LOSING LA RAZA

Democrats Design Agenda in Bid to Hold Hispanic Support (CARL HULSE, 7/10/03, NY Times)

Officials who worked on the Democrats' agenda acknowledged that it did not represent a significant number of new proposals. Its importance lies, they said, in its thematic approach, tying together ideas, for example, on small business aid, work force language training,
government-provided health coverage and providing money that has not been forthcoming for promised education programs.

"What is important here is pulling programs together in a comprehensive fashion and showing the Hispanic community we are with them on the issues they care most about," a senior Democratic aide involved in developing the agenda said. A group of Democratic senators were briefed today on recent poll findings that show both opportunities and risks for Democrats when it comes to Hispanic voters.

"Democrats can no longer consider the Hispanic electorate as a base vote," Maria T. Cardona, director of the Hispanic Project at the New Democrat Network, said.

The network helped the party create the agenda, and it financed the poll of 800 Hispanic voters conducted May 27 through June 3, with almost half the interviews conducted in Spanish.

"They are increasingly looking at the Republican Party as an option," Ms. Cardona said.

The survey findings and other data assembled by the New Democrat Network reflect that. In a hypothetical 2002 presidential matchup performed by the group, President Bush--who won 35 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2000--was at 44 percent among Hispanic voters. The president's brother Jeb, the governor of Florida, whose wife is a Mexican native, won the Hispanic vote outright in the governor's race last year, even among Hispanics outside South Florida's generally conservative Cuban-Americans.

The best indicator of how much trouble a party is in is the need to shore up the base. The problem is that once the core constituencies that make up your party are either so dispirited that you have to re-energize them or so disgusted that they are looking at the other party, you end up having to shift your message away from the middle and towards whichever wing of opinion your party represents. Compounding the Democrats' problem: this is an especially bad time to be jagging Leftwards. Posted by Orrin Judd at July 10, 2003 10:12 AM