Right wing Republican Rand Paul, one of the possible challengers for the Presidency in 2016, believes that the Republican Party needs to be able to “get beyond” its issues with illegal immigration or it is never going to gain ground within the Latino community.
Speaking at the launch of right wing lobbying group, MRC Latino, which intends to campaign against the left wing of the US’ Spanish media, Paul admitted that “the bottom line is the Hispanic community is never going to hear us until we get beyond this issue”. Rand’s remarks are intriguing given his identification with the Tea Party faction, a notorious group of right wing activists within the Republican Party who are against all forms of big government and have been particularly vocal in their disdain for immigration reform.
Rand is of the opinion that many in the Hispanic community would be natural Republican voters, despite the fact that, at present, Hispanic citizens of the United States have been overwhelmingly voting in favor of the Democrats. “What’s happened is there is not the perception of empathy coming from the Republican Party that we care about Hispanics and where they are coming from and what their problems are,” Rand claims, adding: “Until we get to that point, they are not going to listen to any of the next message.”
More than 70 percent of Hispanic voters opted for Obama in the last Presidential election, unsurprisingly snubbing Republican candidate Mitt Romney, who had been promising to introduce policies to force undocumented immigrants out of the United States.