Well it’s over. The Senate refused to end the restrictionist’s filibuster against the immigration bill. Thus ends the administration’s attempt to reach out to Hispanic voters. There will be consequences, and they are not pretty.
USA Today reports:
SAN ANTONIO — Like no Republican before him, George W. Bush drew Hispanics to the GOP.
In the 2004 election, at least 40% of the voters in the nation’s largest and fastest-growing minority group backed Bush, double the share of Hispanics who had supported Republican Bob Dole eight years earlier. But the inroads Bush made are vanishing.
…
A new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll indicates that Hispanics, by nearly 3 to 1, say they’re Democrats or lean that way. Of those, 59% support the New York senator over her presidential rivals — her strongest showing among any major demographic group and a huge potential asset for early contests in Nevada, Florida, California and other states with large Hispanic populations.
One big factor behind the flight from the GOP: a heated debate over immigration in which congressional Republicans’ remarks on illegal immigrants have offended many Hispanic voters.
Emphasis mine.
Read the whole thing here.
As they persist in a pigheaded devotion to what they call the “politics of principle” — a set of positions that is driving them to the margins of the American polity — the cranks in the Republican “base” can’t say they weren’t warned. Like the Democrat “netroots” they are more interested in purifying the party than in responsible government.
If they are upset at President Bush, wait until they get a load of President Hillary!
