Latinos want national leader, have trouble naming one

(In a recent poll, 5% of Latinos questioned named Justice Sonia Sotomayor and Florida Senator Marco Rubio as an important Hispanic or Latino leader.)

by Suzanne Gamboa, @SuzGamboa 

More than 50 million and growing, Latinos are hard-pressed to name someone among them as their national leader, even though there is desire for one, according to a new report from Pew Research Hispanic Trends Project.

The study released Tuesday reported that nearly three quarters of Latinos in the United States believe their community needs a national leader. But about the same share of the 5,103 Latinos surveyed could not name one. The study was done by Pew’s Hispanic Trends and Religion and Public Life projects.

Mark Hugo Lopez, lead author of the study, said the finding that Latinos feel they need a national leader to advance the concerns of the community is a new one. Earlier studies only asked Latinos to name national leaders. That prompted questions of whether Latinos thought one was needed.

Lopez said the desire for a national leader was more important among foreign-born Latinos who prefer Spanish, which he said may be a function of getting news from media outlets that give more attention to issues within the Latino community.

When respondents were asked to name the most important Hispanic or Latino leader, Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor, who is Puerto Rican, and Republican Sen. Marco Rubio of Florida, of Cuban descent each were cited by 5 percent of participants.

Former Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa and immigration reform champion Rep. Luis Gutierrez, D-Ill., were cited by 3 percent and 2 percent respectively.
The leading answer was “don’t know,” 62 percent, while 13 percent came up with other names and 9 percent said no one.

The lack of a name of a national leader on the tip of Latinos’ tongues reflects a cultural aspect of the community where years ago the leader was a mother, a father, a parish priest or a local wise person living in the neighborhood, said Sylvia Puente, executive director of the Chicago-based Latino Policy Forum.

“What’s happened with the Latino community as it has developed and matured is there are literally thousands of leaders at the local and community level,” Puente said.

Look at immigration reform, she said. “You can look at the community and see hundreds of people working to keep that issue alive,” said Puente, whose organization advocates on issues of education, immigration reform and housing for Latinos and works to build leaders in the community.

Puente said part of the reason Latino leaders are not better known is because as the community has grown and their issues have matured, the community is not given its fair share of coverage in the media. Latino leaders are not turned to by the media and “it’s the media who designates who those leaders are,” Puente said.

Ray Suarez, who compiled the stories of several Latino leaders over the centuries in his book “Latino Americans,” said the idea that a community of 53 million people can have a single recognized leader “seems a little bit of a long shot to me, but I can see why that has appeal.”

The idea of a single national leader does not seem that useful in the 21st century, Suarez said. “What we need in a disperse community growing in every part of the country is lots of people who come to mind locally,” said Suarez, whose book accompanied a six-part PBS series on the 500-year legacy of Latinos in the United States.

Suarez said a national leader – even a Latino president – is something that emerges organically, from being governor of Texas or a U.S. senator from Califorina. “It won’t be the kind of thing where everyone thinks you are a leader and therefore you are one. You have to have real influence over real events.”

Potential leaders varied by Hispanic origin for some groups. Rubio was most named among Cubans and Sotomayor most named among Puerto Ricans.

Hispanics of Mexican and Salvadoran origin were least likely to name a leader, with just a quarter coming up with a name. But Latinos of Mexican origin split at four percent each in naming Sotomayor and Villaraigosa.
Salvadorans named Gutierrez, 7 percent, and 9 percent of Dominicans named Sotomayor.

The need for a leader also became less of interest if the Latino surveyed was born in the U.S. While 82 percent of foreign-born Latinos said it was extremely or very important the community have a national leader, 64 percent of U.S.-born Latinos said the same.

The Pew study was conducted May 24 through July 28 by landline and cell phone in English and in Spanish. It carries a margin of error of plus or minus 2.1 percentage points.
Other findings of the survey included:

_ Four in 10 Latinos surveyed say that Latinos of different origins share a lot of the same values, while 39 percent say they share some and 19 percent say only a little or almost nothing.

_ One in five of the respondents say they most often describe themselves as Hispanic or Latino. A majority, 54 percent say they most often describe themselves using Latino origin descriptions such as Mexican, Dominican or Puerto Rican and 23 percent use “American” most often.

_ Half of the respondents say they have no preference for being called Hispanic or Latino. But when a preference is expressed, Hispanic is preferred over Latino by 3-1.

Has the GOP stopped worrying about Latinos?

by Benjy Sarlin, Hardball 
- reposted from NBC Latino


If the 2012 election was a wakeup call for Republicans to address their relationship to Latino voters, the 2013 immigration debate is starting to resemble a chloroform-soaked rag.

After November’s stunning loss, an array of influential Republicans argued that immigration reform was the party’s best chance to claim Latino voters before they become permanent Democrats. But in a mere eight months, a counter-narrative has taken hold in conservative circles, nurtured by a shrewd group of anti-immigration lobbyists and Tea Party enthusiasts. The new argument sees immigration reform at best as a divisive distraction from the GOP’s real problem of countering “white flight” from the polls. At worst, they view it as an electoral apocalypse, a seventh seal behind which lies an unbroken line of future Democratic presidents.

