I spent last month cruising the Mediterranean which explains my recent absence from the pages of the Bonanza.  We stopped at every Spanish port from Barcelona to Cadiz and as beautiful as that land is the unemployment rate is 26% and trains aren’t running because of a strike.

Returning home I found that, as Harvard Political Scientist Harvey Mansfield said in the Wall Street Journal, “We now have an American political party and a European one . . . (Obama supporters) are voting for dependency, for lack of ambition and for insolvency.”  Hmmm.  Sounds very much like the pain in Spain that stays mainly in the plain.

Is Socialism inevitable?  Dr. Mansfield is optimistic the trend can be reversed.  “Democrats have their cultural argument, which is an attack on the rich and uncaring” he said.  “So Republicans need their cultural arguments to oppose the Democrats . . . we have to take measures to teach the poor and vulnerable to become a little more independent and to prize independence, not just live for a government check.”

Right on, Dr. Mansfield.   For a number of years in this space I have been Johnny-one-note urging Republicans to reach out to a natural GOP constituency, Latinos. Culturally they are hard-working and value their independence. 

I cringed during the GOP presidential primary debates last spring when the candidates (except Newt Gingrich) tried to outdo each other in their hard-nosed stance on immigration.  The result?  75% of Latino voters turned out for Obama, a new high for a Democratic presidential candidate. 

What will it take to increase the GOP’s appeal to Latinos?  Fortunately we do not have to guess.  There are a number of institutions that regularly take the pulse of Latino voters.  One of the more interesting is a group called Latino Decisions, an amalgamation of political science experts, mostly of Latino descent, at major universities throughout the US.  It is headquartered at the University of Washington and is funded by such institutions as Stanford and Cornell Universities.  Latino Decisions constantly polls Latino voters and reports the results.

An election eve poll of 5,600 Latino voters revealed that the four most important issues facing the Latino Community are: the economy (53%), immigration (35%), education (20%) and health care (14%).  It seems to me that the GOP does not have to sacrifice any core principles to come up with a platform that would respond to these voter perceptions.

Perhaps immigration would be the most controversial for Republicans.  Latino Decisions has recently polled that issue and found that Latino voters (e.g:  already citizens) want:  a meaningful adjustment of status, a path to citizenship, reasonable prerequisites to a change in status and equitable treatment of innocent youth who are in the US by other than their own volition (ex: the Dream Act).

Which GOP leaders could be instrumental in convincing the Republican Party to broaden its appeal with Hispanics?  Former Florida Governor Jeb Bush has for years worked in conjunction with former Minnesota Senator Norm Coleman to bring Latinos into the GOP.  Newt Gingrich also sees the handwriting and publishes a dual language political magazine called “the Americano”.  Newer to the scene are Nevada Governor Brian Sandoval and New Mexico Governor Suzanna Martinez. 

Republicans have got to decide if the party is to remain relevant in the future.  History buffs will recall that the GOP first organized in 1856 out of the remnants of the Whig Party.  Are we headed that direction or can we become a renewed party, “conceived in liberty and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal?”