Self-Marginalization GOP Style

What with the Hispanic population being the fastest growing segment of the population, one would think that the GOP would be trying to quiet its lunatic base in terms of anti-immigrant rhetoric and outright racist statements, but not so. Instead, it seems the Party wants to become a regional party concentrated in the South and made up of former segregationists, white supremacists and the most ignorant of the Bible beaters. What's amazing - and beyond disappointing to me - is that the hapless Democrats can't get anything accomplished even as the GOP strives to self destruct. Businesses - including mine - are actively courting the Hispanic market segment, yet the GOP is doing the opposite. In a state like Florida and southwestern states, the GOP's alienation of Hispanics will hopefully take a woeful toll. Here are some highlights from a Huffington Post column that looks at the phenomenon:

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Florida Sen. Mel Martinez's resignation closes the latest chapter in the Republican Party's tumultuous, decade-long effort to woo the nation's Hispanic voters. The Cuban-American's impending departure could leave no Hispanic Republicans in the Senate and three in the House – compared to 21 Democrats in Congress – and a sense that the national GOP is at a major crossroads with the nation's fastest-growing demographic group.

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[T]he heated rhetoric over illegal immigration in 2006, followed by the loss of many Republican moderates, and most recently the GOP's failed opposition to Justice Sonia Sotomayor's Supreme Court nomination have helped drive away many Hispanic voters. Martinez, as senator and briefly as head of the party, tried to temper the anti-immigrant language, and he bucked his party by voting for Sotomayor, who is of Puerto Rican descent. Yet, in the end, few in Washington followed his lead.

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[E]xperts say the GOP has good reason to be worried. "One election and one resignation is not the end of an era, but it does signify tremendous problems in appealing to Hispanics in Florida, and nationwide," said Florida International University political science Professor Dario Moreno. Diaz-Balart said the immigration debate hurt his party's relations with Hispanics because it "cluttered the communication waves." "What they see on television is a local or a state official speaking very negatively about immigrants and then what they see is that that person is Republican," said Diaz-Balart, who like Martinez supports a path to citizenship for illegal immigrants.

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[B]y 2006, following bitter immigration debates – the party would later sponsor ads comparing Mexican immigrants to Islamic terrorists – the support plummeted. Martinez was tapped to head the RNC and turn things around. He lasted less than a year, fighting with his party over its harsh immigration rhetoric and watching helplessly in 2008 as Republicans hemorrhaged even more Hispanic voters in states like Nevada, New Mexico, Texas and even Florida.

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Meanwhile, Rodriguez, the evangelical church leader, said that despite its promises of change, the party is simply banking that it can survive by winning back independent, non-ethnic, fiscal conservatives. He is still waiting for a public apology for the vitriolic language of the immigration debates. "I can tell you firsthand the Latino outreach on behalf of the Republican party is nil," he said. "The Republican Party has one incredible hill to climb.

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Obama and the Democrats ought to be all over this issue and forging ahead alone, if need be, with needed reforms. Instead, they sit on there hands and mumble platitudes. It drives me crazy.