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January 26, 2012 06:57 PM UTC

Who Offends Hispanics Less: Romney or Gingrich?

  • 14 Comments
  • by: Colorado Pols

That’s one piece of the Florida GOP primary puzzle, as the Washington Post reports today:

The Republican presidential race turned into a pitched battle for Hispanic voters on Wednesday, with Newt Gingrich and Mitt Romney hurling insults over immigration policy as each looked for ways to court a critical constituency…

Gingrich lobbed the first attack on Wednesday, poking fun at Romney during an appearance on Miami-based Univision, the country’s biggest Spanish-language network. Gingrich peppered his remarks with halting Spanish as he accused Romney of living in a “fantasy land” for suggesting in a debate that the country’s 11 million illegal immigrants should “self deport.”

Romney also stepped up his attacks on Gingrich, releasing a Spanish-language ad noting that the former House speaker once called Spanish the “language of the ghetto.”

…Gingrich, for his part, has said he used inartful language in the 2007 speech in which he referred to Spanish as the language of “living in a ghetto.”

So, uh, no, neither of these gentlemen have done much to ingratiate themselves with the fastest-growing bloc of voters in the United States–kind of the opposite. Florida will be the first Republican presidential primary this year in a state with a large Hispanic population. But the broader (spelled general election) importance of this community isn’t going to be seen in a Republican primary, of course. And even though polls don’t show particular enthusiasm for Democrats among all Hispanic voters, faceplants from either of these GOP candidates over the years on immigration should be enough to, as Darth Vader eloquently put it, “motivate them.”

And remember, folks, they have to sell themselves to the same Republicans who voted Tom Tancredo for governor of Colorado in 2010 as soon as they’re done in Florida! We get the feeling that may not go well either, and also hurt most well after these primaries are over.

Comments

14 thoughts on “Who Offends Hispanics Less: Romney or Gingrich?

  1. The grumpy old white base demands the most hateful anti-immigrant rhetoric imaginable but then there’s Florida specifically and the growing percentage of Latino voters in general. Also states in the west that have large numbers of Latino voters and large numbers of grumpy old white Rs. Talk about a rock and a hard place.  Glad I’m not a GOTP presidential hopeful!

      1. for small minds . . . probably why MittBOT was so impressed by Gessler’s SIX John Smith’s.

        May also have something to do with his inability to grasp numbers larger than the number of his digits?

        Two is teh awesome . . .

    1. because he told our friend Jason Salzman

      he’s American and doesn’t want to “re-segregate” as a Hispanic.

      I guess it’s only when it’s politically convenient for him that all of a sudden he wants to identify as a Hispanic.

      Without directly quoting your article, apparently the two of them refused to take questions from the media during their news conference, which surprised the reporters AND their fellow GOP members. But, anyone who’s been to a town hall for Ramirez and Szabo know EXACTLY why they didn’t take questions.

  2. how many people will see a relatively high turnout from the Florida’s republican-leaning Cuban population as a rise in support from Latinos in general.

    Could be an interesting time watching campaigns both claim Latino support and try to manage expectations as the primaries move west… all while trying to avoid offending the hardcore xenophobes.

    1. The older generation’s primary interest is in punishing Castro’s Cuba, not in immigration policy.  Many Cubans of that generation support Republicans for their tough talk, and that often includes immigration policy.  Of course, most Americans probably don’t know that…

      But Cubans only represent 10% of the Republican primary base; while it’s an important segment of the population, unless one candidate really screws it up or hits a home run, it’s not going to be the deciding factor in the Florida primary.  And the candidates know that; they won’t spend too much time courting the vote.  We’ll be back to Newt the bombthrower vs. Mitt the elitist negative campaigning – oh, wait, we already are…

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