POLITICS - As the GOP Falls

"How GOP lost the Latino vote" by HECTOR AVALOS, Des Moines Register 5/9/2010

Say what you will about George W. Bush, but he was spectacularly more successful with Latino voters than the Republican Party is today.

Latinos now number some 45 million people, and form nearly 8 percent of the national electorate. By 2020, they are slated to become 20 percent.

Bush realized Republicans cannot easily win national and many local elections without the Latino vote. His strategy was succeeding because in the 2004 presidential election, Republicans garnered 39 percent of the Latino vote, a significant increase from the 21 percent in 1996.

But the 2006 elections signaled a change when some Republicans, who used "illegal immigration" as a main issue, began to lose not only the Latino vote but also their elections altogether.

Such Republican candidates include Arizona's J. D. Hayworth, who lost the race for Congress, and is now seeking John McCain's Senate seat. Bob Beauprez lost the governor's race in Colorado by 15 points. In Indiana, John Hostettler received only 39 percent of the total vote in a losing bid for his seventh term in the U.S. House. Many factors can be cited for these losses, but the anti-illegal immigration stance certainly did not help them win. They all could have used the Latino vote.

By 2008, Democrat Barack Obama won the presidential elections with some 67 percent of the Latino vote, which delivered the winning margin in Indiana, a strongly Republican state. Latinos made the difference in some battlegrounds states.

So why are Republicans losing the Latino gains they made under Bush? It is not because Republicans made illegal immigration an issue. It is the way they did it. Indeed, the crucial problem with the Republican strategy on immigration is tone.

First, military vocabulary began to be used ("war on the border") without concurrent messages to ensure Americans could distinguish undocumented Latinos from legal Latinos, who comprise the vast majority of Latinos.

Second, dehumanizing language was used. Witness Republican Pat Bertroche, who wants to represent Iowa in Congress, "joking" that we can microchip illegal immigrants just as we do dogs. Other politicians compare the undocumented to stray animals. This from a party that believes itself to be pro-life.

Third, the alarm was disproportional with the facts. Consider the common charge that undocumented immigration is causing some unprecedented increase in crime in Arizona. Yes, there is crime in my former home state of Arizona, but actually less than elsewhere. According to the U.S. Department of Justice, the rate of "murder and non-negligent homicide" (per 100,000 population) in Phoenix in 2008 was 10.5, but it was 31.4 in Washington, D.C., and 36.9 in Baltimore. And Department of Justice statistics also show the overall "violent crime rate" in Arizona decreased from 703.1 in 1994 to 447.0 in 2008. During this period we were supposedly experiencing a massive violent invasion. By that logic, the increase in illegal immigration lowered the violent crime rates.

Jobs for Americans were supposedly being taken by illegal immigrants. But U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics show unemployment rates dropping from 5.1 in 2005 to 4.6 in 2006, when Republicans increasingly used illegal immigration as an issue.

Now, Jan Brewer, the Republican governor of Arizona, has signed a law that allows local law enforcement to use "reasonable suspicion" to demand evidence of legal status from virtually anyone.

A few years ago, many Latinos might have believed Republicans were only against illegal immigrants and not against all Latinos. The law changes all that.

The reason is clear. On a practical level, one cannot entertain a "reasonable suspicion" of legal status without resorting to racial profiling. Blond-haired, blue-eyed people probably will not be "reasonably suspected" of being illegal aliens. Brown people will be. In effect, the law erases the line between legal and undocumented Latinos, and so becomes a threat to all Latinos - not to mention a threat to other ethnic groups.

Moreover, the equal protection under the law guaranteed by the 14th Amendment appears violated because the government is not applying "reasonable suspicion" equally to all citizens.

That is why the law might energize Latino voters, whose rallies against this law draw numbers dwarfing those of most tea party rallies. It might also result in increasing civil and ethnic unrest that will have a retrogressive effect on race relations in America.

If the Republican Party wishes to atone for its mistakes with Latino voters, it would do well to resume the tone of George W. Bush's successful strategy.