PLANK NOVEMBER 12, 2012
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After the GOP was trounced by Latino voters on Election Day—a nightmare scenario that sophisticated observers had seen coming for a long time—I called former Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman, the Chairman of the Board of the center-right American Action Network and its related organization, the Hispanic Leadership Network. I’ve spoken with Coleman about these issues before, and though it has been an important issue to him for a long time, he’s rarely been so emboldened as to criticize his Party’s flawed handling of immigration policy and outreach to Latinos.
Senator Coleman was clear that his Party cannot fix their crisis with Latino voters with cosmetic changes like softer rhetoric, but instead must commit to sweeping reforms of the country’s immigration system. President Obama has said that he wants to tackle immigration reform this term and with some Republicans' recent change of heart, the issue which Rahm Emanuel once called the “third rail of American politics” could become the bi-partisan issue of 2012.
Why did Romney do so badly with Hispanic voters?
Where do I begin? There was a range of things. I could talk about issues. I could talk about outreach. Clearly the Republican Party has a problem with the Latino vote that we have to respond to. Let me give you the good news: Look at Charles Krauthammer this morning. Look at Sean Hannity last night talking about the pathway to citizenship. I’m thrilled that this is being articulated by conservative commentators who know we need to change.
The Party has created a perception, and the campaign didn’t do enough to counter it, that we are the Party that is hostile to Hispanics. That is not the case. Immigration is not the number one issue for Hispanics—the economy and education are—but immigration touches everybody. Everybody knows somebody [for whom] that is a personal issue.
Let me also say this, the President used this issue politically. He had two years with a filibuster proof Senate. He could have introduced a bill, he could have got it passed, and he chose not too.
Was the extraordinary low Latino support a surprise to you?
I wasn’t surprised because I’ve been tracking this with frustration. I was hoping that there were politics afoot when the President didn’t deal with the immigration issue himself, but towards the end of the campaign, he issued an executive order that hasn’t produced much change, but the optics were very powerful.
I’m disappointed, but when make your own bed, you’ve got to sleep in it. The reality is, we haven’t done enough to reach out to the Latino Community. [The American Action Network] has tried. Jeb Bush has played a role, and the leading political voices in America today—Marco Rubio, Susana Martinez, Brian Sandoval—the leading Hispanic voices today are Republicans. There are some on the D side, but no Democrat has the platform Marco Rubio has. I wasn’t really surprised [by losing Hispanics], but the margin, when you look at it, is shocking: 71 to 29. When you are looking at less than 30 percent of the vote in the Latino community, that’s a pretty sharp wake-up call. I’m in line with Krauthammer. I don’t think we need two liberal parties. The Latino community is a community that is more open to a conservative message, but was afraid. They may not love Obama, but they were afraid of Romney. They shouldn’t have been. I’m confident he would have done the right thing. But this is a clarion call that we have to [change]. Soon we are going to have to start worrying about Texas and Arizona. Unless we step up, we are going to be the minority party.
Do you think we would have won on Tuesday if Jeb Bush had been the candidate?
I love Jeb Bush, but Mitt was a good candidate. How quickly we forget that he gave the best debate performance that any of us has seen in a lifetime. With regard to the Hispanic issue, the Romney campaign failed to reach out. I think it pushed too far in the primaries into a position that presented a negative view to the Latino community. As much as we tried to correct it, it was not successful. In 2016, Jeb would be the guy I want, but I’m not going back to 2012. Unfortunately, the Bush name still carried some baggage on the most important issue, the economy. Most folks still blame President Bush for the economy more than the guy who has been in control the last few years. In 2016, people may be wistful for good old days pre-Obama.
What do you think the Republican platform on this immigration should be?
I would hope and anticipate that Marco Rubio will get out his version of the Dream Act and get it passed in the Republican House to make it a signature Republican accomplishment. When I was in the Senate [under President Bush], we came close to passing [a comprehensive immigration bill], but Harry Reid pulled the plug. And then there’s the simple debate [about] amnesty. Put it up front. Hardworking folks need to come out of the shadows, and to do that there will need to be a more animated discussion on the issue of a pathway to citizenship. The Party leadership has to be outspoken to make sure that when the Tom Tancredos and their ilk speak up, they don’t speak for the Republican Party. That is not who we are. The Democrats are going to have to put pressure on their side too. The unions have not been supportive of a guest worker program. The Democrats are going to have to put up [real policy] rather than just talk.
