by Jeb Bush
POSTSCRIPT
A PRESCRIPTION FOR REPUBLICANS
PRESIDENT MITT ROMNEY.
For many people reading this book, including the authors, those three words conjure wistful images. How different our nation’s course could have been, over the next four years and beyond, if the talented former Massachusetts governor had been elected to bring his extraordinary business acumen to the helm of our nation.
It is a tragic lost opportunity, made more so because it was largely self-inflicted. Many people expected Romney to be elected and nearly everyone expected a much closer race. Numerous explanations for Romney’s defeat came into play, and nearly all of them were demographic. Political commentator Tucker Carlson recounts a conversation near the eve of the 2012 vote with a Democratic strategist who aptly observed, “We’re not having an election. We’re having a census.” Our nation has experienced rapid and dramatic demographic changes over the past decade, including an aging population; a reduced number of marriages; a decline of religion; and above all, a rapidly growing population of racial and ethnic minorities. Over the past decade, minorities have accounted for 85 percent of the nation’s population growth.1 Throughout that time, the Republican Party has clung to its core constituency, seeking to squeeze more votes from an ever-shrinking base—in other words, it has been living on borrowed time. In 2012, the inexorable math, combined with the party’s unwillingness and inability to expand its base, finally caught up with it.
Although this book is directed toward everyone, regardless of party affiliation or philosophical persuasion, we think it is important to conclude by directing these comments to the Republican Party itself. One of us is a former Republican governor who remains steadfastly committed to his party and optimistic about what it can achieve in the years ahead. The other was an active Republican from his teenage years who grew disaffected with the party over immigration and other issues and has been an independent for the past decade. We both believe strongly that Republicans need to play a leadership role on immigration and to reach out to immigrants generally and Hispanics specifically in a much more serious and meaningful way, not just for the good of the country but for the party’s survival.
It was difficult for both of us to watch the candidates for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination address immigration issues, each trying to outflank the other as the candidate who would do the most to keep people from crossing our southern border, while dealing the harshest with people and their children who are in the country illegally. By sharply criticizing Texas governor Rick Perry for his in-state tuition program for certain children of illegal immigrants, and by making his leading immigration adviser a prominent proponent of “self-deportation,”2 Mitt Romney moved so far to the right on immigration issues that it proved all but impossible for him to appeal to Hispanic voters in the general election. However little or much anti-immigration rhetoric counts in Republican primaries, it surely succeeds in alienating Hispanic voters come the general election. Although Romney eventually called for comprehensive immigration reform, a platform that hardened the party’s stance on immigration hung like an anvil around his candidacy.3
Romney’s missteps on immigration were especially frustrating given that President Obama had alienated many Hispanics before the election season, by breaking his 2008 campaign promise to lead the charge for comprehensive immigration reform and, especially, by deporting a record number of illegal immigrants.4 But near the end of the campaign, Obama suddenly reversed course, announcing his policy to allow young people who were brought here illegally to remain. The policy was enormously popular, and it appeared to demonstrate presidential leadership, energize Hispanic voters, and paint Republicans into a corner from which they could not escape.5
The results were as predictable as they were painful. Whereas Republicans had won 44 percent of the Hispanic vote only eight years earlier, in 2012 that proportion plummeted to 27 percent. And it was a smaller share of a much larger number, as the record Hispanic vote doubled from 5 percent of the electorate in 1996 to 10 percent in 2012.6 Obama’s winning margin among Hispanics appears to have accounted for his victories in such pivotal states as Florida, Colorado, and Nevada.
Perhaps most shocking was Romney’s abysmal showing among Asians, who represent the largest-growing immigrant group. Despite the fact that only 41 percent of Asians identify as Democrats, and that President George W. Bush received 42 percent of their votes in 2004, Romney won only 26 percent of the Asian vote—even lower than his percentage of Hispanics.7 The effect was especially pronounced in the northern Virginia suburbs, where Asians live in great numbers, and they helped deliver that crucial swing state to Obama.
Although this postscript focuses on Hispanics, our observations and recommendations apply generally. Most immigrants, including Hispanics and Asians, are entrepreneurial, family-oriented, deeply religious, and place a tremendous emphasis on educational opportunities. In other words, they fit the classic profile of Republicans. And yet Republicans are losing immigrant voters.
The rapidly declining share of Hispanic support for Republican candidates is alarming to us for a number of reasons:
• If this trend is not arrested and reversed, the growing influence of Hispanic voters will doom the Republican Party’s future electoral prospects.
• If Hispanics identify with a single political party rather than allowing competition for their votes, they will marginalize their potentially vast political influence.
• It doesn’t have to be this way: most Hispanic voters embrace core convictions of the Republican Party and have shown themselves willing to vote for GOP candidates.
Even if Hispanics are not quick to embrace the Republican Party, we should reach out in alliance on values and goals we share. Free-market policies can take our nation to new heights with more prosperity and opportunity than anyone can imagine. An opportunity society—where we have the freedom to pursue discovery and disruptive innovation and where individual aspirations are rewarded—will create huge possibilities far beyond any government program. We are not smart or prescient enough to predict the outcome of millions of people being inspired to strive, dream, and work, but we are certain it would produce a far better future than the command-and-control approach the current administration is on now. Immigrants come to our nation for precisely that freedom, whether on a small or grand scale. That is the basis for an enduring bond between conservatives and immigrants that transcends party labels.
