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That haze you see on the GOP side of the political aisle is the heavy dust settling after Rick Santorum’s announcement that he’s suspending his presidential campaign. It’s also the dust being kicked-up by party partisans and rank-and-file devotees, scrambling to put together a semblance of national party unity.  Somewhere in that immediate chaos (it’ll settle, soon) someone is standing with a to-do list, and at the top of that list is a sharp turn to the center (read here: left).

Here’s what that looks like: convince the most conservative wing of the Republican party to stick with Mitt Romney while he courts the independent  moderate voters; convince the independent moderate voters that he’s really not as radically conservative as the role he played to win the GOP nomination; hope the liberal base falls asleep or takes a vacation right around the first week of November.

A big part of that calculus has always been the Vice Presidential pick, and a big part of the Vice Presidential pick has always been the speculation about whether it really matters in the minds of the voters on a national scale. The national media tends to make a big deal out of it, but that’s because it’s the national media and anything it mentions is inherently a big deal – over and over again. But in the same breath national media  ommentators ponder if a Vice Presidential candidate matters beyond his or her own backyard, thereby rendering the entire exercise pointless. So we’re back to where we began, with settling dust, a to-do list, a veering-left GOP with implications that the veer should include attracting the Latino vote.

And here’s another set of variables: the GOP needs Latino voters in order to win in November, that is, if Latinos go out to vote, but we can’t rely on that.  Yet, Latinos are strategically arranged across the map, in swing states, so that even a small percentage of Latino voter participation could hold the outcome in the balance.

Forgive my nit-picking, but, who are these Latinos, and do we know their addresses? Because now that Santorum is out of the race, this down-in-the-roots information is golden.

Think about it. In terms if the GOP and the Latino vote a lot is going to be said and written about Marco Rubio and his waving a conservative version of a DREAM Act that may or may not attract Latinos to the conservative cause. But who really needs Rubio or specific issues when the balance of the election may rest on the shoulders of a handful of Latino voters in North Carolina or Pennsylvania?

The fact that Santorum finally exited the race doesn’t change a thing, we all knew it would happen and some bookies may have been smart enough to take bets on when. That leaves Mitt Romney and the GOP a little less than 8 months to move from their claimed space to the right of Santorum, over to the center of the national debate where President Obama’s been standing, lobbing rhetorical shells, claiming Latinos and women on his side.

But the question that stands is: Can either of them make that claim? At this point what’s done is done and the campaigns will be what all campaigns are – positioning games.  And because of history, because of the dust, and because of the gritty GOP nomination fight, for the time being the advantage goes to the Dems. Their challenge is to hold the Latino interest on election day.

[Photo by  Gage Skidmore]

The Republican Party’s presidential nominating process is not officially over, but it might as well be. Mitt Romney’s candidacy is preceded, for the time being, by words like presumptive and inevitable. You get the feeling that in most GOP circles the feeling is more like might-as-well-be, but that’s fodder for another day.

Technically there are still 2 GOP front runners, Romney and Rick Santorum, and both of them have a big problem to overcome among Latino voters. Now, you can listen to all the usual experts tell you what they think that problem is – most will say it has to do with policy and stances on issues like immigration and voter I.D. and the like. My take is a little different. I think the Republicans are having problems with Latinos becaue they sound too familiar, but in the wrong ways.

Take Romney, for instance. Have you noticed how he seldom speaks directly to Latinos? Romney always talks to non-Latinos about what he’ll do for Latinos or about what needs to be done for Latinos or about what his campaign or his party need to do about the Latino “problem,” as if Latinos aren’t in the room. It’s a matter of perception. You get the feeling he really doesn’t see Latinos.

Santorum, on the other hand, sees Latinos differently. That was made clear in his off-issue remark about President Obama and the snobbishness of going to college. Didn’t that remind you of some people in the Latino culture who put you down for being educated? George Lopez did an entire routine on it: the relative or the neighbor who tries to belittle you for thinking you’re better than the rest because you went to college, and in the same breath extols the virtues of being a team leader at Walmart (not that there’s anything wrong with that…) That’s the vibe Rick Santorum gives: “mira, mira, muy ch^*%on.”

Same problem; different perspective. It has little to do with policy, although their attitude bubbles-up in misguided policy and issues – if you don’t see Latinos or if you see them through a skewed lens, your policies regarding Latinos will reflect that.

So before the GOP tries to adjust what they need to do to reach Latino voters, and how they need to go about that adjusting, they would do well to  figure out why they view Latinos they way they do. The first thing they’ll see is that they don’t think they have a problem. And that just may be their tallest hurdle.

[Photo By The Rachel Maddow Show]

A big stink was raised recently about a comment made by Senator Rick Santorum during the Tea Party  presidential debate broadcast on CNN. The senator was on the offensive, joining the dog-pile on Texas Governor Rick Perry. Every candidate, to a person, was taking their turn, taking pot-shots at Perry for signing a bill that mandated in-state tuition for undocumented students in state universities.

It was easy pickings for that crowd – line up, take your shot, move on. Perry is the overwhelming front runner, so he’s the obvious target of his opponents barbs and criticisms.  They hit him on his social-security-is-a-ponzi-scheme idea, and they hit him on immigration, trying to peg him as a moderate (I’m amazed at how that crowd mangles language so that being moderate sounds like a decrepit disease).

Santorum took his turn, aimed, and flubbed. Listen for yourself.

The stink came when some people thought they heard him say “illegal” vote.

There’s a vast open space left to fill with everything that’s wrong with that statement.  The implication is that if the Latino vote is an illegal vote, then by association Latinos are illegal. And that’s just the start.

For some reason though, I can’t seem to get upset over this. And I think it has to do with the fact that I don’t hear what others do. I don’t think he said “illegal.” I hear “the legal.” And that changes the argument. Either way, it’s not the legal/illegal argument that caught my attention, it was something completely different that got me to raise an eyebrow.

Lets look at the specific excerpt:

“What what Gov. Perry has done is he provided in-state tuition for illegal immigrants, maybe that was an attempt to attract illegal vote — I mean Latino — voters,” 

Here’s what bothers me about that statement:  in the Tea Party led GOP universe in-state tuition for undocumented students isn’t a policy idea, it’s a vote-getting ploy. It’s not gaged for it’s merits, it’s seen as an underhanded means to a dishonest end.

It speaks directly to the way language and ideas are distorted and twisted when they enter the Tea Party bubble. The problem isn’t that Perry approved in-state tuition, it’s that he did it to gain the favor of Latino voters. In-state tuition goes from being policy to being a scheme. It’s the same bubble in which human beings can be illegal and babies can be anchors.

It wouldn’t have bothered me if Santorum had said “illegal vote.” That would almost be expected.  The problem with the statement is that it lies at the foundation of the extreme right wing double-speak. The idea of a legal or illegal vote would not stand if not for the idea that in-state tuition is nothing more than political sleight of hand, designed to sucker-in Latinos and their votes.

That’s how these candidates and their followers see the world around them. Latinos are the “other,” so their issues matter only as bait on a line. Governor Perry couldn’t possibly be serious about it, he was just using the policy for his own political gain.

That makes him (God forbid!) a moderate. And that’ll stink up the GOP barn any day.

[Image Courtesy GOP]