Minorities and the Republican Party

Some Republicans have questioned why so many conservative members of minority groups vote for Democratic candidates, when ostensibly the social conservativism of the Republican party is more in line with their relgious and personal views. The response usually involves an allusion to the Republican Party's tendency to cater to our nation's xenophobes, opponents of immigration reform, and even racists. In today's Post, Harold Meyerson suggests that, despite its noble rhetoric in the 2000 campaign, that impression remains unchanged under Bush II:

Earlier this month, though, Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist refused to let the [Ag Jobs immigration] bill come to a vote - so adamantly, in fact, that he willingly doomed the business community's top legislative priority, a tort reform bill, to which Ag Jobs would have been attached as an amendment. Frist has no history of nativist passions; he was simply doing the bidding of the White House.

And the White House, it is clear, has made a strategic calculation. Karl Rove knows perfectly well that the Latino vote is growing and is an increasing factor in such swing states as Florida, New Mexico, Arizona and Nevada. But he also knows that the president's half-hearted steps toward immigration reform were greeted by a storm of protest from anti-immigrant forces in the very same states, and that Rep. Chris Cannon (R-Utah) actually incurred a primary challenge (which he beat back) because he had co-authored Ag Jobs in the House.

So once again, George W. Bush has decided that the votes he'll fish for are all on the right. Gone are any illusions that he can do better among Latino voters than he did in 2000. Now, it's John Kerry who's campaigning on his support for Ag Jobs and the Dream Act, and immigrant rights advocates who are registering new voters by the tens of thousands in such immigrant-heavy locales as Orlando and Phoenix.