the question is about the rate of trending not just the fact that some states are trending Democratic; hence, I limited my point to the short term. In any case, I do agree that there is a need for competition.

That’s funny, because I have always respected how black people are able to vote as a unified block. If Latinos had done that Arnold Schwarzenegger would not be Governor of CA.

I wouldn’t be so sure of that. Latinos were the deciding factor states like in Virginia, North Carolina and Indiana. Democrats normally lose those states by huge margins. Arizona and Texas are also trending Democratic.

But is that’s bad for democracy. If the Democrats don’t have any competition, they won’t bother to respond to the electorate.

I am however concerned about his next pick (should that happen during his tenure as president) given the message sent by the majority of Republicans who questioned Supreme Court Judge Sonia Sotomayor. I also hope that Latinos do not forget how she was treated by them during the hearings.

One thing (out of many) I respect about the Latino community is that all the eggs are not placed in one political basket. There are Repubs, Dems and Independents. I have been trying for years to alert my community about always voting Democrat when they too have taken advantage of the votes. I myself am a big supporter of third and fourth party candidates since 9 times out of ten both elephants and donkeys are in the same cage–owned by corporate entities.

My father is a Republican. He has pretty much voted Republican in every election, no matter how small or local, since Reagan. He is generally stubborn and unreflective about his party loyalties. But he has been extremely unhappy with the party not just because he has been left scratching his head (i.e. asking himself what happened to the party of Reagan and where did all these wingnuts come from) but also because he doesn’t get why Latinos seem to be the focus of the party’s anger (starting with all the immigration mail he was receiving from his reps and now with Sotomayor). Even though he is very conservative, he has managed to maintain a nationalist streak (maybe being originally from East LA helps). He doesn’t like Sotomayor much but he thinks she is being attacked partly because she is a Latina. My dad, of course, is fairly political but he is someone who is likely to vote for Republicans. He also is someone who does not remember who Estrada is.

My point is that whether or not all Latinos remember the specifics of Sotomayor’s proceeding there has been a reinforcement of the image of Republicans as anti-Latino thanks to this proceeding. There are a lot of Latinos that **do** vote but know little about politics. This is especially true of naturalized citizens in the last decade and a half (the ones who don’t remember the Reagan amnesty). Many of them are doubtful about both parties. But do Republicans really want to alienate the doubtful ones? Remember what Lincoln said: “Keep a constant watch on the doubtful voters, and from time to time have them talked to by those in whom they have the most confidence.” Latinos are not being talked to in a way that will build the long-term success of the Republican Party. The less political group (not apolitical I should add) get a lot of their information from Spanish language media and in some cases community leaders. The only talking to they are getting is from media personalities and community organizers who are enraged at the perceived anti-Latino stance of the Republicans. Sotomayor has given them a lot to talk about!

Should Republicans care now? Probably not for 2012. A former classmate of mine crunched the numbers recently. He says that Latinos aren’t significant enough in most states that Republicans have a chance of winning. If they can focus on those, they could probably even get the presidency back. There is a little flaw in his model in that he isolates the Latino variable which only works in a vacuum, but his general point is solid. So in the short term, it’s ok to not care about opposition to Sotomayor or the Republican race-baiting going on these days. But shouldn’t Republicans look at the long-term too? I almost never agree with Karl Rove on anything, but Republicans will never be “the party of America” if they keep alienating minorities. Is it not obvious which minority group is growing the fastest?

I also wonder if there has been any damage among women voters thanks to these proceedings. Maybe the mujeres could chime in on this one. Are any African-Americans angry because of opposition to Obama’s first pick? En hora buena…

Good point. I do agree with your general theme, but then the question becomes “which Latinos are we referring to?”. If it’s the average-juan-nonpolitical-nationalist-kinda knows something about politics-but-not-really type, then I would say the difference between Estrada and Sotomayor is minimal at best. They see a latino face on screen, see that s/he is getting static for stuff they dont really care/understand and are bothered by it. Overall it bothers them at the time, but its largely forgotten.

If, however, you are talking about the political Latinos, those who know why Estrada was denied and why Republicans are denying Sotomayor, well then, of course, they will remember more the Sotomayor situation than the Estrada one – but really, how is that important to Republicans any? Those Latinos were never going to vote for them anyway. It’s a “tails I win”, “heads you lose” situation for them too.

With that said, another important difference between Estrada and Sotomayor is that Sotomayor was eventually elected, Republicans may have opposed but they didn’t prevent her nomination – not so with Democrats and Estrada.