As the Senate’s bipartisan immigration bill moves to the House, whose members are overwhelmingly planted in safe GOP districts, the stakes couldn’t be higher for comprehensive reform. Whether it passes will be determined in large part by which of the two narratives can win over the conservative mainstream.

At the moment, the anti-immigration argument appears to be gaining converts fast. On election night, Fox News anchor Brit Hume called the “demographic” threat posed by Latino voters “absolutely real” and suggested Mitt Romney’s “hardline position on immigration” may be to blame for election losses. On Monday, Hume declared that argument “baloney.” The Hispanic vote, he said, “is not nearly as important, still, as the white vote.”

Sean Hannity, a reliable bellwether on the right, has been on a similar journey since the fall. He announced the day after President Obama’s re-election that he had “evolved” on immigration reform and now supported a “path to citizenship” in order to improve relations with Hispanic voters. Hannity has now flipped hard against the Senate’s bill.

“Not only do I doubt the current legislation will solve the immigration problem,” he wrote in a June column, “but it also won’t help the GOP in future elections.”

Hannity and Hume didn’t arrive at their latest destination by accident. They’re just the latest figures on the right to embrace the compelling new message that’s whipping Republicans against immigration reform while still promising a better tomorrow for the GOP’s presidential candidates.

‘You Don’t Get To Come Over Here And Be Takers’
 House leaders have been cagey about their views on immigration reform, political or otherwise, suggesting a “wait-and-see” approach to the ongoing civil war over the Senate bill. Speaker John Boehner says he supports immigration reform in an abstract sense, but won’t bring forward any bill that doesn’t have the support of the majority of his caucus. Majority Leader Eric Cantor has shifted since the November election to favoring a path to citizenship for young undocumented immigrants, a far more modest position than the Senate’s “Gang of Eight,” but one that suggests he’s at least nominally concerned about the rising Latino vote.

The most vocal advocate for passing a far-reaching bill along the lines of the Senate’s has been Congressman Paul Ryan of Wisconsin. Perhaps not coincidentally, he’s also the member most likely to face a national Latino electorate in 2016 as the party’s presidential nominee. But he’s gone out of his way to avoid the political argument over the bill, focusing his attention on advocating for its individual policy provisions instead.

But other House leaders are moving in the opposite direction. After entertaining the idea of bipartisan immigration reform earlier this year, House Judiciary Committee Bob Goodlatte and Immigration Subcommittee Chair Trey Gowdy are pushing an enforcement-oriented bill modeled after Arizona’s SB 1070–despised by Latino groups–that would criminalize unauthorized immigrants and task local police with investigating suspected violators. This doesn’t look like the behavior of politicians who are terribly worried about courting Latino voters.

At the heart of their dueling approaches is a basic question: can the party win back the White House without winning more Latinos?

Rush Limbaugh argues that it can, and if House Republicans and their constituents take his side, the motivation to pass immigration reform will vanish. For months, he’s tried to convince his listeners that Latinos are unlikely to vote for the current Republican Party even if immigration reform passes. During one on-air confrontation with Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, Limbaugh asked whether “the Republican party is committing suicide” by adding “nine million automatic Democrat voters” through a path to citizenship.

Reformers such as Rubio counter that Latinos are only voting for Democrats in such large numbers because the immigration debate has drowned out Republicans’ compelling message of low taxes and deregulation. Often they describe the bill as a “gateway” issue, one that won’t win the GOP any votes by itself, but will at least open the doors to outreach.

“I believe if we pass this legislation, it won’t gain us a single Hispanic vote, but what it will do is put us on a playing field where we can compete,” John McCain said in an April breakfast with reporters.
Or, as Rubio is fond of saying, “It’s really hard to get people to listen to you on economic growth, on tax rates, on healthcare if they think you want to deport their grandmother.”

But Rush has some compelling data to back up his electoral claim. An April 2012 survey by the Pew Research Hispanic Center found that 75% of Latinos preferred a “bigger government” that provides more services versus 19% who favor a “smaller” one. Among the general population, smaller government won out by a 48-31 margin. Obama’s healthcare law often polls well with Latinos–a dynamic Romney infamously cited as one of the Democratic “gifts” that cost him the election.

“This is scholarly data in academic reports: 75% of illegal immigrants in the country also believe that government is the source of prosperity,” Limbaugh said in a January 31 broadcast. “So they’re naturally going to be inclined to vote Democrat.”

This helps explain Michele Bachmann’s warning last month to conservative fringe site World Net Daily: “We will never again have a Republican president, ever, if amnesty goes into effect.” The Limbaugh argument is especially powerful in Tea Party hands because it flatters their self-image as rugged independents fighting off the welfare-hoarding invaders.

“The things that made America great are Americans like you that work and understand that it’s sacrifice,” Congressman Randy Weber of Texas said at a June rally against the Senate bill. “You don’t get to come over here and be takers.”

Some conservative commentators argue that Latinos’ faith gives them an advantage on social issues instead. Washington Post columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote after the election that Latinos “should be a natural Republican constituency: striving immigrant community, religious, Catholic, family-oriented and socially conservative (on abortion, for example)” and plenty of others have made similar arguments.