The President has said that he plans to tackle immigration reform in the next term, there is clearly a willingness now on the part of Republicans to do this, but will House Republicans obstruct this to deny the President the political victory?
The president promised immigration reform before and didn’t deliver. I hope he does this time. He can’t get it through without the Republican House, so I think there is enough credit for everyone. You could argue that folks don’t want the President to have a political victory, but they can put that aside. The Republican House is going to have to pass this, and the Republicans can put their stamp on it. Looking at the Latino vote in Colorado, a state we thought we could win, has folks understanding that if we don’t fix this, we are going to make ourselves a minority Party for a very long time. I don’t’ think we are a minority Party. I think we are a center-right country. Latinos are center right, but they are sensitive to things like immigration and the Dream Act, which we need to address. The Hispanic Leadership Network has been working on this for two years, the grassroots stuff in New Mexico and in Florida and other places. We are in it for the long haul. Even if you pass immigration reform and the Dream Act, that is still not going to fix the problem. You need a sustained outreach effort. We are committed to that.
There are a lot of conservative members in the House—do you think they’ll be supportive of immigration reform?
When you see Hannity and Krauthammer, two very respected voices on our side of aisle, stepping forward, they reflect what a lot of people are thinking. Is there going to be unanimity? No. We know we need to begin to fix this problem in order to be successful on the national stage in the years to come, and there’s enough of a critical mass being developed that the prospects of getting something done are positive.
I’d encourage [the House leadership] to step forward on immigration without waiting for the President. The President has the bully pulpit. He needs to be engaged, but that doesn’t preclude others from dealing with this issue.
We need Latino voters in the center-right Republican fold to find themselves feeling comfortable in that place. Immigration and the Dream Act may not be the most important issues to Hispanics, but they are the burning issues.
Who will provide leadership in the House?
The House works differently than the Senate, where there are 100 equal voices, a minority, and a majority. In the House, there is the speaker and the leadership. So ultimately it's going to be John Boehner, Kevin McCarthy, and Eric Cantor who have to step forward and figure out how to get this done, and that’s good. You’ve got a Midwesterner, Californian and Jew, and that’s a pretty good combination to figure this out.
Many in the Republican Party have known for a long time that the Latino vote was a serious problem, why did it take them until now to change their tune?
Sometimes reality has to kick you in the head real hard. I think folks underestimated the impact of the Latino vote in critical states like Florida, and Colorado, and Nevada. I don’t think folks saw that until it was too late.
If Romney got as many votes as McCain got, he would have won. This was a very close election. This election was not a rousing testament for big government, but there are some demographic issues that can be addressed without sacrificing conservative principles. You can appeal to Latinos without being advocates of big government, but by making it clear that we are not the Party that wants to deport high school valedictorians in Florida and New Mexico.
Do you think the local Republicans who appear anti-immigrant weaken the brand beyond control of those in Washington?
No. My sense is that if we can deal with the immigration issue [nationally], I think that will go a long way. I think we have a better message on jobs, on choice, on education, and on access to health care. The rhetoric becomes less of a factor if we’ve dealt with [immigration policy] issues.
This issue is demagogued on both sides. My frustration with the president is that he used this issue but he didn’t deliver on la promesa, the promise he made in 2008 to do immigration reform. He used an executive order [The Dream Act] to help a small number of people to create a wedge.
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33 comments
"Let me also say this, the President used this issue politically. He had two years with a filibuster proof Senate. He could have introduced a bill, he could have got it passed, and he chose not too." So, the working theory here is that if Obama had been responsible and passed immigration reform with no help from the Republicans (a guaranteed outcome, given that they cooperated on absolutely nothing between 2008 and 2012), then the Republican party would have woken up and started talking sensibly about immigration this election cycle? Since they were just waiting to be force fed a solution, their basic intransigence and xenophobic ranting is not an issue? Man, I've heard some whoppers from Coleman in the past, but this is a new standard.
