CNN: Hispanic conservatives keep close eye on Republican debate

[pampango]

http://www.cnn.com/2011/POLITICS/06/12/hispanic.conservatives/

As Republicans gear up for Monday's presidential debate in New Hampshire, some conservative Hispanics say they'll be watching closely -- and they're hoping to see more than the current field of candidates has offered so far.

San Francisco political consultant Alex Gonzalez, who has also joined the Tequila Party, said he hopes to support a Republican candidate who isn't intimidated by the Tea Party and has concrete plans for improving the nation's economy.

Maria de Lourdes Gonzalez Cosio, director of the Hispanic apostolate of the Roman Catholic diocese in Knoxville, said she feels ashamed to be a Republican every time she hears a Republican candidate endorse anti-immigration laws.

"I would like the candidates to talk about the hostility GOP legislators have towards immigrants," Garcia Blase said. "I see hypocrisy where GOP state legislators are implementing anti-immigrant laws all over the place, yet, they really don't want the president to take care of immigration reform that will benefit the American economy. I want to know how they will fix the broken immigration system."

Repubs have no desire to "fix the broken immigration system'. Their policy, exemplified in Arizona is "attrition through enforcement".

"Those three words, “attrition through enforcement,” make up a catchphrase of the the right-wing Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR), Lemons points out. It essentially means, "make life so uncomfortable to immigrant population here that they'll leave."

"The intense Republican anti-immigrant rhetoric wasn't always so loud in Arizona, Lemons says. Immigration used to be a wedge issue for the party, as many of its members run businesses that rely on undocumented workers. "Republicans were not as nativist as they are now in the state," he says. But Lemons says there was an "ethnic McCarthyism" creeping into Arizona's Republican Party."

http://alibi.com/feature/32226/Climate-Check-Arizona.html

Attrition through enforcement is a wonderful strategy for the right. It appeals to the base's desire "to do something directly to the 'bad guys'" while preserving a large pool of easily exploitable workers. We have seen that increased enforcement doesn't send many people "home" (they know what awaits them at home), it just drives them deeper underground and makes them even more exploitable. The repubs' base is happy, the repubs' unscrupulous employers are happy; it's a win-win for the GOP.

[The Backlash Cometh]

1. You all need to start paying attention.

You'll never pull in Republican Latinos on the money issue since their lifestyle, coming from Latin American countries, is okey dokie with the concept of two very different classes. One that rules, and one that serves.

So you'll have to pull them in with a strong Democratic platform since money doesn't stretch in the US as easily as it does in environments where 10% of the country owns 90% of the resources.

[brooklynite]

3. This comment makes no sense at all...

1) this assumes that Republican Latinos are all first generation immigrants with no grounding in American, vs Central/South American social constructs. Please prove this if you can...

2) this also assumes that Republican Latinos are Republican because they're rich, and therefore unresponsive to Democratic economic arguments, as opposed to being Republican for social or other reasons.

[The Backlash Cometh]

4. True, I can only speak for the Dade County area in Florida.

But I don't believe it's singular. It has a strong Latino American culture and they've been able to live in two worlds on American soil because there are plenty of immigrants who are just coming in who are willing to work for wages which, to them, look much better than what they left behind.

When you consider that the business world is set up on a network basis, and many Latinos owe their success to the International world in Latin America, it would be naive to believe that someone who is raised in a place like Dade County would have the same insular concept of American lifestyle as someone who was raised in the Midwest.

[LeftinOH]

2. Dear Hispanic conservatives: The Republicans (and Tea Party, in particular) don't like you.

They'll happily take your vote, but don't expect anything in return (except for the Cuban-American bloc in Florida).