But on abortion, there’s little evidence Latino voters are as conservative as they’ve been portrayed compared to the general population. And on gay marriage, an issue the national GOP isn’t too inclined to highlight these days anyway, some polls suggest they’ve actually grown more liberal than the average voter.
Their rhetoric may be crude, but here the skeptics raise a legitimate point: if Republicans can’t win Latinos on the economy and they can’t win them on religion, there isn’t a lot left to go on at the moment.

‘Natural Conservatives!’
Talk radio hosts and conservative lawmakers didn’t just stumble upon this narrative. Anti-immigration groups like NumbersUSA have pushed the argument for months in the hopes of increasing opposition to the bill.
Mark Krikorian, executive director of the Center for Immigration Studies and a leading spokesman for the anti-reform movement, has made it a special focus. Each day, he tracks and then highlights every poll or news story that indicates Latinos are to the left of the general public, often tweeting them out with a mocking “Natural conservatives!”

According to Krikorian, his group doesn’t have a “thought-out strategy” when it comes to undercutting pro-reform political arguments, but they try to showcase evidence as it arises.

“The debunking of this ‘natural conservatives’ storyline isn’t ongoing: it’s over,” he told MSNBC. “You only really see Lindsey Graham making this kind of argument and nobody takes him seriously,” he said of the South Carolina senator.

To further stiffen wavering conservative spines, CIS sponsored a study by University of Houston researcher George Hawley in February demonstrating that Republican members of Congress who supported immigration reform in 2006 fared as poorly with Latino voters as those who opposed it. More brazenly (and less successfully), NumbersUSA president Roy Beck has tried to persuade Republicans that opposing immigration reform will actually endear them to Latinos.

Krikorian and his fellow activists have done a bang-up job convincing conservatives that Latinos won’t vote for them after they pass immigration reform. But that conclusion raises the obvious problem: Obama beat Romney by 5 million votes in 2012 in a lousy economy. If Latinos aren’t going to close that gap in 2016, who is?

The Case Of The Missing Whites
In the run-up to the 2012 conventions, a Republican strategist predicted to the National Journal that Romney’s plan to run up the white vote at the expense of minorities would be “the last time anyone will try to do this.”

Wrong. A new view on the right is taking hold: Romney lost because he didn’t go after whites hard enough.
This will probably sound a little odd if you were watching TV on election night 2012. Romney won 59% of the white vote in exit polls, better than President Bush’s 58% in 2004. Unfortunately for Romney, the white share of the electorate declined from 79.2% to 73.7 % over the same period. The result: Obama won by an even bigger margin than Bush did thanks to blowout margins with minorities.

But conservative commentators are convincing themselves they can find a few million more whites tucked between the couch cushions–at least enough for one more election. Two columnists have been particularly influential in this regard. Sean Trende at Real Clear Politics has argued that census data shows about 5 million mostly poor and rural white voters were “projected” to vote in 2012 based on population growth and past turnout but didn’t show up to the polls. Byron York, a columnist at the Washington Examiner, published a related piece noting that Romney would have lost even if he had racked up a majority of Latino voters.
“Recent reports suggest as many as 5 million white voters simply stayed home on Election Day,” York wrote in May. “If they had voted at the same rate they did in 2004, even with the demographic changes since then, Romney would have won.”

The problem is there’s no way Romney would have won all 5 million of those whites, so Obama’s lead would have held. But if Obama had failed to replicate his 2008 performance with minority voters and Romney had matched Bush’s 2004 performance with whites, the GOP could have narrowly prevailed. This was the exact scenario Romney was shooting for.

York and Trende have some nuanced ideas about how the GOP can accomplish what Romney failed to do, many of which involve tacking left on the economy. But to the talk radio right, the main takeaway is that there are several million angry white votes ripe for the taking if the party can swing even more to the right.
White voters stayed home, Limbaugh said in May, because “they didn’t think the Republican Party was conservative enough.”

You can hear the “missing whites” thesis everywhere once you start looking for it. Hannity cited York’s piece in his column opposing the “Gang of Eight” bill. Social conservative leader Phyllis Schlafly recently told a radio host that “the people the Republicans should reach out to are the white votes, the white voters who didn’t vote in the last election and there are millions of them.” There’s “not any evidence at all that these Hispanics coming in from Mexico will vote Republican,” she said.

“Their idea seems to be gaining currency,” Frank Sharry, executive director of immigration advocacy group America’s Voice, told MSNBC. “Right after the election most of the conservative commentariat said they had to do something to get right with Latino voters. Now there seems to be this bizarre conversation that could only happen in the conservative bubble about how Romney didn’t win because he didn’t mobilize enough white voters.”

Underlying these claims is a belief that Romney lost because he was a blue-blooded moderate who failed to connect to conservative white voters on a visceral level. Nominate an American bad-ass in 2016 and those missing whites will reappear in a hurry. Maybe it wouldn’t hurt to add a few Hispanic voters, but the GOP can do that with some kind of inoffensive “outreach” program instead. After all, look at Congressman Steve Pearce of New Mexico, an immigration hawk whose retail politicking has earned him an impressive Latino following.

‘The Demographic Death Spiral’
If Bachmann, Schlafly and Limbaugh are able to convince the party that it doesn’t need Latinos, then the GOP may be screwed for generations. That’s because the coming Latino wave isn’t some hypothetical outcome that can be undone by blocking “amnesty” or bringing a few more white voters to the polls. It’s already baked into the demographic cake.

