Weigel

How to Win the Moocher Vote

Alex Gonzalez knocks around a Rich Lowry column about how ungettable the Latino vote remains for Republicans. Here’s Lowry.

Native-born Hispanics, 50 percent of all households with children are headed by unmarried mothers. About 40 percent of all households receive benefits from a major welfare program. This doesn’t mean that the GOP shouldn’t try to appeal to voters in these households. It does mean that they aren’t natural Republican voters.

Here’s Gonzales.

He fails to mentioned that about 70% of all households in America receive government benefits, and therefore, 70% of household in Americans “aren’t natural Republican voters,” in following Mr. Lowry’s logic.

Indeed, lots of poor whites get government benefits yet stubbornly vote for Republicans. Much has been made of this. Just the other day, in the same publication that carried this Lowry column, Dylan Byers noted that the three counties that count on government entitlements for more than half of income (all in Kentucky) voted strongly for Romney. Surely, there were Hispanics who receive government benefits but voted for George W. Bush.