The MSM answers Derbyshire

The Derby will not have to take my word for why Hispanics are not flocking to the Republican banner despite the Bush clans best efforts. The Washington Post has just published an article by Charles Babington discussing this very issue. First, a good quote showing why the Latino vote may be in play for Republicans.

Most Latino voters lean Democratic, but Republicans have long felt they can chip away at that advantage. Bush -- who has advocated social services and pathways to legal status for illegal immigrants since he was governor of Texas -- took 40 percent of the Hispanic vote in 2004 after winning 34 percent in 2000, according to exit polls. In league with Mehlman, political adviser Karl Rove and others, Bush has urged his party to pursue Latino voters in numbers that could help keep Democrats in the minority for decades.

So, as Derbyshire wonders, what is the problem? One is the conjunction of Republicans in Congress refusing to pass the Voting Rights Act with increasing Republican resistance to Bush's plan to provide a pathway to citizenship for millions.

"It's sort of a double whammy," said Sen. Mel Martinez (R-Fla.), a Cuban native who is among the GOP's most visible Hispanic leaders. Under Bush's leadership, he said in an interview, "our party has shown a very welcoming approach to the emerging Hispanic vote." However, he said, "there obviously are those who feel that's not important. . . . I think there could be great political risks to becoming the party of exclusion and not a party of inclusion."

Now Martinez is a Cuban American, and many Cuban Americans don't seem to feel much solidarity with 'Hispanics', which is sometimes seen as a bureaucratic euphamism for 'Non-white Latins.' In any case, I think Mel is speaking as a concerned Republican strategist here rather than simply as an Hispanic.

The article goes on to declare flatly, "The actions have embarrassed the White House and inflamed many Latinos." As for the refusal to pass the Voting Rights Act due to a provision in it calling for bilingual ballots, there is this reaction from another Republican Hispanic (see, the term is not an oxymoron yet):

John Bueno, a Republican from Michigan, is president of the National Association of Latino Elected and Appointed Officials, which was meeting in Dallas last week when news of the voting rights flap broke. "My first reaction was, 'My God, here we are, it's 2006, and we're still dealing with this issue,' " Bueno said. "Mainstream Republicans are frustrated right now with what's going on in Congress."

Democrats on the other hand are having a hard time understanding this gift, but not for the same reasons Derbyshire and his companions at National Review Online are having the same difficulty.