #32. And whites (and blacks, etc.) get routinely lumped together as well. That is not to say that more sophisticated polling is not done. HRC has a pollster who specializes in Hispanic polling, and I’ll bet she gets a much better breakdown of Hispanic voters than we get in polls from Pew and the media. My point is that the media is not even doing its usual over-generalization yet, despite the sizable number of Hispanics in swing states. I would love to have a better breakdown of the Hispanics in those states, in the same way that we know to break Cuban-Americans out in the Florida vote. The point of the post is to identify that Pew and the media are failing completely on this score.
Okay, for teh people who are hung up over the use of hispanic or latino or chicano, shut up. You people are retarded.
Hispanic is overbroad. “Historically Spanish.” Means nothing basically.
Latino…what retard came up with this? Does it include the French? Italian? Stupid.
Chicano sounds like a madeup word.
Henceforth, I give you all permission to use the term “beaner” without any sort of repercussions. “Wetback” is also acceptable to use to describe illegal aliens.
Trying to make this eaier for you folks, so don’t get up my ass.
Here are a few articles I posted on my website pertaining to the Latino vote in 2004 and to GOP partisanship among Latinos. http://www.stephenanuno.com/latino.html
Here is also a link to a journal article I wrote on Latino responsiveness to Latino partisan recruitment.
http://www.stephenanuno.com/Nuno-_Latino_mobilizatoin.pdf
I think in general Latinos respond well to mobilization efforts, whether they be by the GOP or Democrats. Bush demonstrated this in 2000 and 2004. Latino voters also respond positively to legislative efforts to enforce the border, cut benefits to undocumented immigrants, etc., but the context these discussions happen really taints the GOP message, ie. like some of the comments above that throw around bigoted generalizations.
One thing that people need to realize is that immigration as an issue ranks consistently low as a priority among voters, even GOP voters.
A couple of responses to comments above:
“Reagan signed the last amnesty. How many “Thank You Ronald Reagan†banners did you see in those marches a year and two years ago?” Reagan actually got a high level of Latinos voting for him. The 90’s, however, was a particularly harmful decade for GOP/Latino relations and effectively erased whatever gains Reagan had made. Bush recovered ground, but the Party, institutionally, is still struggling with the value of the heavy anti-Latino rhetoric of the 1990’s.
A brief note on the connection between anti-illegal immigration and anti-legal Latino immigration. Latinos are sensitive to this connection because there is historical overlap between the two. US Immigration policy, historically, has been influenced by flat out racist legislators and their constituents. The first attempts to control immigration was in the 1880’s among the Chinese. Then in the 1930’s to try to reverse the growing trend of non-European immigration. This historical bond isn’t lost on the Latino communities.
Latinos are indeed very diverse, but there are many forces that compound to lump Latinos into a single obscured group. 1) Democrat Latinos use Latino demographics as leverage and it therefore makes more sense for them to obscure the true diversity of the Latino electorate, 2) Marketing/consulting professionals trying to make money off the huge Latino market overemphasize the monolithic-Latino in order to improve their business, 3) the bigot wing of the GOP doesn’t want Latinos to grow within the Party and feel they can gain more with nationalists by using divisive rhetoric. In short, both sides of the spectrum gain by the existence of a blurry Latino voting bloc. As many know, this is decidedly false, but as has been pointed out, its also decidedly easy for lazy reporters to write about.
Those who legitimately feel that illegal immigration, regardless of origin, is a problem (a category I feel Jeff is genuinely a member of), often have a disservice done to them when the bigot wing is generally the more vocal (or at least gets the most media attention) of the two anti-illegal immigrant constituencies. Reasonable people can disagree on immigration policy and on policies to integrate immigrants(legal or illegal) into society, and I think Latinos in general are willing to accept measures that reduce migration flows, if its viewed as a fair policy. For instance, I think if JG were to make a pitch for limited migration, increased enforcement, etc. it would receive a better response than if some of the others on this board were to make their argument. Latinos have showed that they would be in favor of many of these measures, but support for them drops significantly if it is viewed as a veiled attempt to take a swipe at Latinos.
One more thing. One of the many ironies of this immigration debate is that the growth in illegal immigration is in part due to the growth in heavy immigration policies against free labor flows from Mexico. The costs of migrating to the US for work is now so high that temporary or seasonal employment is no longer accompanied by temporary or seasonal residency. The two used to be more commonly intertwined, but temporary residency for brief periods of work is no longer a viable option because its so difficult to get here in the first place. This is also why remittances to Mexico (about 40 billion dollars annually I believe) are so high and growing.
Karl #59.
Ah; then just forget my point.
Except don’t call my sister in law a Mexican. That is still valid advice.
Once again, chasing after the mythical “hispanic” voter, which has never existed. Between “Mexican Americans” who have lived in the same spot in(what is now) Texas for the hundred + years that the borders have wiggled around them, the folks fleeing various leftist revolutions from El Salvador on down during the last century (hmmm…wonder if THEY’LL vote for the guy running under the “Si Se Puede” slogan whose staffers proudly flew the Che Guevara flag???Puzzler, that one…)to the guys crossing the border right this second to pick grapes in California, who have the most to lose plus they can’t vote anyway. For once and for all, THERE IS NO HISPANIC BLOCK. There are MILLIONS of us, born all over the place, to include the U.S., in every single socio-economic class, in every shade ( even white, yes hard to believe but true), who look nothing alike, who often don’t even share a language, much less a single voting brain. There are special interest groups who make their money pretending to represent “Hispanics” but we desperately need to, and right this red-hot second, get over the overwhelmingly Teutonic desire to cram everyone into some convenient, tidy little box and categorize them with some discrete label. It doesn’t work. Never has.
“they would vote for McCain over Obama, when McCain is going to be preaching the GOP party line on immigration”
HUH?? Obama’s plan IS McCain’s plan -McCain is the main sponsor for that bill and worked across party lines with Senator Kennedy, taking tons of flak from the xenophobic conservatives to hammer that bill out, jeapordizing his presidential campaign for taking that stance. I would think McCain would atleast take in 45 percent of the Hispanic vote in November…
That on top of the fact that Barack is one of the most liberal people in the Senate, I would think McCain would have an edge on Obama (who didnt capture much of their vote during the primaries).