Issues Start Rush to Citizenship by Hispanics

[ursi]

Source: New York Times

Spurred by the widespread crackdown on illegal immigration and by the contentious tone of the national immigration debate, Latinos are gearing up for Tuesday’s voting with an eye toward making Hispanics a decisive voting bloc nationwide in November.

After decades of relatively low Hispanic electoral participation, last year more than a million legal Latino immigrants applied to become citizens, with many saying they had done so to be able to vote. Since then, newly naturalized Hispanic-Americans and citizens since birth have turned out at voter registration fairs and political discussion groups, and pressed relatives to register.

Last week’s primary in Florida, the first state with a big Hispanic population to vote, gave a demonstration of their potential clout. Hispanic voters, who were 12 percent of those voting — a strong turnout for a primary — handed the decisive edge in the Republican contest to Senator John McCain of Arizona over Mitt Romney, the former governor of Massachusetts, according to exit polls by Edison/Mitofsky.

The two candidates were essentially even among white voters, with 33 percent for Mr. McCain and 34 percent for Mr. Romney. But Latino voters, including Cuban-Americans and others, favored Mr. McCain by 54 percent to 14 percent for Mr. Romney. (Mr. McCain is known among Latinos for backing an immigration bill offering legal status to illegal immigrants that was defeated last year by conservatives from his party.)

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/02/05/us/politics/05hispanic.html?ref=todayspaper

[Ian David]

1. ¡Coloqúese para votar, o los republicanos le matarán!

That's how BabelFish translates, "Register to vote or Republicans will kill you!"

This might be more accurate:

"El registro al voto o a los Republicanos le usted!"

[Hugabear]

2. Hehehe...hopefully this will be the end of the rethugs

If it is, it will be their own damned fault. I would love to see the rethugs become a completely marginalized political party, just like the Libertarians, Natural Law, and all these other insignificant groups.

Of course, then we'd probably see our own party split into two parties, the 'corporate' Democrats and the more progressive elements. So in the end, it would probably be the same thing.