Big tent parties require big tent policies

Political parties often have a decision to make about whether to adopt a certain group's stances on issues, or cede their votes. The Democratic Party resoundingly won over African-American voters in the 1960s when they passed the Civil Rights Act of 1964. The Democratic Party won over women when they supported the equal rights amendment to The Constitution, which eventually failed. As gay rights activists began to mobilize in the 1980s, the Democrats embraced their agenda with open arms. The Republicans continued to maintain their hold on their traditional demographic, upper/middle class white males. Since the 1980s, they have not won over any further emerging groups, with the possible exception of white evangelical Christians. The next group to be won over by a party will be Latino voters.

Democrats have been winning the battle over the Latino vote. Barack Obama won over 60% of the Latino vote in 2008. This kind of resounding electoral victory will only be intensified with conservative antics such as the 2010 Arizona Immigration Law. Latino voters are one issue voters. They will essentially support any party which signs on to comprehensive immigration reform. At this point, this is is the Democrats. Republicans previously supportive of immigration reform such as John McCain have backed off the issue due to right wing pressure. At the same time, Chuck Schumer is currently pushing a comprehensive immigration bill with widespread support among his Democratic colleagues.

It is impossible to create a big tent coalition without having many diverse views included. The Republican Party cannot become a viable alternative unless they stop pandering to their shrinking demographic base. This means endorsing progressive immigration reform.

What is John McCain doing?

"I never considered myself a maverick," says John McCain, a man who declared himself a maverick during the 2008 elections. This was well before he acquired a conservative primary challenger, J.D. Hayworth, who has convinced McCain to claim he would vote against an immigration reform bill he coauthored in 2005 with Ted Kennedy among other flip flops. This has forced him to move from one of the moderate voices in the senate GOP to one of the most extreme critics of the Obama administration. His desire to change his persona from one of a maverick to one of a right wing voter is so great that he even enlisted Sarah Palin to campaign for his reelection in Arizona last month. This kind of flip flopping is more insidious than the John Kerry flip flopping on the Iraq war or Olympia Snowe on health-care, this is a flip flop of your entire political philosophy. Stop insulting the voters, John, and tell them who you truly are.