Martinez, Pearce: How To Win Hispanic Votes

As national Republican leaders fret about their party’s showing among Hispanics in the Nov. 6 elections and consider the GOP’s future, they might want to check in with a couple of prominent New Mexico Republicans.

Rep. Steve Pearce, who represents New Mexico’s border with Mexico, and Gov. Susana Martinez, who hails from the border-area town of Las Cruces, both have plenty to say about their party and Hispanic politics.

Martinez made news last April when she mocked Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney for asserting that a stringent crackdown on illegal immigrants would cause many of them to “self-deport,” or willingly leave the country.

“What the heck does ‘self-deport’ mean?” Martinez scoffed during a Newsweek interview.

A few months later, Romney tapped Martinez for his Hispanic outreach team, but the outreach fizzled. Now, some national Republican Hispanic political figures — including Martinez — are serving up withering critiques of Romney’s strategy.

In a telephone interview Monday, Martinez said Romney’s weak result among Hispanics, who chose Obama by a more than 3-1 ratio nationally, isn’t necessarily a harbinger of things to come for the GOP. But she advised Republicans to craft “positive” instead of punitive ideas for immigration reform and drop the harsh anti-immigrant rhetoric.

“We have to be part of the solution and also be very mindful of the rhetoric,” Martinez said. “We’re not mindful of how damaging that rhetoric — such as ‘self-deport’ — is. We need to earn the respect and support of Hispanics, and that doesn’t do it.”

Martinez was baffled by Romney’s post-election comments in which he blamed his loss on “gifts” that Obama promised certain voting blocs, such as citizenship for children who were brought into the country illegally.

“It made it sound as though we aren’t independent thinkers — that we get gifts and we go with the gifts, as though we don’t think for ourselves and don’t look at the candidates and what they have to offer as a leader,” the governor said.

Martinez also advised Republicans to steer clear of language that suggests America needs immigration reform simply to have enough people to pick lettuce or clean houses.

“People don’t want to come to this country just to do the jobs that no one else wants to do,” Martinez said. “They come for opportunity.”

In the postelection analysis, much is said about Romney’s failure to appeal to Hispanics. It’s a valid point, of course. The candidate’s message didn’t resonate with Hispanic voters, and as Pearce told me, Romney was “never comfortable” reaching out to the rapidly growing ethnic group. But it’s also worth noting that President Barack Obama’s re-election campaign worked relentlessly for the Hispanic vote. Obama’s strategists began engaging Hispanic voters at least a year in advance of Election Day and later employed a savvy, airwave-saturating Spanish-language media campaign. They followed that up with intensive get-out-the vote efforts in key battleground states.

In other words, Obama worked extremely hard for the Hispanic vote and Romney didn’t. In elections past, that might not have mattered. But consider the numbers. In 1992, Hispanics accounted for 4 percent of the American electorate. In 2012, that number reached 10 percent, and it will only climb. No one who hopes to win the White House can take Hispanic voters for granted or simply pay them lip service.

Fernand Amandi, a principal at the Bendixen and Amandi, a Miami-based consulting firm that helped the Obama campaign craft its Hispanic messaging, explained the winning strategy in simple terms. Work hard for the vote; show the target group you care about their issues, and results will follow based on simple voter registration numbers.

“It’s not magic; it’s math,” Amandi said.

Pearce is a hard-line conservative on most issues, but on immigration reform his stance softens a bit. Pearce has long favored implementing a guest worker program that would allow immigrants to come to the U.S., work and make money and then return home. He reasons that not every immigrant wants citizenship and that those who do can earn it through the normal process.

Pearce, who had about 40 percent support among Hispanics in his district in a late October Journal poll, told me Republicans don’t have to cave on key immigration debates, such as offering a “path to citizenship” for those already in the U.S. illegally. But the GOP does need to establish relationships with the Hispanic community.

“You broaden your appeal by showing up,” Pearce said. “You begin to know people, and they begin to know you. If you’re not willing to do that hard work … it’s hard to get that support. It’s not about patronizing or giving ground; it’s about relationships.”

Pearce said he has told Republican House leaders he would like to lead on immigration reform in the new Congress. He hasn’t heard back yet.

“They may or may not use me — I don’t know,” Pearce said. “I’ve offered, and we’ll see where it goes.”

Meanwhile, Martinez pointed out that Obama failed to pass immigration reform in his first term, despite his pledge to do so. She suggested the president try again and invite Republicans to negotiate in good faith. He might be surprised by the result.

“This is a bipartisan problem and it can be a bipartisan solution,” she said.

UpFront is a daily front-page news and opinion column. Comment directly to Michael Coleman at mcoleman@abqjournal.com or (202) 525-5633 in Washington, D.C. Go to www.abqjournal.com/letters/new to submit a letter to the editor.
— This article appeared on page A1 of the Albuquerque Journal