Minorities And Political Parties (Topic #2)

Minorities and Political Parties (Topic #2)

Who’s in Control Now?

When one thinks of minorities what comes to most people’s minds is that on the lines of African Americans and they would be right. But, when one thinks of the majority minority what comes to mind? Many might not know, but the Latino/Hispanic race is becoming the majority minority and has the ability to make a lot of changes in the political arena. According to CNN US news report

Hispanics remained the largest minority group at 42.7 million. They were the fastest growing group from 2004 to 2005, with a 3.3 percent increase. Blacks represented the second largest minority group, with 39.7 million people and a 1.3 percent increase from 2004 to 2005(Associated Press, 2006).

So with the Latinos/Hispanic group being considered the swing vote group they have the ability to change the win of an election from Democrat to Republican easily. So the target of most of these campaigns will be more on the lines of getting this “swing vote” and determining how this will be done.

Many people believe that the Republicans will be the ones needing this “swing vote” and they themselves plan to do whatever it takes to do so. They have come up a lot of different option that will help them in obtaining that win they need to be successful. One of their many strategies consists of making many of their leaders more of the Latino/Hispanic race. For example they have decided to make Senator Mel Martinez of Florida the chair of the Republican National Committee (Jacoby, 2006). This shows how their plans of making Latinos/Hispanics more of an importance in their campaign strategies. Another one of their many strategies is their ability to favor concerns that many Latinos/Hispanics favor. For example they favor many issues like abortions, homosexuality, education, homeownership, small-business concerns and Iraq. This is one of the strongest points that they hold when it comes down to winning the favor of this group of people. It is said that with these issues Latinos seem to line more up with Republicans even though they once were in more favor with the Democrats (Jacoby, 2006).

Although there are something’s that the Republicans have done to win the favor of the Latinos/Hispanics there are still something’s that they do that the Latinos/Hispanics do not like. One of the main issues with the Latinos/Hispanics to this present is the issue of illegal immigrants. When this issue is discussed amongst the Republicans things such as “we don’t want you here” or even “we do not like you” tends to come up (Jacoby, 2006). Another factor that hurts the Republicans in this coming election is the outcome of their previous candidates. Such as George W. Bush our current president who has been seen to the people as a failure in so many ways. Latinos believe that the Republicans have dug themselves into a hole and until they dig themselves out of their hole it might be harder for them to win their vote.

When it comes down to the Democrats many people see them as winning the vote of the Latino/Hispanic race. Numbers show that in the past election any were from seven to ten Latino/Hispanic voters supported the Democrats in the congressional election according to the exit polls (Ohlemacher, 2007). Many also state that the Democrats will need to make sure they address as well as focus on the concerns of the Latino/Hispanic population in order to maintain the support of them. With one of their main focuses being on immigration rights and with the Latinos/Hispanics angered over anti-immigrant rhetoric used by the Republicans this has shifted the vote to the Democrats (Watanabe & Gaouette, 2006). One of the major bonuses the Democrats hold is the fact that many of the Latinos/Hispanics are more of the middle and lower class and within the Democratic party that is mostly who they represent (Ohlemacher, 2007). Not only are they on they apart of the middle and lower classes, but when it comes down to education they lack the ability to learn and with Democrats