Janet Murguia has an article at Politico, pointing out why the Republican Party is “flirting with disaster” by pursuing such vicious anti-immigrant policies.
Latinos are the fastest growing demographic in America, as well as the youngest, and the GOP is alienating them not just for an election cycle but for a generation. What are the consequences? The Republican Party in California has still not recovered from the anti-immigrant Prop 187 which passed with GOP support in 1994. Florida, New Mexico, Nevada and Colorado, all purplish states with large Latino populations, all broke decidedly for Obama in 2008 and Arizona might have joined the list but for having a native son in the race. I am thinking that Texas, probably the most thoroughly Republican state in the country, will drift to the purple within two years and blue within six.
Yesterday, I was in Boston and I stopped for lunch with professor Alan Wolfe at Boston College’s Boisi Center. Wolfe is one of the leading political commentators in the nation, a man who insights are incisive and whose capacity for knowledge is exceeded only by his capacity for kindness. I asked him what he made of this anti-immigrant foolishness and he said something very smart: “The GOP can’t fix this because there is no more ‘party.’ There is just a grouping of fundraising outfits. They need their equivalent of John Bailey to come in and shut down all this anti-immigrant stuff. It will kill them in the long-term.” Younger readers may not remember Mr. Bailey who led Democratic Party both in Connecticut and nationwide when “backroom” politics was still practiced and grownups looked out for the long-term interests of the party. In the event, there are two men who could play this role for the GOP, the only two living former GOP presidents, Bush pere and Bush fils. They should speak up now.
