01/19/2008
The "man who trusts McCain" is Hispanic columnist Miguel Perez.McCain gives Latinos leverage By Miguel Perez Wednesday, January 16, 2008Of course, what he means when he says Latinos are "not masochistic" enough to vote for a border enforcement candidate is that they're not loyal.None of the immigration restrictionists is trying to do anything about Mexican-Americans, who have the vote — only about illegal immigrants, who don’t. (I admit that those illegal aliens who vote illicitly wouldn’t mark the ballot for Tom Tancredo.) And if the Latinos he’s talking about support the illegal invasion, that’s because they're putting their ethnic group ahead of their country . He goes on to explain how Latinos will vote to help their friends and relatives get away with the crime of illegal immigration:For the past few months, it seemed as if Latino voters had lost their leverage. When the polls and the pundits gave Sen. John McCain of Arizona up for dead, when they said his presidential campaign was on life-support, Latinos lost their ability to threaten Democrats with a viable GOP alternative.They could not tell Democrats that they had the option of voting for Republicans such as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, former Sen. Fred Thompson of Tennessee or Rep. Tom Tancredo of Colorado because the Democrats know that Latinos are not masochistic. It would have been a joke.
After the way those candidates have pandered to conservative immigration extremists and promoted ethnic intolerance, no one expects them to get significant Latino support. And that includes former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, who goes from compassionate to intolerant every other day, and former New York Mayor Rudy Giuliani, who has turned his back on the illegal immigrants he once defended. Most Latinos would pick any Democrat over them.
Only McCain, with his admirable posture in support of tolerance for diversity and compassion for illegal immigrants, could win a significant portion of the Hispanic vote, especially in some large states that could swing the presidential election.[More]
Amazingly, after spending months scapegoating Latino illegal immigrants, some GOP presidential hopefuls believe they still can appeal to legal immigrants in the Hispanic community because, as Huckabee put it in a recent debate, "I think there is a great misperception that Hispanic people in this country somehow are soft and weak on immigration; they are not. Those who have come here legally, who have stood in line, who have patiently waited to get in this country are some of the ones who insist that we enforce the law."What he calls McCain’s "integrity" is of course McCain’s lack of party loyalty, willingness to betray his constituents, and his consistent support for illegal immigration.Nothing could be farther from the truth! It’s not a question of being soft or weak, it’s about having compassion for our friends and neighbors. In the Hispanic community, you don’t hear people protesting about anyone cutting in front of the immigration line. That is a myth created by people who are against us and then have the gall to try to speak for us.
Sure, you'll find some Latino GOP party loyalists who always will put the interests of their party before those of their own community. And some of them still may be supporting candidates who clearly would be harmful to Latino interests. But to the overwhelming majority of Latinos, especially those who live in the major urban centers of this nation, illegal immigrants are not foreigners who represent some kind of threat; they are our friends and neighbors. Sometimes they are even our relatives.
Those who don’t think we will vote to help them are sadly mistaken.
This is a content archive of VDARE.com, which Letitia James forced off of the Internet using lawfare.