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TechnoratiRodriguez, a Republican proponent, tried to rally support among Republican senators for a bill which he considers a moral and biblical response to the immigration crisis.
“We were divided on global warming, but not on immigration,” commented Rodriguez, noting Hispanic leaders in all 50 state chapters of the NHLC believe Latino evangelicals will now not show up at the polls for Republicans.
The NHCLC is the largest Hispanic Evangelical organization in the United States, representing some 15 million evangelical members. The NHCLC is the sister organization of the National Association of Evangelicals.
Rodriguez’s prediction should strike Republican White House hopefuls as a serious problem given statistics on Latino Protestant voting trend.
In 2004, President George W. Bush received 68 percent of the voting population who identified themselves as Latino Protestant who attended church weekly. Although the group was not a dominant voting base for Bush, swing groups such as Latino evangelicals can play a significant role in close elections, pollster John Green of the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life said to the Dallas Morning News.
Rodriguez, and others like him, are now questioning whether they can label the GOP party as the “party of Jeff Sessions, Tom Tancredo and James Sensenbrenner” who were strong opponents of the immigration bill, or the party of George W. Bush and Arizona Sen. John McCain who are both strongly in favor of the bill.
Notably, Univision had offered a platform similar to Sunday night’s 90-minute forum at the University of Miami for Republicans. It was shelved, however, after only one of the nine GOP contenders – McCain – agreed to appear.
Among the Republican field, McCain has been the lone defender of the White House-backed immigration bill that foundered in the Senate. According to the Rev. Lynn Godsey, who works with Latino Protestants in North Texas, McCain is the only Republican presidential candidate in good standing with Latino evangelicals.
William McKenzie, an editorial columnist for the Dallas Morning News, said he usually likes to suggest how candidates or officials can head off “a coming disaster.”
“This one’s hard because most of the GOP presidential contenders are running away from the Bush-McCain line on immigration,” he wrote recently. “That means they are only digging a deeper grave with a natural Republican constituency.”
McKenzie advised Republican lawmakers and presidential hopefuls to make more efforts to speak to Latino evangelical leaders. He noted that President Bush has met twice this year already with Latino evangelical pastors.
“But Republicans are moving into the post-Bush era,” commented McKenzie. “As they do, Latino evangelicals may not go with them.”
In addition to the immigration issue, democratic White House candidates on Sunday embraced Hispanic concerns by unanimously promising to bring troops home from Iraq.
With the moderator of the debate noting that two-thirds of Hispanics want a withdrawal from Iraq, the candidates had an ideal audience to criticize the war.
Sunday’s debate happened to be held on the eve of a war assessment by U.S. commanding Gen. David Petraeus. During the televised event, the presidential hopefuls said troops should begin coming home no matter what the report says.
Christian Post reporter Michelle Vu in Washington contributed to this report.
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