Republicans will become more racist, not less
by David Atkins
Remember when the GOP was told to “put a little salsa sauce” on their policies and everything would be fine? Yeah, about that:
A new poll released Monday throws a bucket of cold water on the theory that nominating a Latino candidate for President would help the Republican party win a larger share of the Latino vote.
The poll, from Latino Decisions, shows former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton walloping U.S. Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) among Latinos in a hypothetical 2016 matchup. According to the poll, Clinton grabs 66% of Latino voters. Only 28% would vote for Rubio.
Clinton is wildly popular with Latinos. 73% view her favorably and just 17% view her unfavorably. Those with an opinion are evenly divided on Rubio: 31% favorable; 29% unfavorable.
Republicans get creamed among Latinos in all possible matchups in the poll. The closest a Republican candidate comes to a Democrat is former Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, who trails Vice President Joe Biden with Latino voters 60-30.
There’s a civil war in the Republican Party over this problem. Some are counseling that the GOP being a long trudge to sanity on issues that won’t yield short-term dividends but may help avert longer-term demographic disaster. Others see major hurdles among minority voters and want to double down on the white vote:
But it’s important to recognize that a lot of Republicans in and out of Congress don’t buy the basic premise that improved performance among minority voters is the best and only path to majority status. And a lot of them are reading, or are being influenced indirectly by, Sean Trende’s series of analytical columns at RealClearPolitics suggesting that the more obvious route to a Republican majority, at least over the next couple of decades, is to intensify the GOP’s appeal to white voters…
This profile of the “missing white voters” of 2012—which is suggestive rather than definitive, since the Perot “coalition” Trende’s talking about arose a full two decades ago—will smell like catnip to those proposing some sort of conservative “populist” makeover for the GOP. And it would also reinforce the idea that being opposed to immigration reform might (a) not really cost the GOP votes they had no realistic chance of winning anyway, and (b) appeal in a positive way to the “missing white voters” who are reflexively nativist.
In his latest piece in the series, Trende tries to put his numbers together into a future scenario, as part of an argument that winning a higher percentage of Latino voters isn’t the exclusive GOP survival strategy it’s cracked up to be.
Count on Republicans to choose to amp up the racism until they lose Presidency, House and Senate. Things are going to get worse on that side of the aisle before they get better.
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