The most strident immigration critics on the right reject outreach to Hispanics as hopelessly futile. “It would make a lot more sense,” urges writer Sam Francis, “for the Stupid Party to forget about Hispanics as a bloc they could win from their rivals, start thinking about how to control immigration, dump the ads in Spanish, and start speaking the language of the white middle class that keeps them in office.”8 Others reject the notion that Hispanic immigrants are instinctively conservative. “Far from exercising a brake on the erosion of traditional values,” writes Heather Mac Donald, “the growing Hispanic population will provide the impetus for more government alternatives to personal responsibility.”9
Such prescriptions overlook four important facts:
• Even if not a single new Hispanic immigrant were to gain citizenship—an impossible scenario much as some might hope for it—the number of Hispanic voters will continue to increase inexorably as Hispanic children who are citizens grow to voting age. Indeed, births now exceed immigration as the main source of Hispanic growth in the United States.
• Hispanics are not yet strongly attached to either political party, and many Republican candidates (including the lead author and his brother) have experienced significant success in attracting their votes.
• Even if Republican candidates fail to win a majority of Hispanic votes, the difference between, say, a 25 percent share versus 40 percent is sizable enough to affect electoral outcomes.
• Republicans need not abandon or compromise their principles to attract Hispanic
support—to the contrary, their best electoral strategy is to emphasize common conservative values.
Ronald Reagan once famously quipped that “Latinos are Republicans. They just don’t know it yet.”10 The Republican Party’s overriding priority in the years ahead must be to expand and diversify its shrinking demographic base, embracing immigrants generally and Hispanics in particular.
SHARED CORE VALUES
Hispanics are the largest American minority ethnic group, and they are growing, both as a share of the population and of the electorate. The 2010 U.S. Census counted 50.5 million Hispanics, up from 35.3 million ten years earlier. The number of eligible Hispanic voters grew even faster, from 13.2 million in 2000 to 21.3 million in 2010. Those numbers will continue to grow. Every month, 50,000 U.S.-born Hispanics turn eighteen and become eligible to vote.11
Republicans need to recognize that Hispanics are not a monochromatic community but rather a deeply diverse one, reflecting a wide variety of national origins, geographic dispersion, and varying time spent in the United States. Indeed, some Hispanics trace their American roots more than four centuries. Still, Hispanics as a whole strongly favor Democrats: 62 percent say they identify as or lean toward Democrats, while only 25 percent identify as Republicans.12 But the Pew Research Center finds that an increasing proportion of Hispanics—46 percent compared to 31 percent six years ago—are registering as independents, indicating that they are not yet firmly anchored to the Democratic Party.13
Despite the pronounced party affiliation deficit, a significant number of Hispanic Republicans are winning major elected offices. In 2010, for the first time ever, three Hispanic candidates won top statewide contests, and all were Republicans: New Mexico governor Susana Martinez, Nevada governor Brian Sandoval, and U.S. senator Marco Rubio from Florida.14 Two years later, Republican Ted Cruz was elected U.S. senator in Texas. This electoral success may reflect the Republican Party’s greater focus on individual attributes rather than ethnic identity, which should appeal to Hispanics given their tremendous diversity.
We believe the GOP has far greater potential to attract Hispanic votes than it has realized so far. A 2006 survey by the nonpartisan Latino Coalition found that a plurality of Hispanic voters—34.2 percent—consider themselves conservative, compared to only 25.8 percent who call themselves liberals.15 The difference between the number of self-identified conservatives and the much smaller number of Hispanic Republicans represents a substantial opportunity gap for the GOP.
The conservative instinct reflects in Hispanic positions on a wide range of political and social issues. A sizable majority of Hispanic voters—53.6 percent to 39.5 percent—believe the Hispanic community should become more a part of American society than keeping its own culture. Given a choice between cutting taxes or raising government spending as the best way to grow the economy, 61.2 percent favored lower taxes while only 25.5 percent supported increased spending. More Hispanics (47.7 percent) would prefer to be covered by private health insurance than by a government-sponsored plan (39.8 percent). An outright majority (52.8 percent) consider themselves pro-life rather than pro-choice (39.8 percent).
The strong work ethic, devotion to family, and conservative social values prevalent among Hispanics should make large numbers of them natural Republicans—and many fewer of them Democrats. Most are devoutly religious. A minuscule 7.7 percent of Hispanic adults in the United States are divorced.16 The principal magnets attracting Hispanics to the United States are work and entrepreneurship. Fully 60 percent of Hispanic registered voters own their homes.
Moreover, Democrats typically pursue policies that are antithetical to the aspirations of Hispanics and other Americans, favoring increased taxes and regulations on small businesses and opposing school choice. They are leaving tremendous opportunities for Republicans to win the hearts and minds of Hispanic voters.