The Latino share of the electorate was 8.4% in 2012. What’s worrisome to the GOP is that the Latino share of the population in 2012 was 17.2% and growing. The reason for the disparity has much less to do with illegal immigration than it does with the relative youth of the Latino community, where the median age is 27 versus 42 for whites. According to Pew, there are about 7.1 million undocumented Latino adults who could become citizens under the Senate bill–and only some of them would do so, let alone vote. That group is dwarfed by the 17.6 million Latinos under 18, the overwhelming majority of whom (93%) are U.S.-born citizens. Every election cycle, more of them will become eligible to vote, while the oldest, whitest and most Republican generations age out of the electorate on the other end. (“Age out of the electorate” is a euphemism for “die.”)

It actually gets worse for the GOP. Hispanic turnout is extremely low–48% in 2012–in part because their eligible voters are so young. By comparison, white turnout was 64% and black turnout was 66%. That gives Democrats room to grow their Latino base through registration and voting drives–an area where they’ve been incredibly successful with black voters already–while Republicans may be operating near their ceiling with whites.

The white vote also looks so GOP-friendly because the Deep South backs Republicans by huge margins: Obama won 51% of the white vote in Iowa, for example, but just 10% in Mississippi. And according to Trende’s analysis, a lot of the “missing” white vote is concentrated in rural portions of the Northeast. So even if Republicans boost white turnout, a bunch of the gains will go to running up the score in Southern states they already win or to improving their margin in Northern states they don’t contest.

This is the “demographic death spiral” Sen. Graham is so worried about. And pro-reform Republicans are growing panicked as the new revisionism on Mitt Romney’s loss takes hold. Karl Rove, whose Crossroads group is spending millions promoting immigration reform, confronted his critics head on in the Wall Street Journal last month in an op-ed titled “More White Votes Won’t Save The GOP.” Graham and fellow immigration co-sponsor John McCain aren’t just warning of a 2016 loss anymore, they’ve taken to publicly guaranteeing one if their immigration bill fails.

“[If] we don’t pass immigration reform, if we don’t get it off the table in a reasonable, practical way,” Graham said on Meet The Press last month, “it doesn’t matter who you run in 2016.”

Senate passes immigration bill in historic vote

by Jacquellena Carrero 
NBC Latino

In a historic bipartisan vote, the Senate voted 68-32 to pass comprehensive immigration reform. It was the first attempt to tackle such a sweeping reform in six years.

Fourteen Republicans joined with all Democrats to back the legislation. The bill revamps the nation’s legal immigration system, sends resources to the nation’s southern border, and offers a pathway to citizenship for millions of undocumented immigrants.

“We’ve taken a giant step forward to solving our immigration problem today,” Gang of Eight member Senator Schumer (D-NY) said at a press conference. “America has always been a nation of immigrants and every time someone says turn your back on the immigrant- they lose.”

Marking the momentous occasion, senators on Thursday voted from their desks- a practice typically reserved for historic votes. Vice President Joe Biden presided over the vote, adding to the pageantry of it all. The last time Biden presided over a Senate vote was in April when the Senate voted on expanded background checks for gun purchases.

President Obama praised the Senate for passing the bill.
“The bipartisan bill that passed today was a compromise.  By definition, nobody got everything they wanted.  Not Democrats.  Not Republicans.  Not me.  But the Senate bill is consistent with the key principles for commonsense reform that I – and many others – have repeatedly laid out,” he said in a statement.

The drafters of the legislation made deeply personal pleas for passage of the bill on the Senate floor Thursday afternoon. Florida conservative Marco Rubio described the bill as a compassionate and economically sound measure. The Cuban-American’s support was key to gaining Republican support for the measure.

“Even with all our challenges, we remain the shining City on the Hill. We are still the hope of the world,” said Sen. Marco Rubio, a Florida conservative and Cuban-American whose support of the legislation was key to wooing Republican support. “Go to our factories and fields. Go to our kitchens and construction sites. Go to the cafeteria of this very Capitol. There, you will find that the miracle of America still lives.”

Immigration activists and undocumented immigrants packed the Senate gallery and erupted into cheers when Biden announced the vote tally. Chants of “yes we did” filled the chamber even as Biden asked those attending to refrain from reacting. Evelyn Rivera, United We Dream National Coordinating Committee Member, was one of the 100 Dreamers gathered in the Senate  to watch the vote on the bill. She said that
she partly credits the work of young activists to the bill’s success in the Senate.

RELATED: Menendez talks of Senate bill’s path to success, warns against House “intimidation”

“The momentum on immigration reform is the direct result of organizing muscle across the country by immigrant youth leaders and our allies and the result of power wielded by Latino and immigrant community voters at the ballot box,” Rivera said.

Texas Congressman Joaquin Castro (D-Tx) said he was pleased to see the bill pass and looked forward to working on immigration reform in the House.

“Our nation was built and continues to grow on the shoulders of immigrants. In America, from generation to generation, we witness the many contributions immigrants have made to help make our nation what it is today. As a proud product of San Antonio, Texas, I am encouraged to see my colleagues in the Senate acknowledge the core role immigrants play in our nation,” he said. “As the debate moves to the House of Representatives, I’m proud to join the millions of Americans calling for comprehensive immigration reform to become a reality.”