- IowaBeauty
November 12, 2012 at 11:32am
Also, the lie about the filibuster proof Senate. And why would Republicans filibuster it? I can see him spinning to try and blame everything on the President, but come on. It could pass if there were reasonable people on the Republican side. It's sad when Coleman sounds reasonable, and all he's doing is lying, blaming and obfuscating.
- ReganaD
November 12, 2012 at 12:19pm
Coleman spouts all the talking points du jour of the chastened Chamber of Commerce wing of the GOP, that you just need to pass comprehensive immigration reform and stop talking about Latinos as subhuman criminals in order to get those "natural" conservative voters into the GOP column. Since there is now an overwhelming elite GOP consensus that immigration reform needs to happen at least so the 2016 GOP nominee can tout it to the Hispanic electorate, I think it's a safe bet that this will be the case and that we will have a reform similar to the one that was passed in 1986. I also think it is a fairly safe bet that, if nothing else changes, the 2016 GOP nominee (whether it's Marco Rubio, Jeb Bush or someone who has no personal Latino connection but still hypes immigration reform) will only do marginally better with Latino voters than Romney did this year, and will again go down to an ignominious defeat. Coleman needs to look at what people like David Brooks and Ross Douthat have been saying since November 6 about Latinos and the GOP. Immigration reform is a big deal, since Latinos obviously don't appreciate the GOP talking about them as if they were animals and refusing to implement a sensible policy that, in many cases, helps their law-abiding brothers, sisters and cousins. But Latinos are equally repelled by the Tea Party, the anti-government screeds that emanate from even respectable corners of the GOP (47% anyone?), the desire to cut education, infrastructure and health care in order to give tax cuts to the wealthy or even to pay off the deficit. American Latinos are hardworking, law-abiding and mildly socially conservative (they generally don't like abortion and gay marriage but don't lose their lunch over it), but they are overwhelmingly working-class and middlle-class and benefit from all those "entitlements" that Republicans have been screaming about so much these past four years. Their cultural and social traditions do not posit an activist government, or a government that regulates large swathes of the economy, as evil and oppressive or even necessarily wasteful and inefficient. If the government does a decent enough job in providing a safety net for its Latino citizens, they are perfectly happy with the government continuing to do it. And, if the GOP keeps up the anti-government, anti-spending rhetoric, they might gain a few Latinos to their cause by moderating things on immigration, but it will only be a few and not nearly the many who find that sort of rhetoric almost as alien as "self-deportation" and the rest. Of all people, someone like Norm Coleman should understand. After all, he is a Jewish-American and, as such, comes from an ethnic group whose social and cultural traditions don't include inherent suspicion of government or the view that civil society and the state are inherently in conflict. When the pre-World War II GOP combined the same libertarian hostility to social spending with a healthy dose of Anti-Semitism, it was easy to understand why most American Jews were Democrats. However, after Robert Taft and Dwight Eisenhower got the GOP to drop the Anti-Semitism after World War II, it led to some increase in Jewish Republicans but not a whole lot for another 30 years. And even after the Reagan and post-Reagan GOP increased its share of the Jewish vote to somewhere between 20% (on bad days) and 33% on good days, the vast majority of American Jews have stayed Democrats. There is a lesson here for Republicans, and the lesson should be that anti-government rhetoric is not true and correct across all demographics and cultures that make up America. The GOP needs desperately to adapt on this issue, rather than just on immigration, to secure the allegiance of more than a limited minority of Hispanic voters. It needs to adapt -- or effectively die. My bet is on adaptation, but it will take a few more losses for that to happen.
