Who really knows? No one speaks on behalf of the dead. But I think this article by Alfonso Aguilar offers some good
food for thought and cautionary advice (read it from the beginning, regarding why Latinos are a potential voting block for Republicans, not Democrats):
Thirty years have elapsed since the Reagan revolution began, but many Republicans seem to have forgotten Reagan’s views. Arizona Republicans’ passage last week of a law that criminalizes undocumented immigrants and allows for the profiling of Latinos is the most recent example of this.
The fact is that, beginning in 2006, a small but loud group of GOP members of Congress, strongly supported by an anti-population-growth restrictionist lobby (when did these folks become conservative?), began a campaign to oppose any effort to reform our immigration system.
Many hard-line conservatives may not have liked President Bush's attempts at immigration reform, but the status quo certainly hasn't been acceptable, either. It is hyperbolic overexaggerated emotionalism that equates 2006 GOP attempts at immigration reform as the equivalent to "amnesty". It's the "all-or-nothing" mentality that refuses to accept a viable, practical, workable solution.
Sadly, many also started using incendiary anti-immigrant rhetoric — which offended most Latino voters.
This contributed significantly to the Republican loss of the House and Senate in 2006.
Power Line claims the reverse is true.
It also contributed to Sen. John McCain, long an unquestioned supporter of immigration reform and a friend of the Latino community, receiving only 31 percent of the Latino vote in the 2008 presidential election. This was 13 percent less than George W. Bush’s Latino support four years earlier.
Read more »Labels: Illegal Immigration