Despite the great fanfare surrounding the passage of the bill, immigration faces a rocky path in the Republican-controlled House, where there is strong opposition to the path to citizenship provision. Earlier today, Speaker John Boehner (R-OH) reiterated his stance that the House will not bring up the Senate immigration bill.

“The House is not going to take up and vote on whatever the Senate passes,” Boehner said, “We’re going to do our own bill through regular order, and it will legislation that reflects the will of our majority and the will of the American people.”

Boehner instead pointed to a piecemeal approach to the immigration legislation, focused on border security and enforcement.

On Thursday the Senate passed the Corker-Hoeven amendment, intended to boost border security by adding 20,000 more border agents, increase border fencing to 700 miles, and utilize enhanced surveillance methods to monitor the border between the United States and Mexico. The aim of the amendment’s intent is to ease passage of the immigration reform bill in the Senate and more importantly the House of Representatives. The main sticking point for many Republican legislators was that they did not feel the original bill did enough to secure the border.

Speaking after the bill was passed, Senator McCain called on the House to take up the legislation.
“We stand ready to sit down and negotiate with you,” McCain said. “We should all share the same goal to take 11 million people out of the shadows, secure our borders and make sure this it the nation of opportunity and freedom that we’ve envisioned it to be since it was founded.”

Senator Menendez also pressed the House to pass the legislation.
“I urge my colleagues in the House of Republicans that this is an opportunity to affect the lives of millions, create a more robust economy, and reduce the deficit,” he said.

Advocacy groups Fair Immigration Reform Movement (FIRM) and Voto Latino similarly expressed their hopes that comprehensive reform would not stop at the Senate.

“Today, we won a historic battle in the Senate, but the war wages on. Until we pass humane, just and comprehensive immigration reform we will continue to fight to improve the bill even as we are working to move it forward,” said FIRM’s Kica Matos. “Immigration reform is first and foremost about families and the moral crisis that our broken immigration system visits on our nation’s communities every day. We will not forget or forgive those who stand for policies that delay immediate action to end the destruction of our families.”

Opinion: The browning of American democracy

by Stephen A. Nuňo

Much was made of the “missing white voters” when conservatives couldn’t believe that Romney had lost, but four years is a long time when you are of retirement age, of which the vast majority are white. 

If you want to know what contributed to these missing voters, perhaps a look at the death rate by race and ethnicity can provide clues. The Latino death rate, according to the Center for Disease Control, was 523 per 100,000 people for Hispanics, and 748 per 100,000 for non-Hispanic whites.

The share of the country’s white voters is shrinking, and with nature taking its course, the only way to make up that difference is through childbirth or immigration. Unless conservative white men want to give up their jobs to stay at home and watch the kids while their wives exercise their growing freedom to have children on their own schedules, or convince Ann Coulter to stop carrying water for white men and start making babies, this trend will continue to accelerate.

As conservatives tried to absorb the significance of the Presidential Election, there emerged fresh news that compounded their anxiety about the changing demographics of the country. Pew Research Center reported that the U.S. birth rate dropped to its lowest recorded level ever. 

Hispanic mothers made up 24 percent of the births, while whites made up 54 percent. Pew reports that, “Since 1990, the share of births to U.S.-born mothers who are white has decreased from 72 percent, while the share to U.S.-born mothers who are Hispanic has grown from 7 percent.”

This is likely a high watermark for white births because these numbers exclude the race or ethnicity of the father, and Hispanics intermarry at the highest rates among minorities. More than 1in 5 Hispanics “marry out” of their ethnicity.

The browning of America marches on, while the GOP struggle to adjust as an artifact of an old America yearning to hang on.

Practically lost in the discussion about this election is the significance of the coalition that won the office for President Obama. With the greatest diversity in race, ethnicity and gender ever exhibited in a Presidential Election, the force of the majority power structure could not withstand the weight of democracy on its shoulders. And with it will continue the decline of the vestiges of whiteness that began more than 400 years ago.

Future elections will need to acknowledge that a growing reliance on the appeals of the past will have electoral consequences at the national level. Latinos went from being a growing demographic to a powerful voting bloc largely because the GOP couldn’t figure out how to run on a platform of inclusion.

Marco Rubio made his pitch to change the image of the party yesterday at the Kemp Foundation, in which he said, “The existence of a large and vibrant middle class goes to the very essence of America’s exceptional identity.” That’s a good start, but Senator Rubio mentioned diversity in his speech exactly zero times, while repeating his commitment to the same policies the Republicans have been losing minorities and women on over the last twenty years.

The assumption by Mr. Rubio is that the GOP has a marketing problem, but not a substantive one, with minorities. That’s the attitude that needs to change. The problem is that minorities know very well what the GOP platform is.

In this new era of politics, that dynamics of the past have changed. This new coalition, should the Democrats do what they can to hold it together, could mean the beginning of the end of whiteness as we know it if the GOP can’t look in the mirror and accept that the problem is staring right back at them.


Stephen A. Nuño, Ph.D., NBC Latino contributor and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and International Affairs at Northern Arizona University. He is currently writing a book on Republican outreach into the Latino Community.

