Hispanics' Influence in the 2010 Presidential Race

            The commentary “Willful ignorance: the GOP’s Hispanic problem” discusses the Republican Party’s barrier to the Hispanic vote in the upcoming presidential election. The commentary’s author, Paul Burka, cites the Public Policy Polling’s findings, which indicate despite President Obama’s decreased support by Hispanic constituents, he is still likely to lead two of the GOP’s potential candidates, Mitt Romney and Rick Perry. Burka goes on to highlight the key reasons Perry is likely to remain unsupported by the Texas Hispanic population: 1) budget cuts which impact CHIP, Medicaid and education 2) support for Voter I.D. policy and 3) support for sanctuary cities policy.

            The commentary’s audience is the readership of the Texas Monthly, which is the main outlet for the blog. Additionally, the BurkaBlog tends to be more left-leaning. Thus, the audience is likely to be more liberal politically. 

The article is credible in that Texas Monthly is considered “one of the nation’s premier regional magazines” per Lee Nichols with The Austin Chronicle. Additionally, Burka is the Senior Executive Editor of the blog, which illustrates legitimacy by way of professional expertise. Burka’s expertise and thus, credibility, is further exhibited by his presence as a panelist on “Legislative Blogrolling” at the College of Liberal Arts of The University of Texas at Austin.

Burka’s logic seems sound. Evidence indicates the Hispanic population in Texas will be the majority in 2020 (Keith & Haag, 2011). Therefore, elected officials are likely to reflect the changing demographics, whether as increased Hispanic elected officials or increased elected Democrats, which Hispanics tend to support more than Republicans. However, the Pew Hispanic Center conducted a national survey following the 2008 presidential election indicating the economy is the most important issue facing the Obama administration (Keith & Haag, 2011). This indicates Obama may have a run for his money in the upcoming presidential election despite Burka’s claims, especially since other demographic populations will be influential. Nonetheless, Burka points out Perry has failed to meet the expectations of Hispanics in regards to health care and education, and the aforementioned survey indicates these issues closely follow the importance of the economy.

             One thing I disagree with, is the preposition the Republican party is willfully ignoring demographics because there are other factors at play. First, while minorities are likely to be the majority when considered in combination, Anglos remain the predominant race when considered alone. Therefore, while it is unfair to ignore any race simply because they are a minority, it is strategic to focus on the majority for electorate purposes. Additionally, business interests are the most prevalent among the legislative agenda and most corporations are owned and run by Anglo Americans. Therefore, I would argue politicians are just playing politics when it comes to what policies they support in an effort to garner the most votes. In contrast, I agree with Burka on the importance of diversifying political campaigns and policies in order to parallel a growing diverse population. Additionally, while Hispanics tend to be more left-leaning, a number of Hispanics are non-partisan or have no affiliation with a specific party. This is important because political strategy indicates it is most efficient to persuade non-affiliated voters than those who are steadfast in their political affiliation. Thus, it would behoove the Republican presidential nominees, specifically Perry, to strengthen their appeal to the Hispanic population.