WHEN YOU HATE YOUR OWN BASE:

When George W. Bush was governor of Texas from 1995-2000, he consistently reached out to the Hispanic community and supported immigration reform. Mr. Bush won his first gubernatorial election in 1994 with 25% of the Hispanic vote and was re-elected in 1998 with almost 40% Hispanic support. He left behind a solidly Republican Texas and a state party with a much friendlier reputation among Hispanics, along with the extra political support that entails. Two years later he won the presidential election with 34% of the national Hispanic vote and was re-elected with 40% in 2004.

California's Gov. Pete Wilson took another path. Facing a tough re-election campaign in 1994, the Republican decided to blame illegal immigrants for all of the state's troubles. The result was that he and the rest of the state GOP were perceived as blaming all immigrants for California's woes. Mr. Wilson won re-election but doomed the GOP for decades in that state.

The GOP's decline in California was dramatic. According to the Field Poll, the GOP gubernatorial candidates in 1986 and 1990 received 46% and 47% of the Hispanic vote, respectively. In 1994 Mr. Wilson received 25% of the Hispanic vote. In 1998, Republican gubernatorial candidate Dan Lungren received 17% of the Hispanic vote, giving Democratic candidate Gray Davis an 8.5-point lead in the general election.

Democrat Bill Press ran a voter drive in heavily Hispanic East Los Angeles in the early 1990s. At that time, he recently explained in the Hill newspaper, "residents distrusted government so much, it was hard convincing them to register, let alone vote. At the same time, Democrats feared that, if Latinos ever did register, they'd sign up as Republicans, because most of them were Catholic, pro-family and pro-small business."

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