Op-ed: 10 things the GOP can do to turn the tide with Latino voters

Politics

(Pedro Yazzie, 27, makes phone calls Tuesday, Nov. 6, 2012 in Phoenix to registered voters from the offices of Mi Familia Vota, a non-partisan effort to increase voter participation among Latinos and others. (AP Photo/Matt York))

by Samuel Rosado and Brittney Morrett

 

 

The 2012 elections were a wake-up call to Republicans and conservatives. Many were not expecting Obama to win reelection decisively, much less win at all. While the chorus of blame and finger-pointing ran rampant on television, radio, the blogosphere and social media, one underlying issue has been accepted: the GOP and conservatives must reverse the devastating trend with the Hispanic vote.

Since George W. Bush’s peak of receiving 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004, the GOP has been hemorrhaging support from this key electorate, with Romney receiving an embarrassing 27 percent of the Hispanic vote in his defeat. Meanwhile, the Hispanic electorate is likely to double by 2030 to a potential 40 million Latinos eligible to vote.

This is a primer not to place blame or say, “I told you so.” This is a plan that is meant to be a comprehensive starting guide for GOP insiders, politicians, and grassroots conservatives to address the problems we face with earning the Hispanic vote, while providing specific, targeted solutions. These are substantive strategies which can and should begin as soon as possible.

The more comprehensive primer we put together is available at the bottom of this piece.

I. Start Building the Ground Infrastructure — Now
At its core, the biggest problem the GOP and conservatives have with Hispanics and minority groups in general is a lack of a ground game. The GOP lags behind the Democrats because for years, the middle-aged to elderly white voting class has been the most reliable voting bloc, and they have traditionally voted for Republicans.

Therefore, conservatives and the GOP have never had the need for a major ground effort to bring them to the polls. The changing demographics in the United States necessitate a concerted ground effort from the GOP.

II. Head Into the Urban Centers
A subset on the issue is the seeming fear of urban outreach. The GOP and conservatives must accept they are going to have to do the hard work and reach out to Hispanics and other minority groups in what are generally Democratic strongholds: large cities and urban areas.

Facts show more and more people are moving towards the cities, and the GOP is running out of rural and suburban voters to engage with. In addition, these urban areas are where the vast majority of Hispanics and other minorities live. If conservatives and the GOP do not begin to set up an infrastructure now, we will not win in 2016.

III. Show Up!
Republicans need to start showing up at events and in the community, and this requires investment of time, effort, and leg work. It would be wise for campaigns and local GOP offices to keep track of cultural festivals in the area and reserve a booth in order to disseminate information. These are perfect venues for voter registration drives!

GOP candidates need to be appearing at these events because the Independent and Democrat candidates already do. And don’t just attend these events – hold them! If you are a GOP office or a local conservative group, hold cultural events or utilize Hispanic cultural celebrations to engage the community. For example, hold a family-friendly Three Kings Day Block Party at a local school with booths, food, dancing, and performances.

For a more educational twist, have an event promoting freedom on Jose Marti’s birthday (time to Google search who Jose Marti is). These are great ways to unite people while also having fun.
When phone banking and canvassing, go into the urban neighborhoods!

One consistently sees liberal candidates going door to door in black and Latino neighborhoods but never conservatives. How can conservatives expect minorities to vote conservative if they are never exposed to conservative principles?

IV Community Service
Have some free time on a Saturday? Take your family to do volunteer work or help a charity that focuses on the Latino community. This is a great way to give back, show compassion, stick to our cherished idea of private charity, and make connections in your local Latino communities.  Hispanics are disproportionately affected by high unemployment, poverty rates similar to those in Latin America, and lack of quality education.

V. Know Your Voter
With the success of the Obama campaign, it is now more important than ever that the party and grassroots organizations know who the potential voters are to the last detail. This realization is especially critical with the Hispanic population. Overall culture, traditions, political priorities, and even dialect of Spanish differ among Hispanic nationalities, so do your research prior to making those initial phone calls and setting up that first booth.

Also, realize that Hispanics are a young demographic and that Latino youth may not find ACDC cool – they may prefer artists like Jay-Z, and Wisin y Yandel. Turn to more creative mediums like spoken word, music, and dance when attempting to engage Latino youth. Become more culturally aware – pick up your local Hispanic newspaper and look through the events section, follow some conservative Latinos on twitter, and engage the Hispanics around you.


VI. Stop Throwing Out Nothing But Spanish TV Ads and Start Engaging Spanish Media
Because of the lack of a ground operation, the GOP has left itself to overly rely upon television ads and indirect forms of communication to try and reach the Hispanic audience. The problem is that television ads in general don’t have a very good return on investment, and will reach only a limited audience, especially in Spanish-speaking neighborhoods. The way you speak to and spread a message to Hispanics is through direct, personal communication. Not through external and relatively “easy” marketing like television and radio ads.

The solution here for the GOP is to embrace and engage Spanish and minority media outlets; don’t just simply purchase airtime. Candidates should be doing interviews on radio and television and appear on the Sunday shows on Univision and Telemundo. Are they biased? Perhaps. But has that stopped GOP politicians and pundits from appearing on MSNBC, etc.? Of course not. Bear in mind that it shouldn’t just be Marco Rubio, Susana Martinez, or Raul Labrador doing all this work in Spanish media. Non-Hispanic politicians should be willing and able to go on these venues as well.

