By Dan Holler
Monday, June 24, 2013
As evidence by last week’s rush to embrace a phony border
security amendment, too many in the Republican Establishment are fixated on
immigration reform as merely a quick fix political strategy. Earlier this
month, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) became just the latest to reiterate this
failed outlook:
“We’re in a demographic death spiral as a party, and the only way we can get back in good graces with the Hispanic community, in my view, is pass comprehensive immigration reform. If you don’t do that, it really doesn’t matter who will run, in my view.”
Not only is that the wrong way to view immigration
reform, but it all but ensures terrible policy outcomes and continued political
defeat.
In the days following the election, a list of who’s who
among the Republican Establishment sounded off on the need for immigration
reform. To be clear, there are plenty of good reasons to reform our immigration
system, but many of these folks had one thing on their minds: winning the White
House in 2016.
President Obama predicted this very reaction in his
October 2012 interview with the Des Moines Register, claiming Republicans would
“have a deep interest” in embracing amnesty after his reelection, which was
secured because the “Republican nominee and the Republican Party have so
alienated the fastest-growing demographic group in the country, the Latino
community.”
Republican strategists – many of the same folks in charge
of the 2008 and 2012 campaigns – looked at the top line numbers and decided the
President was right. Mitt Romney had lost the Hispanic vote by 44 points, the
largest gap since Bob Dole lost by 21 points to Bill Clinton in 1996. They
concluded that given the projected growth in Hispanic voting population, a
continued shift away from the GOP could spell electoral disaster. In their
minds, they had to act…fast.
Enter the Senate’s Gang of Eight.
Former attorney general Edwin Meese says the bill The
Heritage Foundation explains “should sound familiar” because “it’s quite close
to the path and provisions” put forth in the 1986 amnesty passed by a Democrat
Congress and signed by Republican President Reagan.
Following that amnesty – an amnesty signed by a Republican
president – Democrats’ advantage among Hispanics jumped from 24 points to 39
points in the 1988 presidential election. Although the GOP won the election,
they lost ground among Hispanics voters.
It was a similar story in 2008. Despite having been the driving
force behind an amnesty proposal in 2007, GOP nominee John McCain lost the
Hispanic vote by 36 points to a Democrat who helped derail the bill. In 2004,
Democrats won Hispanics with just an 18-point margin.
Presidential electoral history is clear: the Republican
Party does not gain politically when it embraces amnesty.
This should come as no surprise, though. As Pew explained
following the 2012 election, 60% of Hispanic voters “identified the economy as
the most important issue (of four listed) facing the country today.” Prior to
the election, a FoxNews poll of likely Hispanic voters found that just 6% would
vote based on immigration.
Nonetheless, left-leaning pundits are happy to indulge
the logic, proclaiming that if the Republicans are to survive as a major
political party, they needed to embrace comprehensive immigration reform (read:
amnesty).
Democrats understand what Republican strategists
seemingly do not: if the GOP wants to make gains among Hispanic voters, they
must treat them like adults and take the time to win a policy argument.
President Barack Obama and Chuck Schumer understand GOP acquiescence on amnesty
will not result in a sudden swing of Hispanics toward the GOP.
Pandering isn’t a political solution; instead we must put
forth policy solutions.
Hispanics still believe America is the land of opportunity,
and it is incumbent upon conservatives to explain how our policy solutions
promote growth, opportunity and freedom. While polls suggest Hispanic voters
are not as skeptical of government as Republicans at large, their faith is not
blind.
We must explain how conservative policy solutions improve
the family budget, increase the quality and decrease the cost of health care,
and how our kids’ future will be brighter if they have a quality education and
less debt.
If the Republican Party is to succeed at the ballot box,
they must prove the positives, not spend a year and hundreds of millions trying
to prove a negative. This is how you make inroads with Hispanic voters (and
other disaffected Americans), not pandering in search of a quick political fix.
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