While the Democratic Party has - and continues to try to expand - its coalition, forces within the Republican Party resist similar efforts for that party. The greater effort is to purify the party and expel people that do not conform to the party line.
At least that what some of the activists within the party attempt to do, to the chagrin of party leaders that see this as self defeating - if not in the near future - sometime ahead when the Latino population gets to the point where due to size they become a legitimate political force.
This author points out the difficulty the party's recent platform make it to make the party appealing to Latino voters. While activists approved language that might drive Latino voters away, the party's candidate for governor is trying reach out.
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In the wake of the GOP's approval of a platform that includes a hardline stance on immigration, Attorney General Greg Abbott finds himself at the top of the ticket for a party whose members are deeply divided over the subject and under fire from opponents who say the Republicans' position is offensive to Hispanic Texans.
And it all comes during an election cycle in which Hispanic Texans are seen as an especially critical voting bloc that Abbott has worked to woo.
"It effectively puts him in an awkward position," said Mark P. Jones, a political scientist at Rice University, because the attorney general does not want to risk alienating Hispanic voters or contradicting the official party stance.
Last week, the Republican party adopted a political platform that no longer endorses a provisional visa program for immigrants and calls for ending in-state tuition for undocumented immigrants and for prohibiting “sanctuary cities” that do not enforce immigration laws.
Abbott has largely been silent on the issue. Representatives for the Abbott campaign did not respond to requests for comment for this story, and they have not responded to previous inquiries about his position on the immigration plank of the platform.
