2008 Republican presidential nominee, and current Arizona Senator, John McCain, said yesterday that the GOP needs to focus on reaching out to Hispanic voters. He believes that without increased effort in this regard the Republican Party will be left behind.
“On the issue of the Hispanic voter, we have to do a lot more,” McCain said. “We Republicans have to recruit and elect Hispanics to office. And I don’t mean just because they’re Hispanics, but they represent a big part of the growing population in America. And we have a lot of work to do there.” The interview aired on CNN’s State of the Union.
He continued to explain that the Republican Party needs to reclaim the role of the fiscally conservative party. “We lost a lot of our base because they thought we had become big spenders and basically they were right,” McCain said.
During the Bush administration, McCain was a visible proponent of immigration reform, and he said that he would be willing to work with Obama on this issue. But, McCain said that if Obama wanted his support he would have to include a temporary worker program. “That and securing the borders is what we’re going to have to do, otherwise we’ll experience failure again,” McCain said.
If Republicans like McCain want to bring us Hispanics closer, they are not going to accomplish this by voting against confirmation of highly qualified members of our community. This is what McCain himself has done by vowing to vote against Judge Sonia Sotomayor. He is speaking from both sides of his mouth!