Republicans are trying to reach out to Hispanics, who voted more than 70 percent Democratic last year, but that didn’t stop one of their senior House members from calling them “wetbacks.”
By DOUGLAS BLOOMFIELDRepublicans(photo credit: REUTERS)
Timing is everything in politics. Republicans are trying to reach out to Hispanics, who voted more than 70 percent Democratic last year, but that didn’t stop one of their senior House members from calling them “wetbacks.” Speaker John Boehner moved quickly last week to staunch the bleeding caused by Rep. Don Young (R Alaska), who needed two attempts before he could come up with an apology.It’s a setback for a party trying to embrace immigration reform as a path out of its problems with minority voters who were stung by Mitt Romney’s “self deportation” solution. The hard-right base opposes pathways to citizenship such as amnesty and many see immigrants as an invading horde of criminals who steal jobs, get free health care, pay no taxes and flood our schools.That wing has repeatedly demonstrated the power to intimidate the GOP mainstream, and is expected to do the same on the policy changes party leaders consider critical to reversing the GOP’s sharp decline among Latino and other minority voters.It reminds me of something Ronald Reagan once said about his party: “Sometimes our right hand doesn’t know what our far right hand is doing.” A Gallup poll released Monday said one thing Republicans, Democrats and Independents agree on is that the GOP is inflexible.Another recent poll showed the children of baby boomers are more liberal than their parents on questions of immigration, gun control, gay rights, abortion and the role of government.Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal (R) said the GOP has to “stop being the stupid party.”Shortly afterward the Republican National Committee came out with its “autopsy” of the death of its hopes for victory in 2012, and it came to the brain-dead conclusion that the road to resurrection requires better salesmen, not better ideas. That brought joy to the hearts of many Democrats.House Majority Leader Eric Cantor (R-Virginia) wants to rebrand the party by taking off some of the sharp edges in the hope of making its policies more palatable. He told a conservative think tank that the new message should be about “creating the conditions for health, happiness and prosperity” instead of tax deductions, spending freezes and fiscal cliffs. It sounds like old wine in a new decanter.He said, “Loopholes are no more defensible than wasteful spending,” but continues opposing Democratic efforts to close tax loopholes favoring the rich; instead Cantor & Co. are focusing on cutting Medicare, Social Security, food stamps, health care, transportation, scientific research and education.Whatever the rationale, slashing the social safety net while protecting the privileged is a big reason why Jews and many other Americans will continue to vote overwhelmingly Democratic. The Republican campaign focus on Israel has less to do with the survival and security of the Jewish state than with the paucity of party appeal to Jewish voters. It works well with wealthy Jewish contributors, but not with voters. I have no doubt that if Mitt Romney took the identical positions he did on Israel last year, but ran as a Democrat he would have been as viciously attacked by the same Republicans who tried – unsuccessfully – to tar Barack Obama as a mortal danger to the Jewish state.
