Politicians will be back - to get our votes

Dallas Morning News | Macarena Hernandez:

“This week, members of Congress debated whether to include an amendment in the House immigration bill that would deny citizenship to U.S.-born babies of undocumented immigrants, a constitutional right. I don't know which is worse, the hypocrisy or the demonization of an entire group already treated as subhuman, mostly because the U.S. is hooked on cheap labor. But let's blame them, scapegoat them, use them to further fracture a divided nation. Not all Republicans are caving to the extremes; a couple are aggressively pushing guest-worker proposals. But, trust me, the GOP still wants our votes. Next election, they'll pull out their Spanish dictionaries and try to win us back all over again.”

The Republican party has enjoyed electoral success in recent years by emphasizing wedge issues. School prayer, gay marriage, lawsuit abuse, illegal immigration, welfare abuse, and the hottest topic today, the so-called war on Christmas, all are designed to split the electorate. Find something to take offense over. "Solve" it by demonizing or scapegoating some segment of the population. Treat compromising or seeking common ground as weak-kneed liberal ideals. Rally your base to go to the polls in large numbers. Win.

Latinos have no single issue like the civil rights issue that rallied African-American voters a generation ago. Latinos face problems on many fronts -- health care, education, welfare, culture. In many cases, the problems aren't unique to the Latino community. So, wedge issue politics is effective at splitting the Latino community, just like it's effective at splitting white Americans.

Immigration and birthrates are working in Latinos' favor. Latinos are already a political force in California and becoming one in Texas. Governor Bush recognized that and courted the Latino vote in Texas. President Bush strayed from that line to pander to the far right of the national Republican party in winning two national elections. So far, nationally, Republican success has been achieved not by choosing wedge issues that capture a majority of the Latino vote, but wedge issues that draw enough Latino voters to keep a Democrat from being elected.

But President Bush's recent promotion of a guest worker program indicates that he still knows the demographic trends are working against the Republican party interests in the long run unless the party changes. It will be fascinating to watch the choice of wedge issues by the 2008 Republican candidate for President. Will the Latino vote finally emerge as the biggest slice of the wedge?