THE GOP'S GONE A-COURTIN' :

The GOP must win the Hispanic vote. Here's how (Linda Chavez, June 6, 2002, Jewish World Review)

Recent polls suggest that [Republic Gov. Rick] Perry is winning handily among non-Hispanic whites but trails [Democrat businessman Tony ] Sanchez among Hispanic voters by 37 percent to Sanchez's 58 percent. So is it time for the GOP to give up on its Hispanic strategy? Certainly not -- but it could use some fine tuning, and the
Perry-Sanchez race will provide important lessons on the best way to attract Hispanics to the Republican Party in other states as well. [...]

Although Perry's Hispanic numbers don't match Bush's in 1998, they are still surprisingly strong. After all, Perry faces not only the first Hispanic to win the gubernatorial nomination of a major party in the state, but one who spent almost $20 million in the Democratic primary, which bought his opponent, Sanchez, nearly universal name recognition.

Yet Democrat Sanchez isn't doing as well as you might expect. In fact, he's doing better among black voters in the state than he is among Hispanics. Some 67 percent of black
voters indicated on a recent poll that they favor Sanchez, almost 10 percent higher than Sanchez's share of the Hispanic vote.

All of which suggests that maybe some Hispanic voters don't so much vote for Republican candidates as they do against certain kinds of Democrats, even if they happen to be Hispanic.

In almost every case where Republicans have done well with Hispanic voters, the Democratic candidate was left-leaning. Although Sanchez is frequently described as a
conservative businessman -- he donated heavily to President Bush's campaigns for governor and president -- he ran as the more liberal candidate against another Hispanic in the Democratic primary, former state attorney general Dan Morales. What's more, Sanchez especially tried to outflank Morales on the language issue.

One of the main complaints you hear from conservatives who don't want the party to appeal to minority voters is that it will require too many compromises with our own beliefs. That's a legitimate concern. It would be a mistake to merely pander for votes. But if we truly believe in our own ideas, don't we have to assume that they have appeal across racial, ethnic, and socioeconomic lines? Suppose winning a significant portion Latino vote doesn't require us to change our ideas much at all, but merely to change the attitude we take towards these voters. What do we really have to lose by making them feel wanted? Posted by Orrin Judd at June 8, 2002 11:03 AM