Subject: [big campaign] New Huff Post from Creamer-Evidence Arizona Law Could be Fatal Mistake for GOP
From: [email-masked]
To: [email-masked]
Date: Thu, 24 Jun 2010 08:43:06 EDT
List-Id: <bigcampaign.googlegroups.com>

Evidence Arizona Immigration Law May Be Fatal Mistake  for GOP 
There is compelling new evidence that Republicans will rue the day that  
they allowed their virulent anti-immigrant wing to grab the controls of the  
Republican Party. 
In fact, contrary to much of the pundit chatter, a drama is playing out  
this fall that may doom Republicans to permanent minority status in  America. 
The passage of the Arizona “papers, please” anti-immigration law  has 
forced Republican politicians around the country into a political box canyon  
that does not offer an easy escape.   For fear of offending the emergent Tea 
Party – and other anti-immigrant  zealots in their own base -- they are 
precipitating a massive realignment of  Latino voters nationwide. 
According to data released by Public Policy Polling (PPP), Texas Governor  
Rick Perry has lost his early lead over Democratic challenger Bill White and 
the  race is now tied.  The movement from  a previous PPP poll in February 
comes entirely from Hispanic voters.  PPP reports that: 
“With white voters Perry led 54-36 then and  leads 55-35 now. With black 
voters White led 81-12 then and 70 -7 now.  But with Hispanics Perry has gone 
from  leading 53-41 to trailing 55-21….there is no doubt the (Arizona) 
immigration bill  is popular nationally. But if it causes Hispanics to change 
their voting  behavior without a parallel shift among whites then it’s going to 
end up playing  to Democratic advantage this fall.” 
The punditry sometimes forgets that in politics intensity is often just  as 
important as poll percentages.  For many Hispanic voters, the Arizona 
immigration law is an insult.  It is an attack on their very  identity.  And it 
is certainly a  litmus test that tells a Hispanic voter whether or not a 
political candidate is  on their side – the critical threshold test of voter 
decision  making. 
The same is simply not true for non-Hispanic voters.  As a result, by 
allowing the Party to be  defined by the anti-immigrant zealots – and refusing to 
lift a finger to pass  comprehensive immigration reform in Congress – the 
Republicans are playing with  political fire.   
In fact, given the fact that Hispanics are the fastest-growing segment of  
the American electorate, the Republicans are playing with permanent 
marginality.  
As if to sharpen their anti-immigrant brand, last week the Texas  
Republican State Convention voted for a platform that included a plank calling  on 
the state government to adopt a state law like the one in Arizona.   
But Texas is far from the only place where the  emerging Latino backlash is 
in evidence.  PPP reports that its latest polls in Colorado show that 
incumbent Democratic  Senator Michael Bennett has gone from tying his opponent 
Republican Jane Norton  to a three-point lead largely because his lead among 
Hispanic voters has soared  from 12 to 21 points.  
California Republican gubernatorial candidate Meg Whitman felt compelled  
to back tough anti-immigrant measures to get the Republican nomination.  Now 
her support among Latinos is  hemorrhaging, dropping from 35 to 26 points 
from March to May.  Since the primary, Whitman has begun to  waffle on her 
tough anti-immigrant stand but the damage has been done – what’s  more, it’s 
memorialized in videos that Democrat Jerry Brown is sure to loop over  and 
over on Spanish language TV.   
Even in districts where the Hispanic vote is not large, big declines in  
Republican support could prove decisive in otherwise close races.  After all 
the difference between getting  49.9% and 51.1% means everything in an 
election. 
The bottom line is that by passing the Arizona “papers, please” law, 
Republicans –  especially in the West – have awakened a sleeping and growing 
giant.   
Remember that the huge drops in Hispanic support for Republicans do not  
factor in the effect the Arizona law will have on Hispanic  turnout. 
A few months ago, no one would have predicted a massive turnout in  
November among Hispanic voters.  That appears to have changed.   
If a surge of anti-Republican Hispanic voters destroys the careers of  
enough politicians who thought that pandering to anti-immigrant fear was good  
politics, the whole political narrative about immigration reform will change. 
 
Watch for big sections of the Republican establishment to fall all over  
themselves to make amends to the rising tide of Latino voters, soon after the  
elections.  But in all likelihood it  will be very difficult to get the 
anti-immigrant toothpaste back into the  tube. 
If it continues to pursue  its current course, the Republican Party may 
find that it loses another ethnic  minority the same way it lost African 
Americans two generations ago. African  Americans recall, were a solid part of the 
Republican base from the Civil War  through the early part of the 20th 
Century.  Roosevelt’s New Deal began to change that.  The civil rights 
revolution and the  Republican “Southern Strategy” completed  it.   Now 92% to 95% 
of  African Americans vote Democratic. The problem is that you can only get 
shut out  of a couple of minorities and before you know it, you are no longer 
competitive  with the majority of Americans.  
Within just a few years minorities will become a majority of the American  
electorate.  And let’s remember that  Republicans are also having enormous 
difficulty competing for young white  millennial voters that are forming 
their voting habits at this moment.  That may very well mean that the  decision 
to write off Hispanics may turn out to be a fatal error for the future  of 
Republicans as a national party.  Hispanic voters could have been a political 
lifeboat for Republicans.  No longer. 
And of course the irony is that some of the more enlightened elements of  
the Republican Party – who have justified risking long-term popularity with  
Hispanics in exchange for short-term political gains – may not even see 
benefits  in the short run. 
For some years, Latino immigration rights marchers have carried signs  
reading: “Today We March, Tomorrow We Vote.”  Tomorrow may have arrived.  
Robert Creamer is a long-time  political organizer and strategist, and 
author of the recent book: Stand Up  Straight: How Progressives Can Win, 
available on _Amazon.com._ 
(http://www.amazon.com/Listen-Your-Mother-Straight-Progressives/dp/0979585295/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1213241439&sr=8-1) 
 
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