- wildboy
November 12, 2012 at 12:26pm
Considering that the loudest and most contemptuous voices in the GOP are not the "center right" but the "far right" I doubt very much that any movement will be made by the GOP to swing Latinos and other minority groups to their side of the aisle when you have Tea Party lawmakers making sweeping xenophobic statements and trying to pass specious laws targeting specific minority groups. I was listening to 'On Point' this morning on NPR and David Frum (perhaps the most level headed individual on the Right at the moment) in a discussion with Richard Viguerie about the direction of the GOP after last week's POTUS defeat. Richard Viguerie's position wasn't that the GOP needed more reasonable voices in the GOP but more Tea Party voices because that's what the 16% of the voting population liked in 2010. The majority of that 16%? Older white people. The GOP has been tracking the long-game of courting the white male vote for the last 30+ years and since 1988 it has failed them. After a decidedly overwhelming swing of minority voters towards the Left, the GOP's response? More of the same. They confuse their far-right intransigence for 'principles' when it isn't. And the Tea Party isn't for "small government" for all, it is for "small government" for the others. Until the GOP understands that being fiscally conservative and socially liberal are not mutually exclusive, they will continue to loose a majority of Americans to the Dems. The Dems can actually occupy the reasonable center now because the GOP has moved so far to the right on so many issues.
- singlspeed
November 12, 2012 at 12:54pm
"The Party has created a perception, and the campaign didn’t do enough to counter it, that we are the Party that is hostile to Hispanics." This guy is kidding, right? When a GOP party plank in the platform outright contains this kind of hostile language, in writing: http://thecaucus.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/08/23/republican-immigration-platform-backs-self-deportation/ and has their rank and file scream all kinds of hostile rhetoric, then, yeah, you could interpret it as "perception". And perception is the same as reality, as in this case. Coleman is either fooling himself or a liar.
- tmmats
November 12, 2012 at 12:57pm
The business of the "filibuster proof Senate for two years" isn't even true. Also, the Democrats passed the ACA without Republican help and were immediately attacked for it. What nonsense.
- Sophia
November 12, 2012 at 1:14pm
A filibuster-proof majority for two years? So, all those months that Al Franken's election was held up by legal challenges, Obama and Harry Reid should have gone ahead on the assumption that Franken was their legitimately elected 60th vote? Did Coleman say that at the time? Oh no, that's right -- because HE was the guy bringing the legal challenges. So apparently he knew they were bogus, then? Odious.
- Jeff_Smith
November 12, 2012 at 1:44pm
The next dingaling who claims Obama had "a fillibuster proof majority for two years" needs to be slapped with a fish. Check my dates, but... Al Franken was sworn in at the beginning of July 2009. Scott Brown the beginning of Feb 10. That leaves 7 months, and that includes the summer recess, labor day and thanksgiving recesses, winter recess, Christmas/Hannukah/Kwanza recesses, and assorted other breaks. Not to mention other salient facts of life when dealing with a temporary 60-member majority, like at any time one of those Dems calling up the white house and demanding concessions like having the National Kosher Dill Pickle Museum build in their home state or Obama could forget about his supermajority. There's a reason all of us on here had to explain to our less politically-addicted friends and family what the hell a "Cornhusker Kickback" was.
- Tristan
November 12, 2012 at 2:03pm
The GOP's shortcomings in relation to the Hispanic vote provided a beautiful opportunity for the GOP to finally start talking forthrightly and rationally about America's immigration policy. Coleman taking point on the issue, though, will ensure that doesn't happen.
- Fishpeddler
November 12, 2012 at 2:06pm
Tristan, if you need fish for slapping dingalings, I'm willing to cut you a deal. Always happy to support a good cause.
- Fishpeddler
November 12, 2012 at 2:11pm
'The Party has created a perception, and the campaign didn’t do enough to counter it, that we are the Party that is hostile to Hispanics.' Try, 'hostile to non-whites...'. In any case, how many Hispanic voters do Republicans need to peel away from the Democrats, using, say immigration reform, to allow Republicans to enact their 'winner-take-all'/anti-middle class, economic strategy in four years? Nice link tmmats, by the way.
- jet
November 12, 2012 at 2:24pm
@fishpeddler - LOLOL
- Tristan
November 12, 2012 at 2:30pm
Coleman is part of the reason why the Democrats only had a filibuster proof Senate for a short time. He refused to concede defeat, resulting in Al Franken not being seated for several months (I forget how many exactly). Then Scott Brown won the special election, so only for the short period between Franken finally being seated, and the death of Ted Kennedy did the Democrats have sixty votes.
- jaime100
November 12, 2012 at 2:34pm
Also, "I don’t think we need two liberal parties." As freakin' if - the Democratic party of 2012 makes Eisenhower and Nixon look like Social Democrats. They could be considered center-left only in a world where the center has moved dramatically to the right in recent years.
