Manana is here today, or more accurately, tomorrow: Super Tuesday. Among the 22 states to hold primaries on Feb 5th are Arizona, California, Colorado, Illinois, New Jersey and New Mexico, all with vast Hispanic populations, which will likely vote against those candidates whom they perceive as anti-immigrant.
During the 2004 elections, George W. Bush won 40 percent of the Latino vote. But, as a nationwide survey done by the Pew Hispanic Center revealed, the Republicans, have lost that support due to their hard stance on immigration. As Bush speechwriter Michael Gerson has pointed out, this might ruin their Party chances to the Presidency in 2008 and beyond. The Pew study shows that some 57% of Hispanic registered voters now call themselves Democrats or lean toward the Democratic Party, while just 23% align with the Republican Party.
Of the remaining candidates in the Republican race, only Arizona senator John Mc Cain has been supportive of immigration reform and he is leading in most polls. Mc Cain obtained back-to-back victories in the South Carolina and Florida primaries. The Cuban-Americans senator’s endorsement had been courted by all the GOP candidates given that he is a very popular leader in Florida. But Martinez finally decided to support Mc Cain after several clashes with Rudolph Giuliani and Mitt Romney over their stances on immigration. The other key figure that has joined the ranks of Mc Cain is Miami-Dade mayor Carlos Alvarez, who is also a very popular political figure in the Hispanic community.
Massachusetts former governor Mitt Romney, is the second leading figure in the GOP race and for someone who has such a notoriously hard position on immigration, it is surprising to find that Romney even has a website in Spanish. The site has a video of his son Craig, talking for 38 seconds in fluent Spanish about his dad. He stresses Mitt’s virtues, not as a candidate, business man, or politician, but as a father. He does not go as far, though, as admitting that his own father, George W. Romney, was born in Mexico. Romney's grandparents were Mormons who fled the United States because of the federal government's opposition to polygamy. Then President Porfirio Diaz allowed Mormons to establish a colony in Chihuahua, where Romney was born in 1907. When the Mexican Revolution broke out in late 1910, Romney's family went to Oakley, Idaho, and finally ended up in Salt Lake City, Utah. Romney has managed to also enlist a key figure in the Hispanic community for his campaign: Al Cardenas, former president of the Florida Republican Party. Cardenas is the chairman of the Romney for President Hispanic Steering Community. Even though, Romney is not spending money on television publicity, Cardenas’ voice can be heard on a radio ad that targets Spanish speaking voters.
As for the other two candidates, Mike Huckabee supported the Bush-backed immigration plan that provided a path to citizenship for undocumented workers. . Huckabee has expressed that some Republican plans to deport illegal immigrants are "unworkable." He has said he wants a secure border, not a “closed” one. When asked about his lenient laws on education for undocumented worker’s children her said that it was not worthy of America to punish the children for the sins of their fathers. Ron Paul supported the strict House Sensenbrenner bill on immigration and voted in favor to authorizing a 700-mile fence along the U.S.-Mexican border.
Nevertheless, during the last televised Republican debate, all candidates seemed to have hardened their stance on immigration. They all said they were in favor of reinforcing security in the Mexican border and Romney said he also favored a considerable deportation of undocumented workers.
McCain, said that he would not try to revive his immigration reform Hill because it was very clear for him that the American people want a save border first.
He also spoke in favor of stricter sanctions for employers who hire undocumented workers. McCain expressed that by swing that many people World “give up and leave.” Romney said, authorities should wait for the children of illegal aliens to finish their school year before going ahead and deporting them. Surprisingly, only Huckabee flatly rejected a proposal to deny American citizenship to the children of undocumented immigrants. Paul could not give an answer about immigration because he time ran out.
Whereas the Democratic race might go on beyond Feb. 5th, the GOP race is more likely to come up with a definite winner, since it only needs 1,191 delegates to chose one.
