Much has been made of the new TV spot from Karl Rove’s famously well-funded “Super PAC,” Crossroads GPS aimed at Spanish-speaking audiences (above). Though only a token buy of about $150,000 compared to Crossroads’ massive $20 million summer ad campaign, it’s received disproportionate news coverage to its size–and prompted the DNC to release a Spanish ad defending President Barack Obama in response.
This takes place against the backdrop of stories about some disaffection in the traditionally Democratic-leaning Latino community with President Obama, and the slow pace of immigration reform. Latinos have suffered much more in the recent recession than whites according to a new Pew report, partly attributable to heavy investment in residential property that lost value–believing with much encouragement that home ownership was the key to prosperity. Republicans point to Latino elected officials in their ranks like Rep. Robert Ramirez of Arvada as evidence that the Democratic hold on the Latino vote is slipping. As we’ve said many times, Latinos represent the fastest-growing bloc of voters in the United States, and Rove himself has warned that the GOP’s continuing alienation of them would be suicidal in the long term.
But this is where the illusion of GOP inroads with Latino voters breaks down. The true purpose of the above Crossroads ad is to create an illusion of “reaching out,” not to attract real numbers of Spanish-speaking voters to vote Republican. The reason is simple: Republicans are decades away from good relations with the vast majority of Latino voters. The GOP continues to set itself back–from Arizona’s SB-1070 fiasco, to failed attempts to replicate it in Colorado and elsewhere. Despite the promises of Rep. Ramirez to work with proponents of the ASSET bill after “reluctantly” voting against it this year, we’ve heard absolutely nothing to suggest he is actually doing so. This is one we’d actually like to be proven wrong on.
To be clear, we don’t have any delusions about particular Democratic successes that would motivate Latinos to vote for them, either. Democrats couldn’t get ASSET passed when they fully controlled the state legislature between 2005 and 2010. The 2006 immigration special session, intended to forestall even worse GOP-sponsored measures headed for the ballot, is still debated today among Democrats as to whether it was a good idea–Latinos don’t debate that.
But folks, stack that against the party of Tom Tancredo. The party of Rep. Steve King of Iowa, of Dave Schultheis, and of Arizona’s SB-1070. Rove can only suppress and demoralize the Latino vote, not motivate them, because he has nothing to motivate them with. Despite the slow pace on the issues central to them, Latinos know who has been on their side–and who has built their political careers in many cases on active hostility to their interests, tinged with racism.
And sorry, but Karl Rove can’t buy enough ads to fix that.
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Why do legal citizens care so much about illegal aliens? I know a lot of good Hispanic Americans. Most of them are very upset about illegals and sympathetic to efforts to enforce immigration law.
Why this assumption on the left that citizens support noncitizens who break the law? I believe it is flawed, and with it this entire premise.
Illegal immigration is no longer a big issue because the flow of illegals has slowed to a trickle due to the economy. This issue has lost all of its steam.
I’ll take your word for it that there are Hispanic Americans who are concerned and upset about illegal immigration but wha tpercentage of the total Hispanic population feels that way. My guess, and admittedly it is just that – agues, is a very low percentage. Have you seen any polls that would show otherwise?
Why do you assume that the GOP’s problems with immigrants are only related to illegal immigrants. There are plenty of issues, ranging from stereotyping for political gain, Arizona’s “if you look Hispanic, you’d better have papers” law, a hateful attitude toward non-English speakers, and just flat-out racism among people who seem to hold positions of respect and leadership in the GOP (see Tancredo), that are much bigger than an approach to illegal immigration. When illegal immigration is mentioned, it’s normally in the context of such a hateful atmosphere that we see spikes in crimes against Hispanics of all immigration statuses as a result. The Republican party has, in the past 5 years, shown actual support of wacko organizations like the Minute Man fiasco, which has resulted in very much NOT illegally immigrated Hispanics being targeted, harmed, and abducted… in one case by a leader of the movement itself.
The message has been pretty clear: if you speak another language, have another skin color, have another ethnic background, then you’re less of a person to the modern day GOP. You deserve harrassment, violence, hate speech… This isn’t about illegal immigrants, they are just the easy targets.
When you combine Hispanic internal demographics and wealth you get GOP FAIL.
There are an estimated 32 million US citizens of Mexican ancestry vs. an estimated 1.5 to 2 million Cuban Americans.
Median net worth of US households:
White……..$113,149
Hispanic….$6,325
Black………$5,677
How do you think Hispanics will vote in 2012?