Latino Protestants (evangelicals) shift Democrat

[Liberal_in_LA]

http://www.contracostatimes.com/localnews/ci_10740253?nclick_check=1

Latino Protestants shift Democrat
By Matt O'Brien
Contra Costa Times
Article Launched: 10/16/2008 07:41:04 PM PDT


They share conservative positions against abortion and gay marriage, but a growing number of Latino Protestant voters are swinging toward the Democratic Party this year, a new poll shows.

"The shift is a direct result of the immigration reform debacle," said the Rev. Samuel Rodriguez, president of the Sacramento-based National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference. "This is why Latino evangelicals are abandoning the Republican Party and voting for Barack Obama."

Registered voters who are Latino and Protestant favor Obama over John McCain by a 17-point margin of 50.4 to 33.6 percent, with 10.4 percent still undecided, according to a phone survey sponsored by Rodriguez's organization.

Of about 500 Latino Protestants interviewed last week, 82.8 percent said a candidate's position on immigration is important in determining their vote. Almost 71 percent considered immigration reform an extremely important voting issue, compared to 74.8 percent who felt that way about abortion and 55.8 percent about gay marriage.

[TygrBright]

1. It's more than immigration. All the Latinos I know are pissed about....

...the GOP basically tossing them off the "important" list. It was brutally obvious at the RNC where there were NO Latino keynoters, no major speakers from the Latino community, and the few speakers who did attempt to say anything in Spanish were actually BOOed by the crowd.

For the last several Presidential election cycles the GOP has pursued a careful strategy of building on the support they started getting in the 60s and 70s from the Cuban expat community in Florida (who make Goldwater look like Trotsky.) They've nurtured some local and state office holders and tried to build a cadre of mid-level Latino stars in the party. After the backwash jumped on the Scary Brown People Want Your Jobs bandwagon, though, not so much. And in this Presidential election cycle the silence from the GOP to the Latino community has been deafening.

They were just starting to feel their oats with respect to their role in the electorate as a whole. Majority-minority swing states, growing Latino populations in almost every region of the country, and strong community ties and institutions make them an important constituency and they know it. Now the GOP tosses them? They are PISSED. And the anti-immigration crap from the backwash at the McCain/Palin rallies just rubs it in.

The Obama campaign, on the contrary, has a HUGE Latino organizing effort going on in almost every key state. They have lots of Latino staffers- many at high levels. They are making major Spanish-language ad buys on radio stations that cater to the Latino community and getting endorsements from admired Latino politicians and celebrities at every level.

The McCain campaign-- and the GOP as a whole-- are going to bitterly regret losing the Latino vote.

Couldn't happen to a nicer buncha racist primitive hominids, IMHO.

oracularly,
Bright

[Liberal_in_LA]

2. I noticed also... GOP seems to after the white vote only this year.

Not too smart.