Romney and the Latino Vote
Romney's overwhelming win of Latino votes in this past Florida elections are by no way a reflection of the Latino vote nationwide, far from it. Florida Latinos, Cubans in their vast majority are not affected by the immigration laws as it happens with the rest of the Latino population in Florida or anywhere else in the U.S.
Cubans have enjoyed for decades a preferential treatment; if they come to this country and touch land they are welcomed to stay, period. So the radical deportation laws supported by Mitt Romney do not affect them and therefore, Cubans it seems, couldn’t care less what happens to others that are seeking the same thing they’ve got: legally staying in this country. South Florida Cubans are in their majority Republicans, even though that is rapidly changing with the younger generation but as it is today and according the CNN, 70% of Cubans in Miami are Republicans and they do exercise their right to vote.
Most likely, the fact that Romney can say that he has family in Mexico and that his father was born in Mexico and came to this country as an immigrant is enough to make these Cubans more inclined to vote for Romney and not for Gingrich. It matters not that Romney has never visited Mexico – his roots, supposedly – that he doesn’t know his family there and that his Spanish is worse than any other American that learned Spanish in second grade and never practiced it. The older Cuban generation that supports him in South Florida doesn’t care about that. For Cubans in South Florida all it matters is that he has the support of the strongest Cuban political figures in Congress, Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Mario Diaz-Balart, who probably coached him about what to say and what works to get the Cuban vote in South Florida.
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