In his September 22nd Washington Post column, Harold Meyerson accused the Republicans of slowing down or preventing Latino voter registration across the country. His reasoning is that the rapidly expanding Hispanic population tends to vote democratic. This is largely true but Meyerson ignores some important facts. First is that President Bush speaks Spanish and was very popular among the Latino population when he was governor of Texas. Second is that many Hispanics are Catholic and very religious. That tends to favor Republicans when the issues focus on family values. Finally and maybe the most important is that polls show that the Latino vote is still largely up for grabs.

A poll taken by Sergio Bendixen and Associates, a Democratic firm taken earlier this year shows that Bush leads Kerry by 55%-35% in Florida which is almost the same margin that Bush beat Gore by in 2000. Bendixen also added that 40% of poll respondents were undecided or could change their mind in other states compared to 85%-90% of the general electorate who had already made their decision.

Bush captured 35% of the Latino vote in 2000 and that compares favorably with Ronald Reagan. We all know what happened as a result. The mainstream media may find that their racial profiling of the Latino vote will backfire on them and wouldn’t that be equal justice?

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