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 Editorials | Issues | May 2008 
Dwindling GOP Hispanic Vote May Cost McCain, Says Liberal Strategist
 Josiah Ryan - CNSNews.com
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 |  | The Obama campaign understands that he needs Hispanic voters to propel him to victory in the general election and that he has already begun to implement a strategy to win their support.
- Simon Rosenberg |  | | | |
Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) may lose the presidential election if he fails to win as many Hispanic votes as George W. Bush did, says Simon Rosenberg, who is president of the liberal New Democratic Network (NDN) and a veteran of the Dukakis and Clinton presidential campaigns.
Rosenberg, speaking at a press conference on Wednesday, said that Republicans led by George W. Bush in 2000 were able to win the general election by capturing a record 40 percent of the Hispanic vote. In 2008, however, they are at risk of losing those votes to Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.), he said.
"The immigration issue may by itself hand the victory to the Democrats in 2008," said Rosenberg. "It's a new day and Hispanics are poised to play a very big role in the '08 elections. It is going to be very hard for McCain to gather the kind of support Bush had from the Hispanic community in 2000."
Rosenberg credits the Bush campaign with implementing an "enlightened strategy" to capture the Hispanic vote in 2000. Rosenberg says that election was determined, in large part by the 40 percent of Hispanic voters, particularly in Florida who chose Bush. "Hispanics have already determined the outcome of one election and that will likely happen again," Rosenberg predicted.
Despite the fact that Democrats have always won the majority of Hispanic voters, exit polls show that between 1996 and 2000 Republicans were able to cut into the Democratic margin among Hispanics.
Some believe that Republicans will need to capture a significant share of the Hispanic vote in 2008 in order to win. "At least five swing states that Bush carried in 2004 are rich in Hispanic voters - Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada, Colorado and Florida. Bush won Nevada by just over 20,000 votes," former Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson wrote in his Washington Post column in September. "A substantial shift of Hispanic voters toward the Democrats in these states could make the national political map unwinnable for Republicans."
Rosenberg said the Obama campaign understands that he needs Hispanic voters to propel him to victory in the general election and that he has already begun to implement a strategy to win their support.
In Puerto Rico this week, for example, Obama launched an ad in which he speaks extensively in Spanish. Rosenberg called the ad a "milestone."
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, approximately 3.7 million Hispanic registered to vote in 1984. By 2004, 9.3 million Hispanics had registered to vote. NDN estimates that there are currently 13 million Hispanics registered to vote.
Rosenberg believes that Democrats are poised to capture the lion's share of this expanding population not only in the upcoming election but also in the more distant future. "There will be a minority-majority country in our lifetimes and the Democratic Party will be the minority-majority party by 2016 at the latest."
But in the primaries so far, Obama has had trouble winning Hispanic voters, a majority of whom have voted for Sen. Hillary Clinton (D-N.Y). According to exit polls conducted by USAElectionPolls.com, Clinton has won 53 percent of the Hispanic vote in the Democratic primaries and Obama has won 39 percent.
Rosenberg dismissed any fears Democrats may have that Obama does not appeal to Hispanics. "Things play out very differently in primaries then they do in the general," he said. "We can't minimize the campaign that Clinton ran. It was innovate and effective."
The NDN is a 501 (c)(4) advocacy organization that was started in 2005 by Rosenberg. |
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