One of the big news items of this past election was that nation wide, (according to exit-polling) Bush took 44% of the Hispanic vote. However the always brilliant Steve Sailer notes some discrepencies;

[D]id Bush really score in the mid 40s with Hispanics? I've looked through the troubled NEP exit poll data, and most of the states look reasonable: California 32%, Illinois 23%, New York 24%, Colorado 30%, Nevada 39%, Florida 56%, etc., but that national figure appears to be driven by an eye-popping report of 59% of Hispanics for Bush in Texas, up 16 percentage points from 43% in 2000.

So is the GOP making that mistake? I think they are periliously close to making one.

George W. Bush has always had a 'thing' for hispanics; he speaks spanish, he is related to one, he won their vote in Texas in his gubernatorial re-election bid. So he is driving the national party to not only appeal to the hispanic community but to enlarge it through lax immigration rules. His rational? Hispanics tend to be religious social-conservatives, they also tend to be hard-working both obvious GOP traits. However, they are completely discounting the race issue and the brilliant way that the Dems can use that issue to trump all other concerns.

My fear is that the GOP will be tricked into enlarging the Hispanic community only to have them abandon them at the ballot box.