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 Editorials | Issues | November 2006 
American Hispanics Defeat Republicans Turning Congress over to Democrats
 Jon Garrido - Hispanic News
| | Without the American Hispanic vote, Republicans would have won the House and Senate decisively in 2006. |
Hispanics said "adios" to the Republican Party in November's elections, voting in much greater numbers than expected for Democratic candidates in an apparent rejection of the ruling party's efforts to blame much of the nation's problems on undocumented migrants.
Contrary to experts' predictions Hispanics would not turn out massively, exit polls show Hispanics accounted for 8 percent of the total vote about equal to the Hispanic vote's record turnout in the 2004 presidential election, and much more than in previous mid-term elections.
What's more, 73 percent of Hispanics voted for Democrats, while only 26 percent voted for Republicans, a CNN exit poll shows. In the 2004 presidential elections, 55 percent of Hispanics voted Democrat and about 42 percent voted Republican.
Many experts predicted Hispanics would not turn out in big numbers, in part because most of the hottest races took place in states with no major Hispanic presence. Also, experts said it would take until the 2008 elections for the largely Hispanic "today we march, tomorrow we vote" protests of this year to translate into the naturalization and registration of large numbers of foreign-born Hispanic voters.
But the anti-immigration hysteria spearheaded by Republicans in the House — and by cable television fear mongers such as Pat Buchanan and Lou Dobbs — upset U.S.-born Hispanics who normally don't care much about immigration.
With nearly every house district and senate seat being decided by a 2-3 percent margin, every vote counted. With Hispanics being 8% of the total vote with even distribution in most congressional districts and states, without the American Hispanic vote, Republicans would have won the House and Senate decisively in 2006.
Sen. Charles Schumer of New York, the chairman of the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, agreed. "We should always be mindful that there was a little bit of God and a lot of bit of luck here. A 4,000-vote shift and we would have four new senators, not the U.S. Senate."
Veiled Racism Suspected
Republican sponsorship of a law to build a 700-mile fence along the Mexican border and Republican House members' efforts to pass a bill that would have turned millions of undocumented workers into felons fueled a climate many Hispanics saw as veiled racism. Sure, Republican anti-immigration crusaders said they are only against "illegal" immigration, and they have nothing against Hispanics.
But when they accused Hispanic immigrants of draining Social Security coffers, clogging schools and hospitals, being potential terrorists and bringing infectious diseases into the United States — millions of Hispanic-heritage U.S. citizens felt insulted. It was as if all Hispanics were suddenly cast as potential national security threats.
If the Republican effort to put immigration at the center stage was aimed at drawing attention away from Iraq or mobilizing their constituencies to get out and vote, it didn't work with the general public either.
Exit polls show when asked which issues were extremely important to them, 42 percent of voters said corruption and ethics, 40 percent said terrorism, 39 percent said the economy, 37 percent said Iraq, 36 percent said values and only 29 percent said illegal immigration.
Many candidates who campaigned on get-tough-against-illegal-immigrants were defeated. J.D. Hayworth, an Arizona Republican who centered his campaign on immigrant bashing and supported building the 700 mile fence was among the defeated anti-immigration candidates.
Of 15 races where immigration was the center of the debate, tracked by immigration2006.org, 12 were won by immigration moderates and only two by hard-line anti-immigration activists.
Seek Serious Solutions
The strategy of blaming undocumented workers for many of the country's ills backfired. Now, with luck, candidates for the 2008 presidential election will abandon the populist enforcement-centered political deceptions of anti-immigration crusaders and seek serious solutions to stop the flow of migrants to the U.S. borders.
Instead of backing a useless 700-mile fence, which will only push migrants to enter the United States elsewhere along the 2,000-mile border, they should look at ways of helping reduce the income gap between the United States, Mexico and the rest of Latin America.
As long as the United States' per capita income of $42,000 a year continues to be far ahead of Mexico's $10,000 a year, or Nicaragua's $2,900 a year, there will be no fences high or wide enough to stop the flow of migrants.
As the European example shows, the only way to reduce migration will be greater economic integration, including offers of aid conditioned to responsible economic policies. Hopefully, both parties will hear this message from Tuesday's vote and turn their backs to the deceptive enforcement-only remedies offered by anti-immigration fear mongers in recent months.
