What Should the GOP Do To Appeal To Minorities?

[Dgov]

In a few words?  Grow a pair.  The GOP writes off so many minority voters they should be targeting, because the strategists that run the party elections consider them to be "unwinnable".  When is the last time you heard of a state-wide Republican candidate campaigning in McAllen or Tuskegee?

There are swaths of minority voters that run small businesses, believe in tough-on-crime laws, and regularly attend church, but vote Blue for no other reason than the Democrats keep telling them that the GOP is full of Evil Racists.  And the GOP just lets them do that, using the circular logic that they are just going to vote democrat anyway.

Though in other news, the Arizona law has had essentially no change on the Voting intentions of Hispanics (or anyone else in that matter) according to Gallup.  Kind of surprising, really

http://www.gallup.com/poll/139751/Hispanic-Voters-Preferences-Unchanged-Post-Arizona-Law.aspx

[Dgov]

It isn't really surprising. Latino voters already thought that the GOP was against them and illegals before Arizona passed this law, so why would it make a huge difference in how Latinos perceive the GOP?

No, it actually signifies something rather important.  As was previously noted here, Reagan passing Amnesty in 1986 did almost nothing for the GOP among Hispanic voters (Bush Sr. won only about 27% in 88), despite the fact that they supported it.  Now, passing a tough-on-illegals bill has also done next-to-nothing (at least for now anyway).

I think this means that what's dragging the GOP's share among Hispanics down is not the tangible immigration policies that they produce, but rather the perception that they don't care and/or are racist.

I don't think there's much actual opposition to securing the borders among Hispanics, i just think the Democrats have been successful in turning the immigration question from secure/open borders to support/hate Hispanics, in the same way they portrayed tough-on-crime policies in LA and NYC as being Anti-black.

[Dgov]

The GOP should focus on winning the Hispanic, Asian, and maybe even the Arab vote.

For Latinos, I agree that the illegal immigration issue should be downplayed when addressing Latino voters. The GOP supported amnesty for illegals back in the 1980s, yet it didn't help them  very much with the Latino vote afterwards. I think Latinos voted for the Democrats since the 1930s, and I think the main reason is economics, since Republicans were the more socially liberal party up until the 1970s. Even though the GOP has been making a big deal out of social issues lately, that didn't help them win over too many additional Latino votes. Thus, I think the GOP is going to need to move leftward economically if they want to win a significantly larger share of the Latino vote, since "trickle-down economics" just doesn't sell very well to Latino (and black) voters.

I disagree with your proposed solution--the Biggest problem the GOP has with Hispanics is an image problem, not an issue problem.  If you break it down by issue, Hispanics are remarkably Fiscally Conservative; they supported things like Welfare reform in the 90s, and are highly entrepreneurial and self-relying.  The Problem is that the GOP can't seem to shake the notion that they're "Anti-Hispanic."

I agree with you that it's not really an immigration issue either.  Both the Reagan Amnesty and the Arizona bill had negligible impacts on GOP Hispanic support nationwide.  I think the best bet for the GOP is to do what so many are unwilling to--actually campaign for their votes.  Republicans have a lot to work off of in terms of mutual values and goals, and if they can break the carefully crafted Democratic meme that the Republican party is full of violent racists, electoral gains will follow.

[Dgov]

No, if the whole country voted GOP it would look more like Cherokee county GA.  Rich, Suburban, Pro-business, and Socially Conservative.