Tuesday, July 23, 2013

Jon Ward — Raul Labrador Playing Crucial Role In Immigration Fight, With An Eye On Higher Office

Labrador placed himself within what he called "a new kind of conservatism" that he said is marked by a focus on fiscal issues and civil liberties, with less emphasis on social issues. 
"I think it's a conservatism that's a wave of the future, where conservatives are actually going to be appealing to more independent-minded people," he said in an interview.
Difficult to do without losing the significant part of the base that are single-issue voters and that issue is social conservatism. 

Labrador joins Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz as among the Latino rising stars of the GOP, a list which is soon to include George P. Bush, son of Jeb Bush. And that is worrisome to Democrats counting on a demographic advantage.

The Huffington Post
Raul Labrador Playing Crucial Role In Immigration Fight, With An Eye On Higher Office
Jon Ward

1 comment:

David said...

Yea, maybe. As long as "focusing on fiscal issues" means budget cuts there'll be a big "Jobs issue" and as long as there's a jobs issue there'll be an "immigration issue." With both parties committed to austerity budgets there has to be some means of drawing distinctions. The funny thing is the D.'s seem to like playing "me too" and will often try to outcompete the R.'s on the "social conservative" front. It's been quite fortunate for them that the "independent voter" usually doesn't buy it when they've tried it. It might make sense to try to "rebrand" as a fiscal-conservative social-pragmatic R. but so much has been invested in "the crazy" that it may be a tougher sell than they think.