From the Texas Tribune: GOP Platform Complicates Hispanic Outreach for Abbott

This story compliments the previous post.

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.

- Click here for the post.

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.

There are no moderate representatives

One graph in the story refered to in the previous post deserves to be highlighted since it puts in a nutshell not only the polarized nature of Congress, but the fact that members of Congress do not represent the interests of moderates, only those of the extreme - who happen to be primary voters by the way. This is based on data from California, but there is little reason to expect it to not apply elsewhere - here in Texas for example.



Notice that the no member of Congress lies directly under the peak of either the typical Republican  or Democratic voter. This does suggest that we rethink who or what members of Congress actually represent. The traditional story - that they represent their constituents - clearly does not explain a thing.

The article this was pulled from costs money to access, but here is a link to it anyway.

5 flirt with Iowa's conservatives; one fires them up ...

From the Chronicle -- for my 2301s -- potential presidential candidates meet with party activists in Iowa:

In these preliminary stages of the contest for the 2012 Republican presidential nomination, Iowa conservatives have begun to flex their muscles, and the candidates are responding.

Five potential candidates - party veterans and long shots alike - came here Saturday for a day of attacks on President Barack Obama's policies, talk of constitutional principles and a chance to gauge the mood of the most conservative wing of the GOP base.

Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, one of the most conservative members of the House, hosted the daylong conference, which drew hundreds of activists. It was the second conservative gathering of the month in the state to draw a handful of presidential hopefuls - the first was hosted by a religious conservative group - and was another reminder of how deeply intertwined fiscal and cultural issues are in the state with the nation's first presidential caucuses.

The possible presidential candidates included Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour, former House Speaker Newt Gingrich, businessman Herman Cain, and former United Nations ambassador John Bolton. But it was Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., who lit up the gathering with a rapid-fire denunciation of the president that had the audience on its feet cheering.

"Are you in for 2012?" she called out to the audience. "Are you in? Are you going to make it happen? Are we going to take our country back?" As the applause built, she concluded by saying, "I agree with you. I say we do. I say I'm in. You're in. We will take this back in 2012."

Who Runs the Republican Party Right Now?

For my 2301s as we start to discuss elections and parties. This author argues that the Republican Party is currently being defined by "state activists and governors, " not by potential presidential candidates. This may not serve the party well in 2012. It does introduce a major point we will hit when we discuss the decentralized nature of political parties in the United States. At any one point in time it can be tough to determine who or what is in charge, what the party truly stands for, and who made that decision.

From Along for the Ride:

With the 2012 class coalescing so slowly, the initiative has flowed elsewhere. On Capitol Hill and in the states, Republican legislators and governors empowered by the party’s historic gains in 2010 are advancing aggressive agendas with major 2012 implications. Rather than influencing those ideas, the potential GOP presidential candidates are mostly racing after them.

The best example is in Wisconsin, where newly elected Gov. Scott Walker is seeking to revoke most collective-bargaining rights for public employees. Every major Republican presidential hopeful has endorsed Walker’s initiative—which has galvanized conservatives but ignited volcanic resistance from organized labor. The eventual Republican nominee may still consider that issue a winner in 2012. But regardless, he (or she) has already locked onto a position that will allow union leaders to present a GOP White House victory as a threat to the very existence of organized labor. That could electrify rank-and-file mobilization.

Something similar has already happened with Hispanics. Most of the major 2012 candidates have embraced Arizona’s tough anti-immigration law (except for Huckabee and Romney, who hedged). Again, the eventual nominee might consider that to be a winning issue next year. But if Republicans choose an Arizona-style hard-liner, Democrats will undoubtedly find it easier to portray the GOP ticket as hostile to a burgeoning Hispanic population.