Saturday, November 10, 2012

They're here..

..to stay:
José Rodas moved to this blue-collar town on the Des Moines River in 2001 to take a job at the Cargill pork plant, after more than a decade eking out an existence in California and Nevada. 
[...] 
Mr. Rodas is part of a Hispanic migration from traditional settlement areas in the Western U.S. to the interior. Drawn by well-paying blue-collar jobs, affordable housing and safe neighborhoods, Latinos have settled in towns that hadn't experienced immigration for a century. 
Hispanic migration to the Midwest has political implications. Though only 2.2% of eligible voters in Iowa are Latinos, President Barack Obama courted them. He won in five out of seven counties that together are home to half of Iowa's Latino population. The president also won in Wapello County, where Ottumwa is the county seat. Nationally, Hispanics accounted for 10% of the electorate for the first time, and helped power Mr. Obama to victory.
Read the full story HERE.

I found this interesting 2000 study. Although 12 years old now, if that trend continued at the same pace over the past 12 years, I can see a possible element in how Romney loss in some of those swing states?

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22 comments:

Ohio JOE said...

Well, I have to both agree and disagree with you Bosman. To a large extent the numbers do not lie. Mr. Obama owes his election and re-election in part to the fact that many Hispanics voted for him. You are also correct that many counties that are not traditionally Hispanic are becoming more Hispanic. Further, I do not know where he got his statistics, but an old (Race) friend of mine told me that White Church going Catholics (and White Church going Protestants for that matter) voted for Mr. Romney by greater proportions that they did for other GOP candidates, but Mr. Romney actually lost ground among Hispanic Church going Catholics.

I do not believe that this dooms the GOP per se. We cannot blame only non-White people when many White failed to vote for whatever reason. I myself was very offended when our former state party chairman came to my county and basically said in a round about way, 'you rural rubes better start welcoming Hispanics if our party is too survive.' As a result of his arrogance, I indirectly helped get rid of him as our Chairman.

One can argue that in the end, Mr. Romney did not have to specifically do ethnic outreach to Polish-Americans, Italian-Americans and so on to get them to vote for him. However, his failure to produce Hispanic out-reach hurt him. Mr. Bush did out-reach to Hispanics and he won. I am in no way saying that he hates Hispanic people, but we need to do more to get Hispanics to vote for us. A few generations ago, Irish-American, French-Americans, Bulgarian-Americans, Portuguese Americans and so forth would never vote GOP, now many of them do. So eventually Hispanics will come around. As a non-Hispanic immigrant, I see both sides of the story, but there are still no easy answers in the short term.

RomneyMan said...

BOSMAN- Are you planning on keeping the site open, updated etc ? It has a good following.

Anonymous said...

OJ, I talked to a Hispanic man after the Romney rally in Land O Lakes. He was very supportive of Romney without reservations.

I think Hispanics that have been in the US for awhile who have rooted themselves into the 'system' are great people to outreach to. They don't need Santa Claus to help them and their traditional family values & belief system in hard work to improve their lives comes back to the fore.

Clearly, Romney did not outreach to them & proposed self deportation. Both were big mistakes. Even as a Constitutional conservative, I disagreed with those stances. Just uphold the current laws in place, police the borders, send back the criminals, gang members, and other undesirables. It wasn't any one thing that tilted the election to Obama; it was a combination of things that did so. Another example, the Ron Paul snub at the Convention. Absolutely no need to do so with so many supporters with votes on the line.

Also, one other thing. The GOP leadership is a disaster. From the Congressional leaders, the RNC, and even down to the county level as you noted, needs to change. We need a "clean sweep" of all the dead wood to reinvigorate the party with some fresh ideas & thinking. The same folks that keep bringing up RINO candidates such as Ford, Dole, McCain, et al, need to leave. It's a clear case of failed leadership in the party. Prune them out!!

BOSMAN said...

RomneyMan,

RS isn't going anywhere. If Our contributors continue to contribute and keep us relevant, we'll be fine and continue to grow.

CRUZ COUNTRY said...

Hispanics will ALWAYS favor the Democrat party for the same reason that African Americans do: the Democrat party is the party of free stuff - the Democrat party is the party of Santa Claus.

If Hispanic support for Democrats was about the immigration issue, then their support for Republicans would have SURGED after Ronald Reagan signed into law amnesty for 3 million illegal immigrants in 1986.

BUT THE EXACT OPPOSITE HAPPENED - HISPANIC SUPPORT FOR THE REPUBLICAN PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE DROPPED FROM 37% IN 1984 TO 30% IN 1988.

The only thing Reagan's amnesty bill accomplished was to immediately increase the Democrat party's base by 3 million voters, and by millions upon millions more after factoring in chain migration of family members.

And think about it folks - would Democrat politicians & pundits from coast-to-coast be telling Republicans to support amnesty if they REALLY BELIEVED it was the Republican's path to victory at the ballot box?!?!?

CRUZ COUNTRY said...

