This angle hasn't been much explored in the MSM but politically, it seems pretty salient to me. Everyone agrees that Latinos are becoming a critical voting bloc without whom no political party will easily form a majority in the near future. The collapse of Latino support for the GOP in the last few years - another triumph, Mr Rove! - was critical to Obama's landslide. And a new poll suggests that the GOP's total opposition to any health insurance reform that might actually insure significantly more people could be another blow to Republican-Latino outreach. Among the details of the new poll:
86% report that it is important for Congress to pass a bill on health reform before the 2010 election.
Hispanics now place health insurance reform before immigration reform as their top political priority:
32% reported health care, 30% identified the economyincluding jobs and mortgage issues, 17% picked immigration as the biggest issue, while another 9% identified the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan... When asked which of the two was the more important, two?thirds (67%) of respondents picked health reform, compared to just 20% for immigration reform, and 10% thought they were of equal importance.
All the gaming of the political fallout of health reform seems to be focused on white independents. They're important. But the GOP's opposition to any meaningful health insurance reform may be winning them some short-term tactical gains in their base, while further isolating them in permanent minority status in a multi-cultural and multi-racial nation.