VII. Using and Speaking Spanish is a Must
Going beyond the ads, it appears that there are many in the conservative movement who are antagonistic about the use of Spanish-language media or communication. We hate to break it to some, but while we and many others are of the agreement that English should be the language of government, many Hispanics prefer to speak Spanish within their community.

Even those who are bilingual will speak Spanish with family and friends, as well as watch Spanish-language media. Since the end of the Mexican-American War, Spanish has been an integrated language in the United States. We say this only to address the hostilities some conservatives have towards the language. If you are going to reach out to the Hispanic community, Spanish must be a key component of it.

VIII. The Conservative Grassroots Must Get Involved and Help
In addition to not having a presence on the ground, non-Hispanic conservatives have been woefully inadequate at assisting Hispanic conservatives in spreading the message and lending support. This is a trend that must change. Because Hispanic conservatives are greatly outnumbered by Hispanic liberals, we desperately need the support of the grassroots movement help spread the message. Hispanic conservatives do not have the infrastructure to communicate on our own.

IX. The Rhetoric Must Be Addressed – But the Policy Need Not Completely Change
Immigration is an issue that must be addressed. There’s no going around it. And the biggest problem behind the immigration issue with the GOP and conservatives is the rhetoric used to advocate our position. The GOP/Conservative position has always been the rule of law. In other words, if one is to come to this country to live or work, one must adhere to the proper channels.

But the rhetoric, whether or not it is accurately described by the media, has been among the primary reasons Hispanics are turned off by the GOP. Statements like, “self-deportation,” “deport them all!” and “speak English! English only!” are slogans that are instant turn offs with Hispanics, regardless of whether you try to explain your position or not. It is an instant non-starter.

We’re not saying those conservatives who support the hard-line stance do not have a valid point or that they should cave into the “free and clear amnesty” advocates, but that the manner in which they articulate their position must change. In addition, the conservative position on immigration reform differs among the movement. This is an internal debate that conservatives all around must have.

RELATED: Latino Conservative Launches Pro-Immigration Super PAC

X. Take the Initiative on Puerto Rico
One specific issue that the GOP can utilize and take the initiative on is the status of Puerto Rico. For the first time the island voted made clear the desire to obtain statehood. The ironic aspect of this issue is that the more prominent Hispanic Democrats in the House are hostile towards statehood. The GOP has the opportunity to be champion and advocate for what is a growing Hispanic demographic. The right to self-delineate has been supported for Puerto Rico in the GOP platform for years.

Conclusion
The Latino vote, regardless of what the media says, is an opportunity we can no longer ignore or approach half-heartedly. Latinos are hard-working people who gave up their lives in their home countries to risk everything for a piece of the American Dream.

Appeal to that passion for life, the yearning for success, and the traditional values that celebrate family and community. Conservative principles are more beneficial for Latinos, and for everyone, than liberal ideology. We just need to put in the coordinated effort to make that crystal clear.

Full primer on conservative outreach to Hispanics

Samuel A. Rosado is an attorney residing in New Jersey. He served as Executive Director of the Republican Hispanic Assembly of New Jersey in 2010, and has been a freelance contributor and writer on Hispanic issues and engagement for Politic365, The Daily Grito, and Misfit Politics. Follow him on twitter at @sarosado.


Brittney Morrett currently works promoting economic freedom to US Hispanic youth with a non-partisan, non-profit. In the past she has worked for the Leadership Institute and the Center for a Free Cuba. She has spoken at events and universities across the country on youth and Hispanic outreach. Follower her on twitter at @bmorrett.

Opinion: GOP is still not serious about immigration reform

by Stephen A. Nuňo

9:23 am on 11/28/2012

The ability of the GOP to develop a long-term strategy to grow the party appears to be in crisis. The party which was once confident about its own values has grown perpetually concerned about its ability to diversify its appeal.

Over the last decade, the GOP strategy to win elections has been basically this: limit the participation of minorities through onerous registration and voting laws, and do anything possible to obstruct the political integration of the growing Latino population. But if blowhards like Rush Limbaugh were so sure of the universal appeal of their message, immigration reform and voting laws would be a non-issue.

Perhaps it is because their message isn’t so universal, and instead panders to a specific group of voters that they are so concerned about immigration reform. The GOP talking heads love to rail against ethnic pandering, yet when ninety percent of your voters are non-Hispanic white and your most reliable voter base is the retirement community, cultural pandering is exactly what you are doing.

Nowhere is this pandering more evident than when the GOP is forced to confront immigration reform. The fight over immigration reform began with a whimper yesterday when lame duck Senators Kay Bailey Hutchinson of Texas and Jon Kyl of Arizona presented an alternative to the Dream Act that would offer legal status to undocumented immigrants who were brought to the country as children, but differed in that it would not provide beneficiaries with a pathway to citizenship.

It is not clear what purpose yesterday’s event served but to reaffirm in the minds of Latinos that the GOP is fundamentally unserious about immigration reform.

The Democrats are expected to lay out their own framework for immigration reform today, which will be broader in scope and address the problems with our immigration system that impacts more than just Dreamers. Given the political climate, the Democrats are right to focus the discussion on comprehensive reform, but it seems that the GOP response will be once again to limit the discussion to variations of the Dream Act.

