Posted by AzBlueMeanie:
Rachel Maddow did a segment on Tuesday night about the GOP's new $10 million outreach to minority voters, in particular, to Hispanic voters.
The village idiot Aqua Buddha, Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), addressed the Hispanic Chamber of Commerce in Washington D.C. on Tuesday, "and on his way there he apparently stopped off at the Hispanic voter stereotype shop."
Clip:
Republicans have been losing both respect and votes of a group of people who already identify with many of our beliefs in family, and faith, and conservative values. Hispanics should be a natural and sizeable part of the Republican base. Defense of the unborn, defense of traditional marriage, are Republican issues that should resonate with Latinos.
As Maddow commented, "Should they? Why do you think that? You know if you actually look at the data, more than half of all Hispanics think that gay people should be allowed to marry. On abortion about two-thirds of Latinos think abortion should be legal. So your stereotypes about what Latino voters think, hey, turns out they're wrong. Also, they're stereotypes."
Where have I heard Aqua Buddha's lines before? Oh yeah, FAUX News contributor and Washington Post columnist, the craptacular Charles Krauthammer. Two days after Latino voters broadly rejected the Republican Party, Charles Krauthammer saw reason for optimism. Latinos, he said,
“should be a natural Republican constituency: striving immigrant
community, religious, Catholic, family-oriented and socially
conservative (on abortion, for example.)”
Aqua Buddha must have been cribbing from his column.
Irin Carmon at Salon destroyed this GOP fantasy in an article last November, Rove's plan won't work: Don't count on Latino social conservatism:
Whether or not Republicans have any chance of capturing more than a
tiny fraction of the Latino vote, Krauthammer (and the straw-grasping
Republicans who echoed him) shouldn’t take Latinos’ conservatism,
including their views on abortion, for granted.
First of all,
being religious doesn’t mean you vote according to the dictates of your
church, and Latino voters have consistently told pollsters that they
don’t. Last December, a Latino Decisions poll found
that 53 percent of Latinos said religion would have no impact at all on
their vote. And only 14 percent agreed that “politics is more about
moral issues such as abortion, family values, and same-sex marriage.” In
fact, exit polling from the election this month showed that Latinos
were more likely than other voters to support same-sex marriage recognition.
Polling
on abortion rights is notoriously hard to characterize and can
fluctuate depending on how the question is asked — from framing it in
terms of legality to asking about the fuzzy labels “pro-life” and
“pro-choice.”
* * *
But then came the actual election. Not only did Latinos broadly go for pro-choice candidates, according
to ABC’s exit polling, but 66 percent of Latino voters across the
country also said abortion should be legal. That’s higher than the
general population, 59 percent of whom said abortion should be legal.
There was no gender gap in the exit polling of Latinos on abortion, but
Latinas were even more likely to support Obama than their male
counterparts: 76 percent of Latina women voted for Obama; 65 percent of
Latino men did. In other words, female support helped secure the
overwhelming support of Latinos for the president.
Jessica González-Rojas, the executive director of the National Latina
Institute for Reproductive Health, told Salon that when it comes to
asking the Latino community questions about abortion and gay marriage,
the framing makes a big difference.
* * *
González-Rojas also pointed out that Latinos overwhelmingly supported
the Affordable Care Act, including its birth control coverage
provisions.
That whole Hispanic voter outreach thing is not going to go well for you when you view Hispanic voters through the prism of stereotypes from old rich white guys.
Also, demonizing Hispanics as criminals who should be deported (American citizens or not) and "illegal" voters whose votes need to be suppressed kinda bigfoots your Hispanic voter outreach, now doesn't it?