With the GOP establishment rushing off to embrace amnesty, which Republican leaders fancy will win them party allegiance from Latino voters, they stand in danger of returning their party to a mere echo of the Democratic Party. The big question becomes whether the GOP will go the whole distance on other issues.
As it turns out, surrendering to open-borders demands on immigration won't bear political fruit for the Republican Party. That's because Latino voters, both the currently legal and those who'd benefit from legalization, disagree with the GOP on a host of issues.
"Natural" Republicans? Here's how National Journal sized up that canard recently:
The data suggest otherwise. First, Hispanics are more socially liberal than might be imagined. The Pew Research Center notes, "Latinos have often been characterized as more socially conservative than most Americans. On some issues, such as abortion, that's true. But on others, such as acceptance of homosexuality, it is not. When it comes to their own assessments of their political views, Latinos, more so than the general public, say their views are liberal." It's telling that when asked if they backed President Obama's position that "health insurance organizations should be required to cover contraception," 68 percent of Hispanics said yes; only 11 percent said no.
But it's on the question of big government that Hispanics stand most solidly with Democrats. The 2011 Pew Hispanic Center survey asked Latinos whether they would "pay higher taxes to support a larger government or pay lower taxes and have a smaller government"? Hispanics backed higher taxes and more government by 75 percent to 19 percent. For the population as a whole, 48 percent favored smaller government to 41 percent wanting big government. Even Obama's top political adviser, David Plouffe, seems to share the [Ann] Coulter hypothesis: "The bigger problem [Republicans have] got with Latinos isn't immigration," Plouffe told Time. "It's their economic policies and health care. The group that supported the president's health care bill the most — Latinos."
Perhaps no issue illustrates this point better than health reform, as the National Journal report (excerpted above) and the Los Angeles Times each show.
The Times reported that nearly half of Latinos support Obamacare, while less than a fifth oppose that law. By contrast, only 30 percent of whites back Obamacare, while nearly half oppose it.
The party pledged to repeal Obamacare hardly starts off on solid footing by leaping leftward on immigration, but keeping its toehold against government-run medicine — particularly when the target audience disproportionately lacks health insurance, uses Medicaid, and views the subsidized coverage and expanded Medicaid favorably.
"This is going to hurt Republicans," said Matt Barreto, cofounder of Latino Decisions, a nonpartisan national polling firm. "When Republicans keep saying they will repeal the health law, Latinos hear the party is going to take away their healthcare."
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Obama, meanwhile, made upholding the Affordable Care Act a core part of his Latino strategy. A quarter of the president's advertising in Spanish focused on the law, said James Aldrete, who oversaw Spanish-language media strategy for Obama in 2008 and 2012. "We knew from the start that, if Latinos knew about the benefits of the law, they were going back the president," he said. "It was central to our messaging."
In one widely aired television ad, Cristina Saralegui, a popular talk-show host, explained in Spanish how the law would help millions of Latinos get health insurance. In another, a campaign volunteer visiting a middle-aged man with diabetes, which is widespread among Latinos, said: "Family is important to President Obama, and he understands that families that are fighters sometimes have lost everything when someone gets sick."
Surveys indicate that close to 30% of Latino citizens and legal permanent residents lack health insurance. By comparison, just 11% of white and 17% of black Americans are uninsured, according to the latest data from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
And when you consider that more than three out of five (6.55 million) illegal aliens lack health insurance, legalization puts these aliens on the path to taxpayer-subsidized health care. One easily sees these amnesty beneficiaries will more likely vote for the politicians who gave the handouts, not the ones who tried to pry them away.
If Republicans give in on health care, as well as immigration, will that garner them more Latino support? Or will it sound like "me, too" to that electorate? And what's the cost to the party with its political base? Is taking the same position on key issues as the opposition party a winning political strategy? Might such a move merely depress turnout among the base while falling short of a competitive share of recruits?