- IowaBeauty
November 12, 2012 at 3:23pm
Republicans cannot compete w/Democrats in passing out benefits to a welfare-addicted constituency. Republicans who pander to low IQ Hispanics will still never get their vote. By low IQ I refer to the demonstrable fact that the Hispanic high school dropout rate is 50% Latino "pride" means pride in belonging to a gang. Anyone here thinks it means "assimilation"? In Newark NJ last week the last MS-13 gangbanger was convicted of executing the four decent black high school students who were gunned down for a Salvadoran initiation. The dream of the DREAM Act is that moronic thugs want to be hard working citizens. And if TNR readers support their hate-whitey agenda, how many will become TNR subscribers? The Stalinist phrase "useful idiots" referred to pro-Soviet supporters of Stalin in America. Now useful idiot means TNR adherents who hope that the rising Latino population will spare their snivelling & begging selves.
- raygun
November 12, 2012 at 3:36pm
Wow. Things sure didn't go somebody's way last Tuesday, eh raygun?
- Tristan
November 12, 2012 at 3:43pm
Tristan, being realistic, I didn't vote for either faction of the one War party & one immigrant-pandering party. Have anything of substance to say?
- raygun
November 12, 2012 at 3:57pm
More GOPer whining about what Obama wasn't able to get by their Congressional blockade. And by the way, he used his two years without House opposition to pass healthcare legislation. And what did GOPers produce besides obstructions and stunts?
- smabry03
November 12, 2012 at 4:03pm
great post wildboy. What I found most interesting was that Obama performed even better with Asian Americans. Exit polling by The New York Times showed Asian-Americans voted for Obama over Romney 73 percent to 26 percent. And the Asian American community is one of the fastest growing ones and is both one of the wealthiest and smartest (which basically totally Walter Sobchak's poor raygun's theory)
- blackton
November 12, 2012 at 4:16pm
Yeah, Tristan, give us substantive, insightful, erudite comments like Raygun's. You're really slacking. Might I suggest that you work the words 'spic' and 'wetback' into a comment -- that will surely win his respect.
- Fishpeddler
November 12, 2012 at 4:21pm
Yeah Fish I was going to respond just after I recovered from this cognitive dissonance I was enduring. I work for a big multinational, and a couple weeks ago I attended a quarterly meeting of the Hispanic Business Network we have, and heard about all the gains Hispanics have made in Fortune 500 positions, rapidly gorwing share of small business ownership, yadda yadda... but then raygun set the record straight and helpfully pointed out how they're all thugs. And now I just want to march right back into that auditorium and haul the moderator to the nearest INS office. And don't even get me started on all those Latinos I served with! Fooling everyone into thinking they wanted citizenship when all they were really after was going to Afghanistan to get their stinking hands on some socialized government handout combat pay and free MREs, the sniveling beggars.
- Tristan
November 12, 2012 at 4:38pm
blackton "smart" voted for the Affirmative Action free-rider. "Dumb" voted for the rich guy. Unfortunately for your simplistic schema, both are tax &spend poverty pimps, both are pro-immigrant shills for cheap labor. You want to sound high-minded about big differences between them when in fact they are just different levels of the same tree/ Fish: my first girlfriend's vagina smelled like you: hence your fishy moniker. Your sarcasm would be too subtle if I were in 1st grade.
- raygun
November 12, 2012 at 4:46pm
Tristan: w/Hispanics at a 50% dropout rate, guess you should wonder about the flotsam that rises to the top. Or you can continue to bow down & worship their Latino-ness. The college-bound Newark students were also forced to bow down execution style for the MS-13 gangbangers.
- raygun
November 12, 2012 at 4:52pm
"Your sarcasm would be too subtle if I were in 1st grade." Since you're in 2nd grade, it must have been just about right.
- Fishpeddler
November 12, 2012 at 4:54pm
It's a wonder that Raygun spends its hard earned money for a subscription to TNR just to show us nimrods what is what. Why if I didn't know better I'd think it was a troll. But even trolls serve some purpose whereas Raygun has no purpose.
