Does Biden have an Hispanic problem?

[appalachiablue]

38. This article based on Cadava's book has interesting points:

- How the GOP Built a Loyal Hispanic Base. For decades, Republicans used appointments and policies to win a reliable third of the Latino vote.- Washington Monthly, July 2020.

https://washingtonmonthly.com/magazine/july-august-2020/how-the-gop-built-a-loyal-hispanic-base/



..Cadava introduces us to the political evolution of various Hispanic subgroups, beginning with the Eisenhower years. The book gets off to a bit of a dizzying start (there are a lot of constituencies to get to know, and each of them is quite different), but it hits its stride as it takes the reader through time. After Eisenhower, one of Cadava’s first major subjects is Arizona Senator Barry Goldwater, who in some ways symbolizes the GOP’s tortured political relationship with Latino constituents. Like many future Republican candidates, Goldwater’s staunch anticommunism attracted some Hispanics, but his opposition to civil rights put others off. “The views Goldwater expressed about civil rights contributed to his extremist reputation and to the suspicion of many Hispanics that he just didn’t like them,” Cadava writes.

In a sense, then, it’s paradoxical that the Republican Party’s abandonment of the civil rights mantle—firmly seized in the 1960s by Democrats—helped spur its aggressive courting of Hispanics. But after the Civil Rights Act was passed, the party had to search for ways to make up the support it knew it would no longer receive from African Americans. To help do so, Republican operatives turned to leaders in the Mexican American and Cuban American communities who had a deep allegiance to values like religion, free enterprise, and anti-communism. These leaders, not willing to abandon civil rights altogether, hoped that they could move the GOP toward adopting greater respect for immigrants and greater educational opportunity. They became some of the party’s earliest Hispanic boosters.

The Nixon administration worked with these leaders to nurture a strong anti-communist base (remember those Cuban American Watergate burglars?) and devise new patronage-focused strategies to engage Latino leaders. Nixon concentrated on delivering federal programs to support minority entrepreneurs, including Hispanics. He also oversaw important milestones. Notably, Nixon became the first president to appoint a Latina as treasurer of the United States.
His selection of Romana Acosta Bañuelos was understood at the time to be a strong signal of Nixon’s respect for the community and his inclusionary intent. She also provided an irresistible PR opportunity; he could point to the dollars people carried in their pockets, which for the first time had a Latina’s signature on them. It is worth noting that this strategy has been followed by nearly every president since Nixon to diminishing effect; of the past 11 U.S. treasurers, seven have been Latinas...