Hispanic Hype

In what Hotair.com refers to as "straight talk", John McCain told a Christian Science Monitor breakfast

“I believe if we pass this legislation, it won’t gain us a single Hispanic vote, but what it will do is put us a playing field where we can compete. Right now we can’t compete,” he said at a breakfast hosted by the Christian Science Monitor. “The numbers in the last couple of elections authenticate that statement..."

Byron York writes in the Washington Examiner:

Democrats set to jam immigration reform through Senate

March 28, 2013 | 8:00 pm

Given the enormity of the changes that would result from comprehensive immigration reform, Senate Democrats wouldn't try to rush a bill through the Judiciary Committee before the public gets a chance to know what's in it -- would they?

... can a campaign guru claim that a Republican presidential candidate's leftist position on immigration doomed him to lose because he took a turn to the "hard right."[Mitt Romney Campaign Manager Matt Rhoades Laments Hard-Right Shift On Immigration, Huffington Post, December 3, 2012]

Not particularly.

During the 2000 recount in Florida, I recall getting a press release from a Sikh association pointing out that Sikhs had no doubt tipped the balance of the Presidential election. There were X thousand Sikhs in Florida and they had voted heavily for one candidate or the other because that guy had endorsed the Sikh demand for an exemption from laws mandating motorcycle helmets (because Sikhs have to wear turbans). (Motorcycle helmet laws have been a perpetual issue for Sikhs all around the world.) Or maybe they voted against the guy who had called for helmets.

So, therefore, the press release concluded, Sikhs elected the President in 2000.

From the NYT:

Assessing How Pivotal the Hispanic Vote Was to Obama’s Victory

By ALLISON KOPICKI and WILL IRVING

...

Not unexpectedly, the Hispanic vote was also not decisive in Iowa or New Hampshire where Mr. Obama could have carried the states even if he had won none of the Hispanic vote whatsoever.

In Ohio, where the president received an estimated 54 percent of the Hispanic vote, according to exit poll data, we find he could have won the state with as little as 22 percent of the Hispanic vote, and in Virginia, where he received 64 percent of the Hispanic vote, we find that he could have carried the state with just over 33 percent.

It is also worth noting that in states that were not considered

With the Republican Convention coming up, we'll be hearing more Hispanic Hype from journalists about how the GOP must appeal to the Hispanic vote (by betraying their country) or the party will vanish.

Most of these people have never actually counted the Hispanic vote, and the Center For Immigration studies is trying to help:

Projecting the 2012 Hispanic Vote

Steve Sailer's post below, quoting  the LA Times's Presidential campaigns missing the mark in advertising to Latinos, is 1267 words long, so you may have missed this part, at the very end:

Here's a more interesting part of the article:

Perhaps the Romney campaign is paying close attention to studies that show advertising in Spanish can turn off white and black voters. When white and black audiences saw ads with a Latino endorsement or in Spanish, their support for a candidate dropped, said Ricardo Ramirez, a professor of political science at Notre Dame. 

"We know that appearing more inclusive by outreaching toward Latinos seems to work well for immigrants, but it seems to have a negative impact on blacks and whites," he said.

Who make up close to 7/8ths of the voters.

Here's the most prominently featured article on LATimes.com today, one that exemplifies a number of my old themes:

Presidential campaigns missing the mark in advertising to Latinos 

President Obama and Mitt Romney have yet to adopt a nuanced approach to targeting the country's 21.3 million Latino voters, Spanish-language media experts say. 

Here's the graphic from the National Journal's ethnic turnout coverage:

USA Today has a big spread, with some of their famous  "We're Eating More Beets"  charts