Running to The Right, and Falling off A Cliff

In the race for the Republican presidential nomination, we all expected a sprint to right, but we didn't expect the candidates to fall over a cliff with Latino voters — at least not so soon.

We still are months away from the first primaries and already most GOP contenders have totally alienated the segment of the voting population that could swing the 2012 general election.

Given the recent immigrant-bashing history of the GOP, we always thought their presidential candidates would have the potential to make things easy for President Barack Obama to win the overwhelming majority of the Hispanic vote in 2012. But we never thought it would be this easy!

We never thought Obama could once again motivate Latino voters like he did in 2008, but now we see that Republicans are motivating Latino voters to go out in droves — to vote against them!

The way the Republicans are going, Obama has a good chance of winning those swing states where Latinos are expected to make a difference.

In various GOP debates, when the question of illegal immigration has arisen, the Republican candidates have shamelessly pandered to draconian xenophobes, speaking of illegal immigrants as if they were all criminals, referring to "amnesty" as it is was a dirty word, refusing to discuss any kind of immigration reform until we rebuild the Berlin Wall on our southern border.

To Latino voters, the 11 million undocumented immigrants the Republicans use as punching bags are often our friends, neighbors and even our relatives. We feel that using them as scapegoats to score political points with conservative extremists is repulsive. And yet, nowadays, we see it happening more frequently and with less public outrage and condemnation.

Just for the way Republicans are treating illegal immigrants, Obama could win the Hispanic vote by default. But some of them can't contain their bigotry. They constantly demonstrate that their problem is not just with illegal immigrants, but what the racists and white supremacists see as a much bigger threat: The growing size, strength and influence of the U.S. Hispanic population.

They claim their problem is only with illegal immigrants, but then they show that they have a much broader range for discrimination. Their problem is with all immigrants, especially Latinos. That's why we constantly hear Newt Gingrich responding to immigration questions by explaining that, "we should make English the official language of government," and Rick Santorum explaining that, "We're a melting pot, not a salad bowl. And we need to continue that tradition."

These are not-so-subtle messages to white America — at least to those white Americans who fear languages and diversity. If making English the official language of government was merely a symbolic gesture, there would be no reason for alarm. We all recognize that English is the main language necessary to communicate with our fellow Americans. But we know Gingrich has a much more Machiavellian agenda, which is to ban government documents, ballots and even U.S. Census forms currently published in Spanish and to disempower Latino immigrants by making it more difficult for them to vote, defend themselves in court, obtain a driver's license and even be counted by the Census Bureau.

Gingrich's official English remarks, always out of place in response to questions about illegal immigration, always get him nods of approval from the other candidates and solid applause from the same extremist crowds who boo gay soldiers and cheer for the death penalty.

And Santorum's melting pot remarks, again out of place in response to a question about immigration, are offensive to all educated Americans who recognize that throughout our history we have never been a melting pot.

The Republicans are quick to accuse the Democrats of engaging in class warfare, but they have no qualms about engaging in ethnic warfare. Perhaps they think Latinos are not listening when they flirt with those who hate us, but that's where they are mistaken. We're taking notes!

Of course, in the GOP debates, there have been brief moments of lucidity — like when Texas Gov. Rick Perry reminded many of the Republicans that they "have no heart" — but that's because he was getting hammered by other candidates for allowing undocumented immigrants to pay in-state tuition in Texas universities.

Amazingly, simply for signing this into law, Perry is being labeled as the immigration moderate in the field of Republican candidates, when in fact all of them, including Perry, still are grandstanding for the consumption of the extreme right.

Instead of accepting the fact that he is never going to win over the anti-immigrant zealots and adopting an outright moderate stance on immigration, Perry has been running even faster to the right. In one of the debates, he did a Michael Jackson moonwalk impersonation by explaining that although he supported the so-called Texas Dream Act, "I'm not for the DREAM Act that they are talking about in Washington D.C. — that is amnesty!"

Of course, Perry's leading rival, Mitt Romney, has been hammering the Texas governor over immigration — and stupidly identifying himself as the weakest candidate to compete with Obama for the Latino vote. We know Romney has a history of being on both sides of many issues, but on immigration we must note that he has gone to both extremes — from hiring undocumented immigrants to mow his lawn, to charging in one of the recent debates that, "We can't talk about amnesty, we cannot give amnesty to those who have come here illegally."

While some of the other candidates say they would consider talking about a legalization plan for the 11 million undocumented immigrants after our southern border is secure, Romney has said in a recent debate that, "Those that are here illegally, they shouldn't have a special deal."

Herman Cane wants to give the states the power to trample over immigrants; Michele Bachman rambles as incoherently on immigration as she does on most issues; and Jon Huntsman, who was expected to have the guts to come out as a real moderate on this issue, also has succumbed to pressure from the right — copping out and explaining that a discussion on immigration reform "has zero in the way of any intellectual credibility until such a time as we secure the border."

Intellectual credibility? Isn't that what the Republicans lose when they scapegoat illegal immigrants and wage ethnic warfare against Latinos? They make Obama look like Einstein!

Most Latinos may not be excited to vote for Obama. But we are getting anxious to vote against any of his potential opponents!

To find out more about Miguel Perez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate Web page at www.creators.com.

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