ShareThisFollowing the selection of Michael Steele as chairman of the Republican National Committee, commentator Leslie Sanchez pondered whether the two political parties would be able to look beyond the stereotypes of Latinos as they vie to attract them.
Last year Sanchez authored "Los Republicanos: Why Hispanics and Republicans Need Each Other," a book that drew media attention but apparently changed few minds within the party.
Her question is elemental. Hispanics, stereotypes aside, can be rich and poor, entrepreneurial and the jobless, colonial pioneers and yesterday's arrivals. Willingness to hold together as a community is a strength that registered in last November's presidential election.
Despite chatter to the contrary, the hard historical truth is Hispanics align roughly two-thirds Democratic and one-third Republican. There are exceptions, of course, and John McCain's 31 percent of the Latino vote in November was close to the mark.
Sanchez recognizes Republicans must win at least 35 percent of the Hispanic vote to remain viable in future presidential races. Like many Republicans since the 1970s, she concentrates on the affinity with entrepreneurs, the middle class, and the upwardly mobile as the best recruits.
The problem with classism like that is it drives a wedge among Latinos as a community of interests. This approach was most recently rejected as Latinos of differing income levels and professional strata were slapped in the face with the reality that hateful anti-immigrant talk really does brush-paint their own families. Many who thought they were accepted into the middle and upper-class milieu discovered they were still perceived as outsiders.
Brought into question is whether it's possible to be a respectable Republican and a Latino as well.
By allowing anti-immigrant radicals to run amok, divide-and-conquer class politics is played out while the party preaches there is room for everybody. Lost are the shared interests of fair chance, good schools, democratic representation and the like. No party has a patent on such values.
The challenge before Chairman Steele isn't how to entice a Latino constituency to the existing Republican Party but how to prove to Hispanics the party is capable of change and worthy of their participation. Where will the next generation of moderate, sensible GOP candidates come from, those who know better than to shoot the chef when they are hungry.
It's worth remembering that a good many Republican and independent voters helped throw out a lot of the incumbents in 2006 and 2008 who joined Tom Tancredo's inquisitions. That should have sent the leadership a clear message: too many Republican candidates, even those wearing sheep's clothing, scared Hispanic and non-Hispanic voters as well with their endorsements of hateful policies. It concerned our national morality. Bullying immigrants was the wrong response to the problem.
The Republican dilemma is that without Latinos, the party doesn't stand a chance in any near-term presidential election, and it will increasingly lose statewide races in new Democratic territory such as Nevada, New Mexico, Florida, Virginia and North Carolina. The usual Republican electorate is not growing, while the Latino population is.
Chairman Steele could start with a culture cleansing. Just as Bill Clinton's New Democratic politics stole pages from the Republican play book, so can Chairman Steele steal one from him.
He could begin by apologizing. The party has become morally lax. It has compromised the nation's values by proposing preposterous policies and promoted tired stereotypes.
It's not much -- not nearly enough -- but letting the putrid fumes out of the room is a start.
(Jose de la Isla writes a weekly commentary for Hispanic Link News Service. E-mail joseisla3<at>yahoo.com.)
(Distributed by Scripps Howard News Service, http://www.scrippsnews.com)
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