"How House Republicans Screwed Their Next Presidential Nominee"

[applegrove]

How House Republicans Screwed Their Next Presidential Nominee

By Jonathan Chait at the New York Magazine

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2014/02/how-republicans-screwed-their-next-nominee.html

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In opposition to this intuitive logic, several conservatives have argued that passing immigration reform is irrelevant or even harmful to solving the GOP’s troubles. A mini-industry devoted to debunking the political logic of immigration reform has proliferated on the right. Some of these arguments coat a thin patina of logic atop deep flaws; others lack even the patina.

So, for instance, conservative political analyst Sean Trende argues that the Hispanic electorate may be sizable, but it is distributed geographically in a way to render it relatively meaningless. “Hispanics,” argues Trende, “are much less important in terms of the Electoral College than they are in terms of the popular vote.” Trende goes on to argue that winning back Hispanic voters would not change the results in many states. See if you can spot the glaring flaw in his list:



If the GOP reduces the Democrats’ share of the Hispanic vote to 67 percent, Florida goes Republican. At 56 percent, New Mexico flips. Nevada and Colorado flip at 51 percent and 50 percent, respectively.


Did you spot it? Yes, the first state he mentions: Florida. Trende just mentions Florida quickly and moves on to other states — oh, sure, a small increase in the Hispanic vote would flip Florida to the Republican column, but Hispanics don’t matter much to the electoral college. Florida is important. It’s a huge, really close state! It decided the 2000 election!




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