Political analysts keep urging the Republican Party to do more to appeal to Hispanic voters. Yet the party’s congressional leaders show little sign of doing so, blocking an immigration overhaul and harshly criticizing President Obama for his plan to defer deportation for undocumented migrants.
There’s a simple reason that congressional Republicans are willing to risk alienating Hispanics: They don’t need their votes, at least not this year.
Republicans would probably hold the House — and still have a real chance to retake the Senate — if they lost every single Hispanic voter in the country, according to an analysis by The Upshot.
Such a thing would never happen, of course, but the fact that the Republicans may not need a single Hispanic vote in 2014 says a good deal about American politics today.
So what does that mean when Latino grassroots immigration groups are sitting this election out in order to punish President Obama?
Not a whole lot. On the other hand, if Democrats won 100% of the Latino vote, Democrats would pick up 8-10 House seats, especially in Florida and California. But the truth is Latino voters make up less than 4% of the electorate in competitive House races.
I'm thinking Latino leaders might want to reconsider sitting this election out.
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Well this is interesting, especially in the context of the battle raging at the Daily Kos on behalf of the atheists who want to expel the progressive Christians from the Democratic Coalition on the grounds that religious people are doodooheads. As enthusiastic as the proponents might be, they run aground on the shoals of countable number just like the Hispanic bloc does here. Atheists are countably 0.5-2.0% of the electorate, maybe 10% if you shoehorn in the Don't Cares (who probably aren't too worked up about this campaign one way or the other) while the Christian Democrats (an honest to God major party in Germany) are something like 30% of the electorate. So the heathens may succeed in driving the christers from the Kos, but good luck afterwards in winning the elections you care about and good luck getting support the next time the fundies and the right Catholics go on the rampage. People have long, long memories when it comes to betrayal.
Progressive Christians ARE Black folk. so, they can knock themselves out....but they will reap what they sow.
I guess they forgot that Dr. King was a Christian....so is he a doodoohead now?
That is exactly the irony. The atheists are largely a gang of affluent white guys who are really testy about being ignored by the party apparatus, not given due reward and due respect, so they embark upon an utterly thoughtless campaign to destroy the Blacks. That is not what they think they are doing, and maybe not even what they intend to do, but the Black community has a much stronger case for being the base of the party and for soldiering on loyally in spite of a lack of respect and reward and I really don't see this squabble turning out well for the atheists.
As for reaping what they sow, I have been pummeled to the point of dropping my long standing eagerness to ally with atheists of good will against the fundamentalists who dog our every step. The aggravation is too great for the paltry return of effective action against our mutual opponent. Me and my people, and I hope yours, will continue the battle; I wish them well, sort of, but also ask them to please leave me alone with their toxic attitudes and their disturbing unwillingness to distinguish between friend and foe when launching attacks.
As you are aware, the living genius of Dr King has been tamed and sanitized by the passage of five decades. Now, everyone loves him. The atheists have adopted him as one of their own, as a secular saint, with his Christianity swept under the rug as an embarrassing unmentionable that he would surely repudiate (surely) if he were around today.
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