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Even Bush Can't Lure Hispanics to GOP in 2000 by Steve Sailer UPI, November 8, 2000 |
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Despite running the most Latino-friendly campaign in Republican history, George W. Bush still lost to Al Gore by a landslide among Hispanic voters. According to exit polls reported by CNN and ABC, Hispanics went for Gore 62% to 35% over Bush. (CBS reported Gore trounced Bush even more dramatically among Latinos: 66% to 29%.) In contrast, Bush won easily among non-Hispanic whites: 54% to 42%. Bush's performance raises serious questions about the long-term viability of the Republican Party. Hispanics made up only 7% of the respondents in the exit poll. However, the number of voting age Hispanics rose by 47% over the last decade, due to immigration and a high birth rate. Mexican-American women average 80% more babies than non-Hispanic white women. So, the Hispanic share of the vote is bound to rise for decades to come. In fact, the U.S. Census Bureau projected last spring that the total number of Hispanics will grow from 32 million to 190 million over this century. (The Census Bureau estimates the number of whites will rise from 197 million to 230 million.) In his search for Hispanic votes, the Texas governor spoke Spanish frequently at ethnic rallies. (One unkind British pundit claimed that Bush had more need of a translator when he spoke English.) He won much applause for empathizing with illegal aliens, as exemplified by his often-repeated line, "Family values don't stop at the Rio Grande." He had his handsome half-Mexican nephew George P. Bush campaign extensively for him. Bush's only policy initiative related to immigration was a promise to reform the Immigration & Naturalization Service so that it would provide faster and politer service to immigrants. All this helped him do better among Latinos than Bob Dole did in 1996, but no better than Richard Nixon or Ronald Reagan did when the Hispanic population was much smaller. Gore won 67% to 28% among California's 7 million voting age Hispanics (the most of any state). A California House race tested the upper limits of Republican appeal to Hispanics. In California's 20th Congressional district, a heavily Latino farm belt around Fresno, the California Republicans nominated Rich Rodriguez to challenge incumbent Democrat Cal Dooley. Rodriguez seemed a near-perfect candidate. An articulate and moderate Republican, he was the top rated newscaster in the district. And, like most California Mexican-Americans, he is a dark-skinned mestizo with high cheekbones. Still, he lost 53% to 45%. Rodriguez went down to defeat because Hispanics voted overwhelmingly for Dooley the Anglo. (Granted, there's something odd about the current California convention of calling a man named "Dooley" an "Anglo.") In the last poll, Dooley lead Rodriguez 60% to 29% among Latinos. Bush did best among the Hispanics (overwhelmingly Mexican-American) in his home state of Texas, which has the second largest Latino population. There, Bush lost by only 54% to 42%. Yet, among white Texans, he won by the overwhelming margin of 73% to 24%. In other words, the white-Hispanic gap in Texas was 61 points. California Republicans widely blame their former governor Pete Wilson for awakening the sleeping giant of the Mexican-American vote. In 1994, Wilson won re-election by backing Proposition 227, which was intended to cut off government services to illegal immigrants. (It passed easily, but the courts later threw it out.) While it is fashionable to blame Pete Wilson for the difference, it may be that that Texas is actually the anomaly, not California. For example, in Colorado, a thousand miles from Wilson, Hispanics voted for Gore 68% to 25%. In Arizona, Gore's margin was 65% to 33%. There are fundamental cultural and political differences between Texas' and California's Mexican-American populations. These suggest California and will be voting Democratic long after Pete Wilson is forgotten. Texas tends to draw immigrants from industrialized northern Mexico, where Mexican President-Elect Vincente Fox's conservative, Republican-style PAN party is dominant. In contrast, California has long attracted immigrants from central Mexico, where the most popular parties are the leftist coalition of former Mexico City mayor Cuauthemoc Cardenas and the PRI, the former ruling party out-going President Ernesto Zedillo. The PRI resembles an old-fashioned Tammany Hall-style Democratic machine. Increasingly, immigrants are also arriving in California from impoverished southern Mexico, where the Marxist guerillas under Subcommandante Marcos control part of Chiapas state. Thus, it's not surprising that in Texas, Mexican-Americans are more likely to vote Republican than in California. In the third most important Hispanic state, New York, Gore demolished Bush among Latinos 80% to 18%. New York's Latino community has traditionally consisted of Puerto Ricans, but there are growing numbers of Dominicans and Mexicans. Florida has the fourth biggest Hispanic community. It is widely believed to consist almost entirely of staunchly Republican Cubans. But other Hispanic groups are growing more rapidly than Cubans. That's one reason why the exit poll showed Bush winning Hispanics in Florida, where every voted mattered, by only a 50% to 48% margin. Hispanics cost Bush New Mexico's five electoral votes. The Texas governor lost by two percentage points overall in his neighboring state because the one third of the electorate that is Latino voted 66%-32% for Gore. Steve Sailer (www.iSteve.com) is a columnist for VDARE.com and the film critic for The American Conservative.
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