Two lefty bloggers argued on Thursday that Republicans are in far worse shape with Latino voters than they were a few months ago, in part as a result of their response to President Obama’s executive action on immigration late last year.
Kevin Drum of Mother Jones asserted that Obama took executive action not only on the merits of the policy but also because “he wanted to gain Latino support for Democrats and provoke an insane counterreaction from Republicans. He succeeded brilliantly on both counts. Republicans fell swiftly into his trap, and they show all signs of falling even further as primary season heats up. By the time 2016 rolls around, even a moderate guy like Jeb Bush is going to be so tainted by Republican craziness on immigration that he'll get virtually no support from the Latino community.”
Drum added that “Republicans could have responded in a more measured way that would have blunted Obama's actions. Instead they let themselves get suckered. Obama must be laughing his ass off right about now.”
Meanwhile, Ed Kilgore of the Washington Monthly reflected that the days of George W. Bush and Karl Rove, when “the Republican Party was actually competitive among Latino voters,” seem awfully distant:
It’s getting harder every day to recall that the Republican Party was actually competitive among Latino voters a decade ago. Now that it’s obvious the party has chosen to…bow to the nativist impulses of the conservative “base,” the question is how much worse can it get? The marginally improved performance of the GOP among Latinos in the 2014 midterms probably tempted some to think disgruntlement with Obama would trump estrangement from the elephant party. But since then, of course, the president’s executive action on immigration provided fresh impetus to “deport ‘em all” messaging, and the jockeying for position during the Invisible Primary for 2016 is not going to help.
