The GOP, McCain and Hispanics

I know I’m beating this one to death but sometime a week or so ago good ole Daniel Schorr was on NPR talking about how Obama is getting a large % of the African-American vote (no surprise) and that Hillary is getting a large share of the Hispanic vote (slightly more surprising to me.) It shows that we still have other racial divides going on in our country if Hispanics are attracted to Clinton and not Obama. Are they uncomfortable with voting for an African-American?

Maybe I am out of touch but it has been 30 or more years ago when I was growing up in Texas and as more immigrants from Mexico and points south started coming in, there were problems between Blacks and Latinos. I guess I naively thought that was all history and minorities united under a more common umbrella. Guess not.

My point – as before - the GOP must start reaching out to minorities. A co-worker pointed out to me that they DO in Florida. OK – point taken I guess but I don't know much about Florida.

I was in southern Arkansas recently and without sounding prejudicial, you can’t help but notice as you move south, there is always more color in the aisles when you go to WalMart, etc. It has usually been black.

My cousin in Arkansas informed me that in her county, there are now more Hispanics than African-Americans.

If the GOP can find a convincing way to attract Hispanics, they can build a formidable answer to the Obama surge – if he should go on to get the nomination. If Hillary manages to survive and run, then any efforts to win Hispanics will still siphon votes away from her. Voting GOP is not anathema to Hispanics. I seem to recall both Bushes got a fair amount of Latino support in their respective elections.

I don’t know what McCain can do about this right now. I’m not aware of a known Hispanic that is ready to be on the ticket as a VP, but if he can find one, once again I think this would be just plain old good politics.

And now that he can relax and raise money while Clinton and Obama try to decide who’s name will go at the top of the ticket, maybe he can come up with someone to run with.