While you weren't looking, President Obama solidified his, and by extension, the Democratic Party's future.
President Obama is riding a huge surge in popularity in public opinion surveys among Hispanics, who are overwhelmingly excited about his second-term efforts to pass immigration reform.
Obama’s approval rating stands at 73 percent among Hispanics, a 25-point swing from his low of 48 percent in late 2011.
Some argue that immigration reform is a "bipartisan" issue. It's only "bipartisan" in the sense that Republicans have little choice. No one should succumb to the illusion that the lily-white GOP leadership actually cares about the well-being of this country's burgeoning Latino and Hispanic population. As a
"prominent Republican pollster" puts it:
"The politics of anecdote is that illegal immigrants are only taking jobs, selling drugs, and joining gangs. That’s clearly not the case, and we cannot pretend that it is.”
There's so much in that quote. The "politics of anecdote?" Is that really anything less than a euphemism for good old-fashioned racism?
Beaners, Greaseballs and Wetbacks. Slackers. Baby machines. Dope dealers. And as much as the GOP would like to, they just "can't pretend" any more that those stereotypes are accurate? Mr Bolger never stops to consider why his constituents would want to "pretend" otherwise in the first place.
Chris Cillizza gets it right:
The Republican political establishment sees immigration reform as a political necessity. Much of the party’s base sees it as the end of the rule of law.
And therein lies the problem for a party trying to pick itself up off the mat following an across-the-board defeat in 2012.
The "politics of anecdote," indeed. Here's some anecdotal data to chew on:
In a Washington Post-ABC poll conducted earlier this month, in fact, a majority of self-identified Republicans said they opposed a path to citizenship — the key plank of a comprehensive immigration reform measure. That was a marked contrast to the majority support for a path to citizenship among Democrats and independents.
Mississippi governor and GOP paladin Haley Barbour has a nephew named Henry who miraculously inherited his uncle's political genius along with a top position in the RNC. Henry thinks Republicans can solve that problem with Latinos and Hispanics by "talking differently" to them:
that the key to solving the party’s problems with Latinos is less about specific policies than about changing how the GOP talks to the Hispanic community. ”Our issue with Hispanic voters is as much about tone and attitude as it is about immigration reform,” Barbour explains
.
The problem is that the loudest anti-immigrant voices in the GOP are the same folks that vote in Republican primaries. That's who is doing the "talking' for the GOP.
And that's why the Republicans can't win on immigration. The only question is how badly they choose to lose:
It seems unlikely, then, that a GOP embrace of comprehensive immigration reform will be enough. Given the huge Democratic lean of Latino voters and their general enthusiasm for Obama’s agenda, the most likely political outcome of a comprehensive bill is higher approval for Obama, and a stronger bond between Latinos and the Democratic Party. At most, Republicans might stem the bleeding with Hispanics.
Even the GOP's "Savior" doesn't seem to be making an impact:
Led by senators like John McCain (R-AZ) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), Republicans are now trying to craft a bipartisan immigration deal that they hope will boost their standing with the community. But they’re starting from an exceptionally weak position: Hispanic respondents told Pew they favor Obama’s approach to immigration over the GOP’s by a whopping 73-15 margin.
That's Five to One. One in Five. No one in the GOP gets out alive.