Democrats Enjoy 2-1 Advantage Over GOP Among Hispanics

From Gallup: WASHINGTON, D.C. -- U.S. Hispanic adults are more than twice as likely to identify as or lean Democratic than Republican, according to Gallup Daily tracking data collected throughout 2012. In total, 51% of Hispanics identified as or leaned Democratic, while a little less than a quarter (24%) identified with or leaned toward the GOP. Twenty percent were wholly independent, with no preferences for either party.

http://www.gallup.com/poll/160706/democrats-enjoy-advantage-gop-among-hispanics.aspx

Former Bush aide heads effort to elect Latino Republicans in California

The California-based PAC GROW Elect, which launched in 2011 with the goal of increasing the ranks of Latino Republican elected officials in California, is expanding.

   
GROW Elect has brought on its first president and CEO in former George W. Bush aide Ruben Barrales, and in the wake of an abysmal showing among Hispanic voters nationally for GOP presidential nominee Mitt Romney in 2012, the PAC is pledging an “aggressive expansion” of its political plan.
 
The hiring of Barrales is the first step in expanding the PAC, which recruits and trains potential candidates at the state and local level.

Read more: http://www.campaignsandelections.com/campaign-insider/365092/former-bush-aide-heads-effort-to-elect-latino-republicans-in-california.thtml

Obama’s Minimum Wage Gambit

 

The President’s proposal to raise the minimum wage is as politically clever as it is economically meaningless. The proposal is pointless in practical terms since it can’t become law and wouldn’t help the economy if it did. It is only significant because of what it says about President Obama.

The President is clearly learning how to use Republican dysfunction to his advantage. This gambit invites Republicans to put their most serious weaknesses on display. So far we are giving him what he hoped for and more. Any Republican response ought to begin by acknowledging the merits of the minimum wage.

While it’s true that a wage floor eliminates some jobs, that’s what it is meant to accomplish. In extreme circumstances, people can find themselves without negotiating leverage in the wage market. A wage floor, along with the rest of the social safety net, legislates out of existence certain jobs which are inherently exploitative.

  Along the way it incentivizes technological development, supporting careers in fields like computers and robotics which might not exist if the poorest in society could be starved into submission. Eliminating the wage floor entirely would do more than make the poor poorer. It would pull some of the momentum out of higher-paid industries, sucking wages downward for everyone.

While a minimum wage serves a purpose, it needs to be handled with care. An increase in the minimum wage moves the range of available careers higher up the value scale. However, if we shift it too far then lower-skill workers begin to suffer, seeing the opportunities to launch careers fade. For example, if the minimum wage were hiked to $20/hour, then the window of available careers will no longer include, as an example, the McDonalds restaurant. McDonalds might still provide drive-through service, but they could not afford to pay humans to do the work.

 Such a high minimum wage might make fast-food automation economically viable eliminating millions of entry-level jobs. Perhaps your Big Mac would be cooked and served by a mostly-automated restaurant. Your meal would cost a bit more and you might be less likely to get ‘screwed at the drive-through,’ but such a high wage floor could eliminate the entire concept of student employment and make unskilled work almost entirely redundant.

It makes sense to hike the minimum wage significantly if the mass availability of desperate workers is causing technology investment to lag. However, that is the opposite of what we are experiencing. Rapidly accelerating technical advances have created a long-term paradigm shift away from manual labor.

This has spawned twin problems, a frustrating talent drought in knowledge careers (unemployment for IT professionals is around 3%) and vast structural unemployment in less skilled jobs. Raising the minimum wage by a meaningful margin would exacerbate both problems at the same time. The modest increase Obama is proposing is probably too small to have any effect at all beyond its political value. According the Labor Department, in 2011 about 2% of American workers earned at or below the minimum wage. Most of them were under 25 and white. A tiny minority (3%) of hourly workers over 25 earn at or below the minimum wage.

The wage floor does little more than d etermine how many summer jobs the economy will support. That’s why there is little difference in the unemployment rates between states with a higher minimum wage and those that stick with the Federal rate. Our economy has developed to the point that the minimum wage is largely irrelevant.

The wage floor has no relationship to the most serious problem affecting low earners – our systemic failure to prepare workers to meet the exploding demand for technical fields. It takes years to prepare workers for knowledge careers. Those jobs are going unfilled and businesses are doing their best to adapt to the labor drought. All told, Obama’s proposal would probably eliminate a few thousand student jobs while doing nothing about our core problems.

Democrats are once again using the working poor as a backdrop for campaign photos. And Republicans can’t do anything about it. This would be the perfect moment for Republicans to unveil a rational, realistic program to address the collapse in upward mobility among the working poor and minorities. We can’t do that because we don’t have one.

We cannot develop sensible responses to real world issues while locked in an ideological fantasyland in which every problem is solved by cutting taxes, deporting Mexicans or humiliating pregnant teenagers. Jack Kemp is gone and no one has yet emerged with the courage or insight to continue his legacy. So, the gambit will probably succeed. President Obama and the Democrats are positioned to score a few more political points while struggling Americans languish.

For Republicans, it’s yet another opportunity missed.

About the Author: Chris Ladd is a Texan who is now living in the Chicago area. He is the founder of Building a Better GOP and has served for several years as a Republican Precinct Committeeman in DuPage County, IL, and was active in state and local Republican campaigns in Texas for many years. (Email: chrladd AT gmail DOT com)

Marilinda Garcia For New Hampshire House of Representatives

State Representative Marilinda Garcia was first elected to the New Hampshire House of Representatives in 2006, at 23 years of age. Elected to her fourth term in 2012, she currently serves on the Finance Committee and as Majority Whip for the Committee on Legislative Administration, and as a co-chair of the House Republican Alliance. She has previously served on the Committees on Children and Family Law and Election Law respectively.

http://elect-mari.com/

Gabriel Gomez running for MA Senate

                   

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J.C. Watts Launches 'INSIGHT America'

From BetNews:


J.C. "Buddy" Watts Sr., father of former Republican congressman J.C. Watts, in 1999 said, "A Black man voting for the Republicans makes about as much sense as a chicken voting for Col. Sanders." Back then, his son was the only African-American Republican in Congress and there's still just one. It is in part why Watts is taking steps to diversify his party by starting an organization called Insight.

Set to launch on Feb. 27, Insight will recruit students of color to serve in Republican offices, host professional development and policy forums and provide networking opportunities, Politico reports. The policy forums will kick off in March and focus on issues that affect ethnic minorities.

Watts, who runs a consulting firm, said he was inspired to create Insight in part by his time as a youth pastor. He hopes the group will help young people of color build the kinds of networks that build careers.

Read more: http://www.bet.com/news/politics/2013/02/19/j-c-watts-launches-group-to-groom-minority-republicans.html