Wednesday, January 30, 2008

Immigration issue killed Romney in Florida

Hispanics deliver Florida for McCain:by Simon Rosenberg: See original post here

According to the exit polls Mitt Romney and John McCain tied 33% to 33% among the 89% of the Florida voters last night who were not Hispanic. Among Hispanics, who were 11% of the Florida GOP electorate last night, the vote was 54% McCain, 24% Rudy and 14% Romney. So it was the vote of Hispanic voters who put John McCain over the top in Florida, and gave him the most important win of his fight for the GOP nomination.

Thus, John McCain, the candidate who championed immigration reform, may have had the nomination delivered to him by those Hispanic voters he has been fighting for. And Romney, who has led the anti-immigrant crusade in the GOP field this year, saw this strategy explode on him - as it has virtually every other Republican who has invested in it - last night.

McCain has had to distance himself from his more moderate position on immigration in order to attempt to negate some of the hostility conservatives have toward him. The quicker he wraps this thing up, the quicker he can throw his base under the bus on immigration and make a last-ditch effort to rescue the Republican Party from itself on the issue. Too bad for him, he'll have hundreds of little Republicans running down-ballot races basing their entire campaigns on demonizing brown people.


2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Congratulations, John McCain!! Very happy to see the results from Florida last night - the best man did win!!
As this post points out - the Hispanic vote is going to sway this election and the Republican party has done itself no favors by scapegoating Hispanic immigrants for everything and anything. Senator John McCain has stood out from the rest of the hum-drum Republicans on all the important issues for a long time but he has truly shown the rest of the Republican party the error of their ways with his big win in Florida! Roll on Super Tuesday!

Anonymous said...

Don't run down the Republicans/ conservatives in America that want fair immigration reform. It is asinine to lump us with the Kennedys who allow 15 million illegals and 100,000 Mexicans green cards, and 40,000 Indians green cards, and only 2,000 Irish. Let's preserve our heritage and demand fair immigration reform like what Romney and other conservatives want.