@ Ohio Joe

There's a BIG DIFFERENCE between Hispanic immigrants and European immigrants: EUROPEAN IMMIGRANTS ASSIMILATED, they learned our language, our culture, and our history, whereas HISPANIC IMMIGRANTS HAVE NOT.

CRUZ COUNTRY said...

And think about this folks - since Reagan's famed amnesty bill of 1986, Republican presidential candidates have won the popular vote just twice (1988 & 2004), and lost it 5 times(1992, 1996, 2000, 2008, 2012).

Supporting amnesty, like so many other co-called "compromises", is a Democrat-created TRAP for Republicans.

Those who don't learn from the mistakes of history are doomed to repeat them.

CRUZ COUNTRY said...

correction: so-called "compromises"

CRUZ COUNTRY said...

The REAL REASONS that Romney lost the election are:

1 - 95% of the mass media is in the Democrat party's back pocket. THIS MUST CHANGE if the GOP ever hopes to be a consistently majority party again.

2 - The drawn out, bitterly contested GOP primaries caused many Republicans - especially the 3 million who stayed home on election day - to permanently distrust & dislike Romney. For that we can "thank" Limbaugh, Hannity, Levin, Beck, Ingraham & Company.

3 - As FOX pundit Pat Caddell repeatedly pointed out for months, Romney ran one of the worst campaigns in history. Sorry folks, but that's the truth.

Ohio JOE said...

In the end, despite the bitter campaign, Mr. Limbaugh gave Mr. Romney more support than many others in the so-called Conservative Media. Also, with regards to the GOP civil war, the Romney camp did not do enough to heal the wounds. As a result, many people stayed home.

CRUZ COUNTRY said...

I would've added a 4th reason for Romney's loss - Democrat voter fraud - but since I can't prove it, I left it out.

Democrats have an undeniable history of committing widespread voter fraud - see 1960 presidential election and the more recent ACORN scandal - so it would be beyond naive to discount that possibility in this election.

CRUZ COUNTRY said...

@ Ohio JOE

I agree - Limbaugh was extremely helpful to Romney during the fall campaign, but he was just the opposite during the GOP primaries.

And yes, Romney definitely should have appeared on conservative talk radio shows during the entire 2012 race - primary & general election seasons - IN ORDER TO DEBUNK THE MISREPRESENTATIONS AND LIES ABOUT HIS POLICIES AND POSITIONS.

This was just one of many major strategic and tactical mistakes that Romney made which cost him the election.

Ohio JOE said...

"but he was just the opposite during the GOP primaries." Because there were primary options that were not as bad.

CRUZ COUNTRY said...

Obama's October Surprise - Hurricane Sandy and FATSO(a.k.a. Chris Christie) - also played a significant role in the election results.

CRUZ COUNTRY said...

@ Ohio JOE

You're kidding yourself if you think Santorum, Gingrich, Cain, Perry or any of those other clowns would've defeated Obama.

They would've lost by double, triple, or quadruple the margin that Romney lost by.

CRUZ COUNTRY said...

As for 2016, a Haley-Cruz or Cruz-Haley ticket sounds like a winner to me, but if and only if Cruz doesn't get wobbly on immigration like Marco Rubio has.

Ohio JOE said...

Many of them were more Conservative and most would have been able to hold their tongue and not say silly stuff like "47%."

Right Wingnut said...

Cruz was born in Canada to an American mother while his immigrant father was working in Alberta in the petroleum business.

I'm no birther, but I'm not sure what that means for his eligibility.

CRUZ COUNTRY said...

@ Right Wingnut

George Romney was born in Mexico, but was deemed eligible for the presidency because both his parents were American citizens at the time of his birth.

The same would hold true for Ted Cruz, as long as his dad was a naturalized citizen at the time of Cruz's birth(Cruz's mom was born in Delaware).

CRUZ COUNTRY said...

@ Ohio JOE

Every candidate makes gaffes.

Santorum, Gingrich, Cain or Perry would have made their share as well, as we saw during the primaries.

Romney was leading by 7% in the Gallup poll just 2 or 3 weeks before election day - so the 47% comment was not the reason he lost.

As for the conservative credentials of the various GOP primary contestants, it all depends on how you define the word "conservative".

The main knock against Romney was RomneyCare and the so-called "individual mandate", but that was an idea originated by The Heritage Foundation, one of the premier conservative think tanks in the nation.

Romney was the most conservative Massachusetts governor in modern times. He was endorsed in 2011/12 by Tea Party favorites like Nikki Haley, Bob McDonnell & Paul Ryan.
His political idols were Winston Churchill and John Adams.

I don't know about you, Ohio JOE, but that's conservative enough for me.

Right Wingnut said...

Was Cruz's dad a naturalized citizen at the time?

I honestly do not know.

CRUZ COUNTRY said...

@ Right Wingnut

I don't know either, but according to Wikipedia, his dad immigrated to the U.S. in 1957, 14 years before Ted's birth. I'll have to research it further.