A Prediction, and a Word About Predictions

Posted by Bob Lord

On Morning Joe this morning they showed a poll of Obama against each of the R candidates, other than Paul, among Latino voters. They each pulled a whopping 14% of the vote. That’s astounding. In 2004, Bush pulled somewhere in the 40s. McCain did worse than Bush, but way better than 14%.

About 25 years ago, California was a purple state. Then California Republicans decided to go after immigrants.

But the California transformation pales in comparison to what could happen nationally, now that the Republicans have decided to attack immigrants on a national scale. That’s because Latino voting participation numbers are skyrocketing. And the Republicans know it.

So, I predict Marco Rubio will be the Republican VP candidate, if he’ll agree to it. I don’t know if he solves their Latino vote problem, but I’m not sure what else could, and they can’t absorb a 60 point loss among Latino voters. Am I dead certain of this? Of course not. The Rs will have other holes to plug, so they could go in a different direction. But it’s no secret they face a growing demographic problem, as the white male vote shrinks as a percentage of the total. They need to start addressing that problem and need to start now.

Here’s my word about predictions. You never hear about it when someone blows a prediction. That’s probably human nature, but it’s too bad. So, if I blow it on this or any other prediction, I’ll try to remember to do a post owning up to it.