‘Getting’ Latinos

ACROSS THE NATION, Republicans are asking what they did wrong in the 2006 midterms. This is a question with many answers. But few missteps were more foolish -- and few will be harder to correct -- than those made with Latino voters. The appointment this week of Cuban-born Sen. Mel Martinez of Florida to chair the Republican National Committee is a good way to make a new start. But the damage done in the last year goes deeper than symbolism, and it will take more than one appointment to undo it.

Republicans have, of course, long been divided about Latinos -- split between those who “get it” and those who don’t. President Bush was the most prominent Republican who got it, though he was hardly alone. Arnold Schwarzenegger, Rudy Giuliani, George Pataki and others have long understood the GOP’s inherent appeal for the fastest-growing voting bloc in the country. In a national poll last month, 34% of Latinos called themselves conservative, 29% moderate and only 24% liberal.

Diverse as they can be in origin and outlook, on many issues -- abortion, homosexuality, education, homeownership, small-business concerns and Iraq -- Latinos tend to line up with Republicans. And though Democrats have been wooing these voters longer and have won the lifetime loyalties of many in the second and third generations, immigrants have been up for grabs -- and for more than 10 years now Republicans have been making a hard run at them.

That effort was working pretty well. Between 1996 and 2004, Bush and Karl Rove managed to double the percentage of Latinos voting Republican in presidential elections: up from 21% for Bob Dole to a whopping 44% for Bush two years ago. Other Republicans across the country were making similar inroads. In 2004, Bush advisor Matthew Dowd said that in the years ahead, the GOP would have to keep its share above 40% if it wanted to remain the majority party.

But that scenario failed to account for the Republicans who didn’t get it -- and in the last year or so these naysayers have destroyed everything Bush built. Republican hard-liners in the House refused to enact the president’s immigration reform. They passed a bill making felons of illegal immigrants, not because it was good law but merely to make a political point. They spent recent months demagoguing the immigration issue, first at a series of “field hearings” in their districts and then on the campaign trail, casting newcomers as terrorists and criminals and anyone who seemed to side with them as un-American.

The problem was as much about tone as substance -- many Latinos are also worried about illegal immigration. But the hard-liners’ grandstanding added up, and there was no mistaking the message: Not only illegal immigrants but 30 million Latino voters heard Republicans saying, “We don’t like you.” The results were hardly surprising. Last week, Latinos voted 70% to 29% in favor of Democrats. And it could be argued that this shift is what decided the election. According to exit polls, white voters were split more or less evenly between the two parties, with Latinos, Asians and blacks making the difference on election night.

The question is what happens now. Does the wing of the GOP that made the mistake see it? Conservative bloggers are urging Republicans in exactly the wrong direction, arguing against all evidence that the midterms were a vote against immigration and that any compromise with Democrats on this issue would be a betrayal of the party. But even if the GOP ignores this bad advice, the party has plenty of damage to repair.

The issue isn’t just immigration but the way the hard-liners’ stance has been so offensive, even to Latinos who agree with them about the need for a secure border. It’s about whether you see Latinos as “us” or “them.” It’s about what kinds of innuendo you use in making your case. It’s about whether or not you’re imagining a shared future, and how constructively you’re planning for it. Republican naysayers fail on all counts. Latinos sense it. And as a consequence, most can no longer hear the GOP even on issues on which they agree with the party.

Even without further immigration, Latino political muscle is expected to explode in coming years as newcomers become citizens and their children come of age. Already in 2008, four of the most heavily Latino states -- Florida, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada -- are expected to be critical battlegrounds. And what Latino voters ultimately need -- what would serve them and serve the nation -- is competition between the two parties to make policy that helps them succeed as Americans: economic policy, education policy, assimilation policy and policy to ensure opportunity. But that competition can’t even take place -- Latinos can’t be expected to give the Republican case a hearing -- until the party digs itself out of the hole it has dug itself into.

Immigration is the place to start undoing the damage. But it’s going to be a long, uphill walk.