Republicans: Far from the Latino Vote

Despite the great quantity of bad news President Barack Obama has received, including the fall of his popularity in the opinion polls, he continues to be the most likely winner in the 2012 election.

That is my conclusion after getting to know the 2012 Republican candidates during the last few weeks. They are so unaware of issues that Hispanics care about that I do not see how any of them could win 40 percent of the Hispanic vote; a number that, according to the opinion polls, Republicans need to get into the White House.

The last Republican president, George W. Bush, won 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004, and since then, the Hispanic vote has only become more important. According to opinion polls, the 2008 Republican candidate, Sen. John McCain, who conducted a cautious campaign on immigration, lost in part because he only won 31 percent of the Hispanic vote.

How would any one of the current Republican candidates be able to reach the necessary percentage of the Hispanic vote when all of them are assuming a more inflexible position regarding immigration than the one that McCain took in 2008?

In the televised debate of Republican candidates in Iowa on Thursday, none supported the idea of a comprehensive immigration reform (like the one McCain backed in 2008) that would increase border controls while at the same time offering a path to legalization for the millions of immigrants who are willing to meet requirements such as paying fines and learning English.

Republican pollsters say that their party will get an important part of the Hispanic vote because the economy will be the key issue in next year’s elections. They point out that, according to their opinion polls, Hispanic voters place the economy, education, health care and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan at the top of their priorities — not immigration.

Democratic pollsters, in turn, counter that the Republicans will find it difficult to campaign on the economy when their candidates are calling for deeper budget cuts to social programs that most Hispanics want to keep. Besides, Democratic pollsters affirm that although immigration is not their main concern, it has a great influence on the decision of Hispanic voters.

“Immigration is an emotional issue,” Democratic pollster Sergio Bendixen said. “It indicates to us which candidate likes us, and which one doesn’t.”

Many important leaders of the Republican Party, headed, among others, by the former governor of Florida Jeb Bush and former Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutiérrez, have created a group called the “Hispanic Leadership Network” in an effort to attract Hispanic voters to their party. In a phone interview, I asked Gutiérrez how he can make his party win a significant part of the Hispanic vote with the current anti-immigration policy and major budget cuts.

A Moderate Republican

Gutiérrez, who supports Republican front runner and former governor of Massachusetts Mitt Romney, and who considers his candidate a pragmatist, admitted that it would be difficult for Republicans to win in 2012 with a candidate who Hispanics see as hostile. “The Republican nominee will have to be someone who is a moderate,” Gutiérrez said. “We have to embrace immigration; If we are the party of prosperity, we have to be the party of immigration.”

My opinion: Republicans will have a serious problem with the Hispanic vote in 2012. It is true that Obama will have to deal with an economic slowdown that affects Hispanics more than other Americans, and it is also true that he has not fulfilled his campaign promise to push immigration reform.

Besides, Obama’s administration will have to explain to Hispanics why he has deported almost one million immigrants without papers in the last three years, more than those deported by Bush during eight years in office.

However, the Republicans will not be able to criticize Obama on these matters because what their candidates propose are major cuts to social programs without new taxes on the rich, as well as an increase in mass deportations.

Unless Republican candidates shift toward the center to recover some of the Hispanic vote, or unless the economic situation gets worse still, causing Hispanics to stay at home on Election Day, everything suggests that Obama will be reelected in 2012.