“For the first time in history, there are two Hispanic candidates running for president…the Republicans have been doing something right,” proclaimed Univision anchorman Jorge Ramos during a recent speech at Harvard’s Kennedy School.
The mainstream media has barely given any attention to the historic candidacies of Rubio and Cruz, unlike the constant attention they gave Obama in 2008.
Ramos also pointed out that “Democrats don’t have a single Hispanic candidate for this election,” and that the first Latino to run for president was Republican Ben Fernandez in the 1980s, followed by Bill Richardson in 2008.
Every night, over 2 million people tune in to watch Ramos on Noticiero Univision. Next to Chief Justice Sonia Sotomayor, he’s the most recognizable Latino in America with a Q-score (a measurement of consumer appeal of celebrities and brands) ranking high enough to put him with the likes of Shakira and international soccer star Lionel Messi. In short, among the Hispanic and Latino communities, Ramos is “kind of a big deal.”
He stressed the similarities between Hispanics and Latinos and the GOP, telling the mostly Latino crowd who came to hear him speak, “Ronald Reagan used to say: Latinos are Republicans – they just don’t know it yet. Regarding values and principles, our community is still very traditional when it comes to abortion, religious freedoms, the importance of family, gay marriage, etc.” Evoking Ronald Reagan and saying Latinos have the same core beliefs as the GOP isn’t something one would expect to hear from Ramos.
True to form, Ramos focused on immigration policy as the dominant issue.
“Absolutely no one can make it to the White House without the Hispanic vote. Republicans need at least 33 percent of the Latino vote if they want to win in 2016. McCain didn’t get it in 2008. Romney got 27 percent in 2012. …The truth is, you can have the best economic plan, the best jobs plan, you can do whatever you want. But if at the same time you are saying, ‘get out of this country,’ then it won’t work. Immigration is so close to our heart that we can’t put it aside,” he told the crowd.
If Congress would pass a comprehensive immigration reform bill, Ramos “guaranteed” that Republicans would have the Latino vote.
Ramos did mention that if either Cruz or Rubio were the presidential nominee, it would be “interesting” to see if Hispanic Democrats vote for a Latino candidate just because they are Latino. He noted a “majority of Latinos are of Mexican origin” while Rubio and Cruz both have Cuban roots.
Ramos said the future of Spanish-language media in America is assured for many years to come. “Despite the fact that the growth in the Latino community comes from births, there’s about 1 or 2 million new immigrants every single year. So that guarantees the growth of the Spanish-language news market. Do you know what was the most-watched TV show on Sunday night [April 12]? It wasn’t the season premiere of Game of Thrones; it wasn’t the MTV Movie Awards; it was Univision’s Nuestra Belleza Latina.” Seven million people watched, making Univision number one.
