by Alex Meneses Miyashita
John McCAin
The Hispanic vote could sink the aspirations of Republican Sen. John McCain goverment reach the White House because of his party’s approach to immigration over the past two years, claimed the progressive think tank and advocacy organization NDN at a May 28 press briefing in Washington, D.C.
The NDN was formed in 2006 as successor to the New Democrat Network.
With 78 percent of the Latino vote favoring a Democratic candidate in the primaries, the think tank claimed the Republican Party is continuing to lose the Hispanic support that it had gained in the 2000 and 2004 presidential elections.
President Bush won 35 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2000 and 40 percent in 2004, according to most exit poll data.
Latino support for the Republican Party decreased in the 2006 legislative elections to 30 percent, which the NDN attributes to the rise in anti-immigrant rhetoric within the Republican Party.
Rosenberg blamed the GOP for unleashing an “extraordinary racism in the United States,” saying it has fueled Hispanic voters to steer back to the Democratic Party.
“The immigration debate has changed American politics,” said Andrés Ramírez, NDN vice president for Hispanic programs. He cited a 2006 poll where 54 percent of Hispanics said immigration alone would motivate them to vote.
The Latino vote in the 2008 primaries has represented 15% of the national vote, compared to 9°/0 in 2004. “That’s a phenomenal increase,” Ramirez said.
The NDN estimated in its new report that about 12 million Hispanics could cast ballots in November, surpassing by more than 4 million the Latino turnout in 2004.
The growing Latino electorate gains further relevance as four of the states expected to be most contested, Colorado, Florida, Nevada and New Mexico, have a large and growing Hispanic presence that could tilt the results, the organization maintained.
The organization also claimed that the Hispanic majority in Florida is no longer Republican.
According to 2008 exit polls, Hispanic Democrats outnumber Hispanic Republicans nationally by a ratio larger than 3 to 1, Rosenberg predicted McCain’s recognition within the Hispanic community will not do him much good.
He claimed that in spite of the leading role McCain initially played to push a comprehensive immigration reform bill, he has ‘’betrayed the Hispanic community” by switching his position on immigration while speaking on the campaign trail.
“John McCain abandoned his bill,” he said. “That is an indisputable fact.”
But Hessy Fernandez, spokesperson for the Republican National Committee, challenged the claim as an unfounded political attack.
She claimed neitherof the two Democratic candidates, Sen. Hillary Clinton and Sen. Barack Obama, has shown “any leadership” to address the issue, and defended McCain as being the only candidate who has. She blamed the Democratic majority in Congress for failing to pass comprehensive immigration reform “after they promised our community that they would.”
Rosenberg, however, maintained the 2007 immigration bill being debated in the Senate did not pass largely because McCain “abandoned” the debate and the Republicans speaking on the bill were opposed to it.
“In the spring of 2007 (McCain) made a bad choice, and now he’s going to have to live with that,” Rosenberg said, adding that his changing position on immigration will be a “major issue in Hispanic media in 2008.”
Fernandez acknowledged the importance of the Hispanic vote in the upcoming elections, but dismissed the trends presented by the NDN as being politically biased.
“This is just a campaign of a partisan organization that wants to somehow steer visibility away from the internal discussions the Democratic Party is having,” she said.
Rosenberg stated that Republicans outspent Democrats 10 to 1 in Spanish-language media in 2004, but said that will not happen again as the party has “woken,’’ adding that “the energy in the Hispanic electorate today is against the Republican Party.” Hispanic Link.
