Murphy
02-13-2006, 12:03 PM
Well, not so much as thought according to the 2004 election. I know its old news but I love to pour salt into the losers wounds.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/11/4/203450.shtml
The Hispanic Vote Elects Bush
Dick Morris
Friday, Nov. 5, 2004
Dick Morris is one the nation's top political strategists. He was the first political commentator to call the election for George W. Bush on Election Day – despite exit polls that showed Bush would lose. Dick offers his latest analysis to NewsMax readers. Also read Dick's special reports in NewsMax Magazine. Get Dick Morris' new book, "Because He Could," FREE with NewsMax Magazine – Click Here Now.
The biggest reason for Bush's victory was that he finally cracked the Democratic stranglehold on the Hispanic vote.
While Gore won 65 percent of the Latino community, holding Bush to a mere 35 percent, Kerry only carried the Hispanic vote by 55-45, paving the way for the Bush victory.
Since Hispanics cast 12 percent of the vote in 2004, their 10-point movement to the GOP gave the president an additional 1.2 percent of the national vote.
Take a similar amount away from Kerry, and the Latinos gave Bush a 2.4 percent edge in the general election balloting.
Since Bush beat Kerry by only 3.1 percent, how important was the Hispanic vote? Vital and crucial. There are two reasons for Bush�s success among Hispanics. The most important seems to be his emphasis on social values issues, particularly his opposition to gay marriage.
Hispanics are, of course, Catholic and deeply committed to traditional values.
I handled the campaign for Vicente Fox in Mexico, where his deeply religious Catholicism won him many votes in a political system traditionally committed to a secular anti-clericalism
But Bush worked very hard to win the Hispanic votes. He reversed traditional Republican positions opposing the interests of Latinos. He endorsed bilingual education, reversing decades of Republican agitation for English-only policies.
He opposed benefit cuts to documented aliens and rejected out of hand the contention that the children of undocumented workers should be denied public education. He even embraced a version of amnesty that permitted illegal immigrants to gain lawful status and eventual citizenship.
And the rest of the party also began to reverse decades of anti-Latino legislation. In 1996, for example, the Republican Congress demanded tough prohibitions on disability or survivor benefits for legal immigrants who had contributed sufficiently to the Social Security system to earn their pensions had they been citizens. Under pressure from Republican governors, the GOP reversed the ban the next year.
The long-term consequences of the Bush gain among Hispanics may be enormous. Beyond just winning this election, Bush may have begun to crack the unholy triple alliance of blacks, Hispanics and single women that anchors the political base of the Democratic Party.
These three groups accounted for 54 percent of John Kerry�s vote on Tuesday even though they cast only about one-third of the total vote in the election.
Bush still lost blacks by 89-11. He lost single women by 64-36 (while carrying married women by 9 points), but his gains among Hispanics permitted him to win the election anyway.
http://www.newsmax.com/archives/articles/2004/11/4/203450.shtml
The Hispanic Vote Elects Bush
Dick Morris
Friday, Nov. 5, 2004
Dick Morris is one the nation's top political strategists. He was the first political commentator to call the election for George W. Bush on Election Day – despite exit polls that showed Bush would lose. Dick offers his latest analysis to NewsMax readers. Also read Dick's special reports in NewsMax Magazine. Get Dick Morris' new book, "Because He Could," FREE with NewsMax Magazine – Click Here Now.
The biggest reason for Bush's victory was that he finally cracked the Democratic stranglehold on the Hispanic vote.
While Gore won 65 percent of the Latino community, holding Bush to a mere 35 percent, Kerry only carried the Hispanic vote by 55-45, paving the way for the Bush victory.
Since Hispanics cast 12 percent of the vote in 2004, their 10-point movement to the GOP gave the president an additional 1.2 percent of the national vote.
Take a similar amount away from Kerry, and the Latinos gave Bush a 2.4 percent edge in the general election balloting.
Since Bush beat Kerry by only 3.1 percent, how important was the Hispanic vote? Vital and crucial. There are two reasons for Bush�s success among Hispanics. The most important seems to be his emphasis on social values issues, particularly his opposition to gay marriage.
Hispanics are, of course, Catholic and deeply committed to traditional values.
I handled the campaign for Vicente Fox in Mexico, where his deeply religious Catholicism won him many votes in a political system traditionally committed to a secular anti-clericalism
But Bush worked very hard to win the Hispanic votes. He reversed traditional Republican positions opposing the interests of Latinos. He endorsed bilingual education, reversing decades of Republican agitation for English-only policies.
He opposed benefit cuts to documented aliens and rejected out of hand the contention that the children of undocumented workers should be denied public education. He even embraced a version of amnesty that permitted illegal immigrants to gain lawful status and eventual citizenship.
And the rest of the party also began to reverse decades of anti-Latino legislation. In 1996, for example, the Republican Congress demanded tough prohibitions on disability or survivor benefits for legal immigrants who had contributed sufficiently to the Social Security system to earn their pensions had they been citizens. Under pressure from Republican governors, the GOP reversed the ban the next year.
The long-term consequences of the Bush gain among Hispanics may be enormous. Beyond just winning this election, Bush may have begun to crack the unholy triple alliance of blacks, Hispanics and single women that anchors the political base of the Democratic Party.
These three groups accounted for 54 percent of John Kerry�s vote on Tuesday even though they cast only about one-third of the total vote in the election.
Bush still lost blacks by 89-11. He lost single women by 64-36 (while carrying married women by 9 points), but his gains among Hispanics permitted him to win the election anyway.