Hispanics will Determine the President of the USA in 2008
Edited by Jon Garrido, Hispanic News
American politics has always been defined or imprisoned by Mason and Dixon, by regional rifts engendered by slavery, the Civil War and the Bible Belt. But now the relevant names are Lewis and Clark. The land west of the Mississippi, especially west of the 100th meridian, is the new swing region — and the place where Democrats hope to win the White House. "It's our 21st-century-majority strategy," said Simon Rosenberg of the New Democratic Network.
The 2006 election highlighted the old paradigm — and the new. The Northeast turned a deeper blue. GOP moderates there are all but extinct; Democratic governors were elected by vast margins. The Republicans' Fortress South, up-armored with evangelicals by George W. Bush and Karl Rove, cracked at the perimeter but largely held. The "intermountain" West, meanwhile, was up for grabs. Democrats won the governorship in Colorado and now have won five of the region's eight statehouses since 2002. The GOP hung onto the governorship in Nevada and a key Senate seat in Arizona.
The westward trend is clear. For the first time, leaders of the House and Senate are from the Far West. Democrats put Nevada in a crucial early spot in the presidential-selection process, and will hold their convention in Denver.
As Hispanics grow in clout, so does the West, where most of the nation's 43 million Hispanics live. In 2004, 44 percent of Hispanic voters supported Bush; in 2006, only 29 percent did — driven away by the party's get-tough rhetoric on immigration. The key presidential swing states now: the cluster of Arizona, New Mexico, Colorado and Nevada. The new map means politics could be less party-oriented, says Thomas F. Schaller, author of "Whistling Past Dixie." Westerners aren't "socialized to partisanship," he says. The GOP must hold the faith-based while appealing to the West.
Four states with significant numbers of Hispanic voters: Arizona, Colorado, Nevada, and New Mexico will determine the next president of the United States. The four, which Bush carried in 2004, have 29 electoral votes. Although between 40 and 44 percent of Hispanics voted for President Bush in 2004, almost 70 percent of Hispanic voters cast their lot for Democrats last week, according to exit polls.
Pollster Simon Rosenberg of the New Democrat Network says the loss of Hispanic support could represent "a game-changing shift for Republicans" heading into the 2008 elections. The apparent trend could be particularly troubling in the Southwest.
Jon Garrido, a 4th generation American Hispanic and the new national president of the Blue Dogs of the Democratic Party www.BlueDogs.US, believes American Hispanics with Catholic social mores–which often push them to oppose abortion and gay marriage–make them just the kind of "value voters" that can be lured by Democrats in increasing numbers in 2008.
"I think we'll see Arizona return to the swing state category," predicts Peter Brodnitz, another pollster who has closely followed the immigration issue. Arizona, which was closely contested in the 1992, 1996, and 2000 presidential elections, comfortably went for Bush in 2004.
Some Hispanics have argued that the shift could be relatively permanent, similar to what happened in California after the state voted to pass Proposition 187 in 1994, a measure supported by many Republicans that would have restricted illegal immigrants' access to education and healthcare. In 1996, roughly 71 percent of Hispanics there voted to support President Bill Clinton. That pattern has largely held.
The appointment of Florida Sen. Mel Martinez as the new leader of the Republican National Committee in part reflects an acknowledgment by the party of the dramatic shift toward Democrats in Hispanic voting patterns this year.
Martinez will have no success for the Republicans in 2006 cut off their noses to spite their faces by bashing Hispanics.
The only similarity Hispanics now have with elephants is Hispanics have long memories and Republicans like Dobbs, Buchanan, Tancredo, Sensenbrenner, Pearce, Burns with the biggest loudmouth racist Hayworth will long be remembered as anti Hispanic. Even Gordon a Democrat bashing this year's marches will be remembered. As American Hispanics gain in the electorate, those that bash Hispanics will eventually fall by the wayside. Such is American politics.
Hispanic News is the largest news website on the Internet for American Hispanics and Latinos providing daily news, editorials, articles of interest, plus home to the Hispanic News National Diabetes Center and the Hispanic News National Election Center. Hispanic News is ranked number 1 of 73,100,000 websites at Google. Visit the website HERE. |
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