Shifts - Latinos to Democratic Party, JFK to MR

Past California experience should have warned the GOP what happens if you turn against the fastest growing minority group. The 2006 election results were bad for Republicans despite an improvement in their Latino performance. Now that improvement has been erased. According to the nonpartisan Pew Research Center:

Some 57% of Hispanic registered voters now call themselves Democrats or say they lean to the Democratic Party, while just 23% align with the Republican Party -- meaning there is now a 34-percentage-point gap in partisan affiliation among Latinos. In July 2006, the same gap measured just 21 percentage points -- whereas back in 1999, it had been 33 percentage points.

Rep. Rahm Emanuel is trying to destroy the Democratic advantage by urging Democrats to use "send them back" rhetoric. (I objected to Rahm Emanuel being guest of honor at the Harris County Democratic Party fund raiser recently.) Digby had written about Republicans as typified by Tancredo and Democrats like Rahm Emanuel.

With the GOP losing the Latino vote why would some Democrats want to join them?

In other recent political events, Romney was no John F. Kennedy at the Greater Houston Ministerial Association - short video intro and speech, longer better video includes Q & A.

Romney gave a speech saying Mormons are just like Christian evangelicals, and freedom demands Christianity or Christian-like religion or something. What a let down from the inspiring words of JFK in Houston almost 50 years ago. Ron Paul was much better than Romney on defending Romney's faith.

I guess the lessons here is that we are still dealing with bigotry, both over national origin and religion.

Tags: Latinos, 2008, Mitt Romney, Ron Paul