Principalities & Powersrnby Samuel FrancisrnThe Hispanic StrategyrnThe question that has smoldered in thernRepnblican mind for the last couple ofrnyears is not who will be the presidentialrnnominee of the party in 2000, but rather,rnwill George W. Bush win the Hispanicrnvote? Since some time in 1998, it hasrnbeen an unquestioned assumption ofrnmany, if not most. Republicans—at leastrnthose who coimt inside the Beltway andrnthe inner sanctum of the party — thatrnGovernor Bush will be the nominee, thatrnhe will win the election, and that—unlikernBob Dole or any other Republicanrncandidate in history—he will carrv’ a majorityrnof Hispanics.rnAs often happens with Republicanrnthought processes, these beliefs havernbeen less the result of logical cogitationrnbased on firm factual evidence than ofrnwhat the party faithful would like to berntrue. The belief that Mr. Bush will winrnthe Hispanic vote is closely connected torntile passionate enthusiasm of most libertariansrnand neoconservatives for virtuallyrnuncontrolled immigration and theirrnequally passionate hatred of anyone whornsuggests restricting immig ration. If Mr.rnBush can win Hispanics, you see, thenrnpermitting and even encouraging thernmassive Hispanic invasion of the UnitedrnStates during the last 30 years has notrnbeen an act of political suicide for thernGOP and the soft-right gurus who advocatedrnit but a stroke of political sagacity;rnRepublican candidates who based theirrncampaigns on appeals to Hispanicsrnwould have mobilized a new politicalrnbase that the older right never had. Itrnwould also mean that the Republicanrnfailure to win more Hispanics, at least inrnrecent years, was not due to any leftishrnleanings of the good folk from south ofrnthe border but to misguided efforts byrnsome Republicans to restrict immigrahon.rnGovernor Bush, the argument concludes,rnhas remained conspicuouslyrnaloof from immigration restricdon, andrnhis reward is the massive Hispanic supportrnthat he will surely enjoy.rnFor once, what Republicans wouldrnlike to be true may actually be true. Mr.rnBush may really win Hispanic votes, butrnif he does, it will be because he has assiduouslyrncourted and pandered to them, atrnthe expense of conservative principlesrnand strategies that have been central tornthe idenhty—and the political success—rnof the Republican Part)’ since the 1970’s.rnBut it is by no means assured that he willrnwin an Hispanic majority at all, andrnmuch of the conservative ballyhoo aboutrnhis ability to do so is based on nothingrnmore than myth.rnThe main myth about Mr. Bush andrnthe Hispanic vote is that in his 1998 reelectionrncampaign as governor of Texas,rnhe won a majority of Hispanics. Thernmyth has been bruited about in conservativerncircles for two years, and at the end ofrnlast year broke into print in the WashingtonrnTimes. On December 20, DonaldrnLambro, chief political reporter for thernpaper, wrote that Mr. Bush “pulled inrnmore than 50 percent of the Hispanicrnvote in Texas in his 1998 re-election.”rnTwo weeks later, on January 4, the paper’srnother chief political reporter, RalphrnZ. Hallow, wrote that Mr. Bush had carriedrn”an unprecedented 49 percent ofrntheir [Hispanic] vote in his re-election asrngovernor.” The two reported vote countsrnare clearly contradictor)’, but the truth isrnthat one of them is certainly, and the otherrnmay be, inaccurate.rnWriting in the Weekly Standard onrnMarch 1, 1999, California pro-immigrationrnactivist Ron Unz reported that Mr.rnBush “recently captured nearly half thernMexican-American vote in his landslidernre-election victory.” National Review reportedrnin its i,ssue of March 8, 1999, thatrna “new look at November exit polls suggestsrnBush didn’t carry 49 percent of [the]rnHispanic vote as supporters claim, but 39rnpercent.” That figure seems to haverncaught on with some analysts; the SanrnFrancisco Chronicle, in an article carriedrnby the Washington Times on Septemberrn1, credited Mr. Bush with “winning nearlyrn40 percent” of the Hispanic vote inrn1998. The authoritative Almanac ofrnAmerican Politics, 2000 reports that,rnwhile exit polls at the dme of the electionrnshowed Governor Bush taking some 49rnpercent of the Hispanic vote, subsequentrnpolls “showed him winning 39% of Hispanicsrnstatewide.” The Almanac claimsrnit was “an impressive showing,” sincernTexas Hispanics have been Democratsrnfor decades. But it might not be quite asrnimpressive as a first glance suggests.rnBush’s opponent ran a weak race, and therngovernor himself concentrated on winningrnHispanics, not only avoiding supportrnfor immigration restriction but alsornall but endorsing bilingual education,rnwhich even pro-immigration neoconservativesrnlike Unz and Linda Chavez oppose.rnAssuming he really won 39 percentrnrather than the “more than 50 percent”rnwith which conservative folklore and Mr.rnLambro credit him, that puts him withinrnrange of Ronald Reagan’s and RichardrnNixon’s performances among Hispanicrnvoters nationally. According to exit pollsrnpublished by the New York Times soon afterrnthe 1996 election, Nixon in 1972 wonrn35 percent of Hispanics nationally andrnReagan carried 33 percent in 1980 andrn37 percent in 1984.rnBob Dole’s miserable showing of 21rnpercent Hispanic support in 1996 kickedrnoff the Republican flight from immigrationrnreform. Writers like Unz, Chavez,rnand the Wall Street journal’s Paul Gigotrnhave blamed Dole’s poor Hispanic rehirnsrnon Republican support for California’srnProposition 187, which sought torndeny illegal aliens public welfare. Butrnthe argument is really not very persuasive,rnfor several reasons. In the first place,rnMr. Dole had very little record himselfrnon immigration issues one way or another,rnand after winning the nomination hernimmediately repudiated the party’s platformrnplank on immigration control. Hisrnrunning mate. Jack Kemp, was stronglyrnpro-immigration and had actually earnedrnRepublican wrath for opposing Prop. 187rnat the last, crucial minute in l994. Therernwas virtiially nothing in the 1996 Republicanrnticket that suggested support for immigrationrnrestriction or risked alienatingrnHispanic voters (assuming that immigrationrnrestriction does alienate Hispanicrnvoters; in fact, polls have shown that Hispanicsrnare generally almost as supportivernof restriction as non-Hispanics).rnBut the clincher in the counter-argumentrnthat Prop. 187 had virtually nothingrnto do with Dole’s slippage among Hispanicsrnis that in 1992 —two years beforernProp. 187 was on the ballot—PresidentrnBush won only some 25 percent of thern32/CHRONlCLESrnrnrn