Former President Ronald Reagan once said, “Hispanics are Republicans; they just don’t know it.” Prior to the beginning of Reagan’s administration, it was an inherent, foregone conclusion that the Democratic candidate – almost without exception – would receive the Latino vote. 

At that moment, Reagan and his advisors were proclaimed pioneers and visionaries in the sense that they were the few politicos who understood the ascendance of the population in terms of constituency size and ran their presidential campaign with that truism in mind. In 1980, Reagan garnered 37 percent of the Latino vote and handily defeated incumbent Jimmy Carter. Strategists, pundits, journalists and legislators alike look to that period as the moment when the pendulum began to swing.

The Latino vote, historically and unequivocally dominated by Democrats, has ostensibly become a matter of life or death for the mainstream political parties. Judging by recent statements from Sen. Lindsey Graham, a conservative Republican from South Carolina, for one, you get the sensation that the “life or death” inference is no extravagant exaggeration. Graham said he “wished to continue to be part of a political party…not a club.” What he is saying is that in order to prevent disaster within the GOP, winning the Latino vote is not negotiable. 

Unfortunately, however, this fight for the right to become the natural party of the Latino population has not advanced any further than lip service. Neither the Democrats nor the Republicans can legitimately say they’ve advanced legislation that directly improves Latino lives. Introspection into the recent lives of Latinos would reveal that Hispanics are still as much at the bottom of the barrel now as they were then. Indeed, this is why this political pendulum continues to sway. 

In the 2008 presidential election, Barack Obama significantly benefitted from an unpopular incumbent leaving office. This dissatisfaction seemingly went beyond party lines. But this sense of profound disappointment was especially prevalent with Democrats, Moderates and Independents. Latinos were among the most irritable at this point; their contempt was not pointed necessarily at former President George W. Bush – as his favorability level with Hispanics was consistently high throughout his tenure – but rather at the GOP as a result of perceived anti-Latino rhetoric from candidates who used immigration and other related wedge issues in attempt to stir up their base. As a result, Hispanics voted for Obama, a Democrat, over Republican Sen. John McCain by a margin of more than 2-1 in the 2008 presidential election – 67 percent versus 31 percent. It is hard to believe that just four years prior, Hispanics handed Bush a resounding victory over Sen. John Kerry in 2004 with almost 50 percent of the vote. 

Ultimately, Obama rode the wave of dissatisfaction to the White House and promised Latinos comprehensive immigration reform along the way. It would seem that his administration would continue to ride the tide of Latino support and address immigration, but it hasn’t. Rather, an unpopular health care bill and hollow financial reform took center stage, leaving Latinos questioning. With open Latino dissatisfaction, you would think Republicans would seize the opportunity with immigration and border violence, which continues to go on unnoticed. It would be a sublime reversal of fortune for the GOP to swing back the pendulum of Hispanic support.

But rather, on April 23, the world watched Republican legislators in Arizona craft the broadest and strictest anti-immigration law in recent memory. According to SB 1070, someone perceived to be “reasonably suspicious” by law enforcement and who isn’t carrying legal status documentation would charged with a misdemeanor. Realizing the original language could be perceived as inviting racial profiling, the law was amended and renamed HB 2162; it now stipulates that police may investigate only in the course of enforcing some other law or ordinance. Since then, Arizona officials have set in motion efforts to bar individuals with a “heavy accent” from teaching English within the Arizona school system, as well as to ban ethnic studies from elementary and secondary schools within the state. Now other Republican legislators of the same sort are seriously considering establishing similar legislation in their home states. Needless to say, the Latino community has had a difficult time getting comfortable with this.

There are multiple unknowns and uncertainties at play when discussing which strategic directions our political parties advance with the Latino voter. I suspect this very tangible pendulum will continue unabated. It may possibly spend a little more time in one area than in another; but what is known and what is certain is that this pendulum example only demonstrates how this constituent leans – not how it moves. Trust that it will move forward in growth, influence and relevance. These would be pretty good reasons to replace lip service with a strategy that would allow for the continuation of a political party and prevent it from becoming a club.

Marc Rodriguez is a partner with Corporate Political Strategies, LLC, a political and corporate consulting group. The company was responsible for Latino communications and outreach strategies during the presidential campaigns of 2000, 2004 and 2008.