Which is odd given that just last week, Republicans such as Carlos Gutierrez formed a super-PAC to help shape the immigration debate for the party. Apparently, someone forgot to tell Mrs. Hutchinson and Mr. Kyl. Perhaps Senator Rubio, who is still working on his own version of the Dream Act is coordinating with Mr. Gutierrez.

The fight over whether we have a piecemeal approach or a comprehensive solution will be the center of the battle over immigration reform. President Obama has indicated that he is committed to comprehensive reform that addresses family cohesion, status normalization and the economic needs of the country, but there is no indication by any Republicans that they are committed to this.

The GOP should be called out on this, and since Mr. Gutierrez has volunteered to be the face of Latino outreach for the party, perhaps he should be the one to answer questions about the lack of seriousness coming from his people.

None of this is very encouraging if you are a Republican who views this issue as an important first step in building a party for the future. So far there has been much talk about toning down the assault on Latinos by the GOP, but sending out lame duck Senators to get the ball rolling with proposals that are non-starters is probably not a good way to begin.

If the GOP plans on being serious about winning over Latino voters they should stop promoting half-baked approaches to immigration reform that display an utter lack of confidence in its ability to broaden the party’s appeal. The GOP claims that its values are based on the universality of the founding principles of the country, but if that were true, the stonewalling we’re seeing by Hutchinson and Kyl wouldn’t make such a mockery of that belief.


Stephen A. Nuño, Ph.D., NBC Latino contributor and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Politics and International Affairs at Northern Arizona University. He is currently writing a book on Republican outreach into the Latino Community.

Opinion: Republicans are grooming Latino leaders, Dems are not

Here is my debut as a contributing writer for NBC Latino!! Thank you for the opportunity.....

Opinion: Republicans Are Grooming Latino Leaders, Dems Are Not. (CLICK HERE)

Opinion: Republicans are grooming Latino leaders, Dems are not

by Jaime Rojas Jr.

6:42 am on 09/07/2012

We saw this week the Democratic National Convention and its sea of diversity among its delegates on the Convention floor, a very stark contrast to the Republican National Convention faces we saw on television the week before. But behind the scenes, I see a very different picture regarding the grooming of Latino leadership for the future of American politics.

The Democrats paint a party of the “people” who represents the last frontier to protect what’s left of the American middle class. At the DNC, they showcased their Latino leadership. We saw my mayor, Antonio Villariagosa, prominently displayed as the chairman of the Convention. Julian Castro, the mayor of San Antonio, is billed as the rising Latino star in the Democratic Party.

The RNC, on the other hand, spotlighted their chosen ones too: Congressman Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz, and Governor Susanna Martinez of New Mexico. So we ask: “Which political party is really grooming our future Latino leadership?” My short answer is….the Republican party. Here is why: The Democrats, with all their fanfare of diversity, really has no real infrastructure on a national or state level focused on grooming Latino leadership. Since Latinos just happen to make a large number in their party, really by default they have taken some leadership roles. And if you think about it, Democratic Latinos are not really in too many high level positions like governors or senior ranking congresspersons, considering the number of Latinos in the party.

The reason is simple. The Democratic Party has a “union” mentality when it comes to grooming its next leadership. You have to start practically at birth as a member of the Party and promote your way up the ladder, until it’s your time to eventually lead. Being from California, that process and mentality is obvious with the State Democrats and the union machine. So what real chance does a young Latino have of high level leadership in the Democratic Party, if they don’t follow this “promotional” leadership process…none.

The Republicans surprisingly enough, invested last year, on the national level into a fund specifically to identify and groom 100 top Latino leaders for the Party. Impressive? Well, the fund only started with less than 2 million dollars, which in today’s economy is not much, but it’s a start. For the first time we heard not just one but two Latinos, Congressman Marco Rubio and Governor Susanna Martinez on the short list for Vice President! We recently saw Congressman Ted Cruz come in and shock everyone with his win in Texas. He had some support (money) of the RNC too.

I believe the Republican party has the better chance of grooming and possibly delivering Latino political leaders that actually will not only look like us, but also represent us appropriately. Believe it or not, Latinos’ beliefs are very similar to those of the GOP: family, fiscal conservancy, small government, and support of entrepreneurship and business. Yes, I know, shocking but very true. With our potential voting power, Latinos can vote into office (or take out of office) the right candidate to represent and act on our legislative needs. What is good for Latinos is good for America…and what is good for America is good for Latinos!

The Latino community must continue investing in ourselves and believe that our time is here now. We must support leadership-training beginning with our youth, and support national organizations like the National Hispanic Institute, based out of Texas, who go after our cream of the crop of Latino youth and train them to think like leaders and entrepreneurs. At the end of the day, it is our responsibility, no one else’s, to train, groom and support America’s future leadership! Let’s all take this call for action….it is really the American thing to do, no que no?

Jaime Rojas Jr. worked for The White House’s Office of Public Liaison and Latino outreach for President Bill Clinton, and for The White House Initiative on Educational Excellence for Hispanics. He is also the former President and CEO of the California Hispanic Chambers of Commerce (CHCC) and he wrote his first book in 2011 titled, “The Conservative’s Pocket Constitution.” Follow Jaime on Twitter @Jaime_Rojas