And yet many Republicans have proven themselves remarkably tone-deaf when it comes to courting Hispanic voters—to the extent they court them at all. Attracting Hispanic votes does not require abandoning conservative principles—quite the contrary. Rather, it means seeing Hispanic voters as individuals, most of whom fervently cherish our nation’s ideals. Much common ground exists, if there is a will to find it and good faith in championing it.
HOW TO CONNECT WITH HISPANIC AND IMMIGRANT VOTERS
To win Hispanic votes—and those of immigrants generally—Republicans should play to their strengths while avoiding alienating rhetoric that makes them appear anti-immigrant. Ken Mehlman, a political strategist for President George W. Bush in 2004, advises that to “win Hispanic votes, the GOP must be the party of those who aspire to the American Dream.”17
Here are four concrete strategies to do just that.
1. Put the immigration issue behind us.
For most Hispanic-Americans, immigration falls behind education, jobs, and health care as their top policy priorities.18 Surprisingly, many Hispanics support conservative positions on immigration. For instance, 47 percent of Hispanic voters in 2004 supported Arizona’s Proposition 204, which required proof of citizenship for government benefits.19 Two years later, 48 percent favored making English the official language.20 More than 70 percent of Hispanics support voter photo identification laws.21
What turns off Hispanic voters is the hostile tone of the debate over immigration. When Republicans advocate fencing off the Mexican border or cutting off social benefits for illegal immigrants, they often overtly or implicitly associate Mexican immigrants with crime and welfare, a stereotype that creates understandable resentment even among people who might agree on the substance of the policy. Likewise, the toxic rhetoric of “self-deportation” suggests that certain groups are not wanted. Even though immigration typically is not a top priority among Hispanic voters, it is a gateway issue: if Republicans set a hostile tone and message on immigration, they will never make it through the gate, and other messages that would resonate among Hispanics will not be heard.
“The issue isn’t just immigration but the way the hard-liners’ stance has been so offensive, even to Latinos who agree with them about the need for a secure border,” observes Tamar Jacoby. “It’s about what kind of innuendo you use in making your case. It’s about whether or not you’re imagining a shared future, and how constructively you’re planning for it.”22 Pollster John Zogby agrees. “I found a considerable amount of agreement on social issues like abortion, gay marriage, and guns,” he says of a 2006 exit poll of Hispanic voters, “but also a strong reluctance to vote for a party that promoted the anti-immigration Proposition 187 in California.”23
Indeed, California shows what can happen when the Republican Party embraces a strong anti-immigration posture without reaching out in a positive way to Hispanics. The once-vibrant party that sent two Republican presidents to the White House in the second half of the twentieth century now is so moribund that it has not a single statewide elected official and is in danger of falling into third place behind independents among registered California voters. The party’s implosion traces back to the extremely divisive Proposition 187, which was enacted in 1994 just as the number of Hispanic voters in the state was surging. Now the party is in such a deep hole that it may be impossible to dig out. Indeed, California GOP chairman Tom Del Beccaro may be understating the case when he says that the “manner in which immigration is handled nationally presents a challenge to Republicans in California.”24
Arizona appears in danger of following California’s lead. Though it has been a mainly Republican state for the past few decades, Hispanic voters are growing in electoral strength and are not happy with the state party’s nativist tendencies. In 2008, Arizona Hispanics gave 56 percent of their votes to presidential candidate Barack Obama, but a healthy 41 percent to Republican senator John McCain, who had championed comprehensive immigration reform (a position from which he backtracked two years later during a tough primary battle for his Senate seat). In 2012—following emotionally charged debate over Arizona S.B. 1070 and
highly publicized immigration sweeps by Sheriff Joe Arpaio—Arizona Hispanics favored President Obama over Mitt Romney by a whopping 80–14 percent margin. Unlike Hispanics nationally, Arizona Hispanics had come to consider immigration policy more important than even jobs and the economy.25
It is illuminating to compare the California and Arizona experiences with Texas and Florida. Both of those states have large Hispanic populations with flourishing Republican parties and large numbers of Hispanic Republican elected officials. Some would characterize Florida as an aberration because most of its Hispanic population is Cuban, a community that tends to be more politically conservative. But younger Cuban-Americans are one or two generations removed from the conditions that led their parents and grandparents to the Republican Party; and Florida also has lots of Hispanics from other Latin American countries. Most of Texas’s Hispanic population is Mexican-American, and illegal immigration is a serious statewide concern.
But unlike in Arizona and California, Republicans in Florida and Texas have treated immigration issues with great sensitivity, and have reached out to Hispanic voters on issues of common ground such as education and enterprise. Indeed, at the same time as the national party was adopting a hard-line immigration platform at the 2012 Republican National Convention, the Texas GOP platform dropped previous hard-line language and for the first time called for a national guest-worker program.26 “I challenged the committee to say, ‘What would a conservative solution to immigration look like?’ ” explained Art Martinez de Vara, the Hispanic Republican mayor of Von Ormy, Texas. “Rather than restating problems, we decided to propose an actual conservative solution.”27 Little wonder, given their parties’ aggressive outreach and emphasis on shared values, that both states elected Hispanic Republicans to the U.S. Senate: Cruz in Texas and Rubio in Florida (and Mel Martinez before him).