- singlspeed
November 12, 2012 at 5:15pm
Wow...I've seen people spout the tired lies about Obama voters only being interested in giving/receiving government handouts in the comments section before, but I didn't think I'd see blatant racism here. I'm too appalled to even think of a snappy comeback.
- VAliberal
November 12, 2012 at 5:26pm
I'd be very interested to see a break-down among different Asian ethnicities, to see if it differs much, say between Japanese-Americans and Indian-Americans. The reasons for high support for Democrats may vary among the groups as well. For example, I think that most Indian-Americans are Hindu or Muslim, and therefore are probably quite turned off by the Republicans' fear-mongering toward Muslims (which somehow manages to sweep in Hindus, Sikhs, etc. along with Muslims), and in general are scared off by Christian fundamentalism, claims of how we're really a Christian country, etc. (I know that, as a Jew, I am always frightened by that rhetoric.) I also wonder if the anti-science (anti-reality) bent of the current Republicans plays a role--it seems that this attitude would be off-putting in cultures where education, particularly in math and science, is highly valued. (Again, another thing that's not exactly endearing Republicans to Jews these days and is probably a source of their problems among well-educated whites too.)
- shellski
November 12, 2012 at 6:26pm
Raygun - bile, does it taste as bitter as they say? As to your anecdote about the kids murdered by the M-13 gang members... I just finished watching Mississippi Burning. Should I hate all white people, or just Southerners? Look, its real simple. If you hate an entire group... blacks or latinos, Jews or Muslims, gays, whoever... based on what is (verifyably) the actions of the very narrow minority, you are a douchebag. Worse, you're a douchebag that points to real and serious problems - drop out rates, incarcerations rates, terrorism, the intifada, high-end mens' fashion - and makes those problems worse by encouraging others to see the problem through a strictly racist or anti-Semetic or homophobic lens. "Well of course they're dropouts", the douchebags say; "They're Mexican imigrants, after all." You're not helping, rayray. And if you're not helping, you're hurting. Stop hurting, rayray. If you're smart enough to access the internet and post a blog on TNR, you're smart enough to do something to help, even marginally. Like, say, volunteer to tutor underpriviledged Hispanic youths. Or maybe just shutting the f up.
- Tristan
November 12, 2012 at 6:47pm
P.S. I should've explained the relevance of my comment, which is that the GOP's demographic problem goes well beyond the failure to pass immigration reform (and demonizing Hispanic immigrants).
- shellski
November 12, 2012 at 9:15pm
The litany of post-election interviews with Republicans -- whether they be leaders, commentators, or supporters -- repeatedly demonstrate that the main obstacle to any future electoral success for Republicans is the psychological disposition of these people, individually and collectively. They are simply delusional: they believe in alternate realities and they deny manifest facts about themselves. Coleman observes that "sometimes reality has to kick you in the head real hard." I think that Republicans are going to need quite a few more kicks to the head...and to the teeth...and in the groin...and to any other regions where nerves are bundled or that impact on reasoning!
- vst
November 13, 2012 at 6:37am
The most reliable Republican voting block is from the rapidly growing evangelical Protestant movement, and the fastest growing denominations in less developed countries are the Pentecostal movement and the Seventh Day Adventists. Hence, I predict the future political wars in America will be based on religious differences. Though evangelical Protestantism is pervasive in America, many Americans do not appreciate that it is highly sectarian (think Sunni and Shia in the Muslim context). I would like to believe the Republican Party would stake its future on those things that make all Americans the same not what make us different, but I suspect the temptation to exploit religious differences will be too great to resist. Coleman is probably correct even if for the wrong reasons. Immigration reform, if it opens citizenship to millions of evangelical Protestants, could provide the Republican Party with a reliable voting block that will be difficult to defeat.
- rayward
November 13, 2012 at 7:48am
Ray, that may be so (I am aware of the expanding, mainly charismatic Catholic, presence in Latin America), but such people don't tend to immigrate. The inclination toward risk and entrepeneurship which characterises most immigrants runs counter to the tendencies which make for willing religious converts. I just don't see it happening.
- vst
November 13, 2012 at 8:05am
Nicely done Tristan, your final comments to raygun (to this point...)
- jet
November 13, 2012 at 12:27pm