Conservative author Ann Coulter says Republicans shouldn’t count on picking up Hispanic voters if Sen. Marco Rubio, R-Fla., becomes the nominee, and instead says the GOP should focus on expanding the universe of white voters.
In an interview with the Washington Examiner media desk, Coulter said the white vote is key, even as the party has made an effort to reach out to more minorities, whose political influence has increased.
“Drive up the white vote,” she said. “You don’t see Democrats thinking, ‘How do we get more of the evangelical vote? How do we get more of the gun owner vote?’ No, they know that isn’t their base.”
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/coulter-n.y.-times-softened-on-immigration-after-mexican-billionaire-bailout/article/2565982
Coulter, author of the new book Adios America!, said there’s no evidence that having a Hispanic as the GOP’s nominee would motivate Latino voters to come to their side.
“Republicans haven’t talked to the maid,” she said. “They don’t even understand that just because you run a Hispanic, that doesn’t mean you’re going to sweep the Hispanic vote. Sarah Palin didn’t drive up the women vote for [2008 Republican presidential nominee John] McCain. And we see running fabulous black Republicans for office, they don’t get any more of the black vote than a white Republican does.”
Coulter also said that Hispanics with different ethnic backgrounds shouldn’t be considered as one voting bloc, and said many don’t get along.
“Many of these groups don’t really like one another and they certainly have interests that run contrary to one another,” she said. “Forget the gang fights between blacks and Hispanics in California.”
In her book, Coulter wrote of Hispanics: “The notion of Hispanic unity — much less Hispanic-black unity — is pure liberal fantasy. Puerto Ricans and Dominicans hate one another, blacks and Mexicans hate one another, Haitians and African-Americans hate one another, and everyone hates the Cubans.”
Rubio is a Cuban-American, though he is polling the highest nationally out of 10 Republicans who have officially said they are running for president.
Asked how she knows that Hispanic groups hate one another, Coulter said that’s easy: Google.
“I know a lot of people who work in those communities and they are always laughing about it,” she said. “But you can look up ‘Puerto Ricans and Dominicans.’ Just search those on Google. You’ll get 100 articles, ‘Why do Dominicans and Puerto Ricans hate one another.”
(A search for that phrase did render a top result that linked to a 2009 forum, wherein someone asked, “Do Dominicans dislike Puerto Ricans?”)
As for the other Republican presidential candidate who also happens to have Cuban roots, Ted Cruz, Coulter said she doesn’t think he’s even legally eligible to sit in the White House.
“I don’t think he can run for president constitutionally,” she said. “He is what the birthers accused [President] Obama of being — born outside the country with only one American parent.” (Cruz was born in Canada, thus calling into question whether he is a “natural born” citizen, a constitutional requirement to serve as president.)
