Top Latino Republican says, ‘Farewell, my Grand Old Party’
By Ed O'Keefe June 22
One of the few Hispanic political operatives able to help Republican candidates win large percentages of Latino voters says he will leave the GOP if it nominates Donald Trump for president.
Hispanic anger and opposition to Trump is nothing new and is widespread, but Lionel Sosa's concerns are notable. Sosa, a Texas-based ad maker and one of the few Hispanic political consultants to help Republican candidates win over large percentages of Latino voters, lay down a marker this week in an op-ed in his hometown newspaper.
If the Republican Party nominates Trump, "I'll have to bid farewell, hoping that one day soon, it comes to its senses," he wrote Tuesday in the San Antonio Express-News. "Here's my thinking. This madness could be temporary because our nominee is not really a Republican. Not a real conservative. He's just a shark, a self-promoter out to see how far his out-of-control ego can take him.
"Instead of 'Tear down this wall,' the party promotes a new and bigger wall," Sosa added. "A thousand points of light has been replaced by a thousand points of anger. In place of compassionate conservatism, our nominee promotes callousness, extremism and racism. And instead of a unifier, the party now cheers the ultimate 'us against them' proponent. Divisiveness incarnate."
Sosa is a leading expert on how to win over Hispanic voters. Drawn to the Republican Party as a child by Dwight D. Eisenhower, he helped Texas Republican Sen. John Tower win reelection in 1978 with 37 percent of the Hispanic vote — an unheard-of sum at the time. In 1980, he worked on the presidential campaign of Ronald Reagan, who coined a phrase still used by GOP candidates eager to win over Hispanics, including former Florida governor Jeb Bush: "Latinos are Republican. They just don't know it yet." That's a way of suggesting that if wooed properly, many Latinos, who generally are socially and economically conservative, would gladly vote for GOP candidates.
more:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-politics/wp/2016/06/22/top-latino-republican-says-farewell-my-grand-old-party/
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