Here in China they cut to the bone everything but propaganda, protest prevention and "internet security."  Then they send the savings to America.  Strangely, people don't complain that much about budget cuts.

What shape does the Constitution have?

For

For the record, I'm not a history or political science expert.  My specialty is language.  I teach English as a Second Language.  I'm trying to help people and be part of the solution.  I speak Spanish fluently and I'm learning Mandarin Chinese in China.  Others say that immigrants should learn English.  I actually teach them English.  

If my ideas about winning Latino votes are bad, then I would love to hear better ideas.  I would especially like to hear ideas that haven't failed miserably in the past.   

First, I never said that we should speak to Latino's only in Spanish.  In fact, one of the articles I posted was about Marco Rubio doing the SOTU response in English and Spanish.

Second, I have talked to Latino's themselves.  I have taught Latino's English in English.  Have you?     

Thank you, Leigh.  It's good to see that I am not alone in engaging in a little pragmatic deviation from conservative orthodoxy.  Brent, I must admit that my great grandfather sent three kids to school speaking Swiss-German before the teacher finally went to his home to complain.  He was a successful businessman who knew all about the American dream, but I digress.

Foxfier, how is Spanish-language outreach "winning at any cost?"  It seems to me that the financial and philosophical costs would be negligible.  So is this really a debate about winning elections or about preserving some rigid, ideological notion of linguistic and cultural purity?  If it's the latter, then I'm sorry, we just can't afford to think that way.  Before we discuss how to earn Hispanic votes we have to ask ourselves, "Do we even want their votes?"  because, frankly, the way some conservatives talk it seems like they deem Hispanics unworthy of voting Republican.

I thought the goal was to win elections?  I guess we could keep losing the Hispanic vote by wide margins until liberal policies wreck the economy so bad that nobody wants to come to America anymore.  

Okay, fine.  What do we think of Marco Rubio delivering the SOTU response in English and Spanish?  Is it blatant pandering, good political strategy, or both?

I've been all over the world.  Kids are dancing to rap music everywhere.  Get used to it.

Excellent point.  Last semester I taught a class on American culture to the CPC officials who run my university here in China.  They are the brightest, most personable students that I have taught in my short teaching career.  I consider them all friends as well as students.  They know that reform is necessary, and they embrace Xi's reform-mindedness and the tradition of Deng.    

My point is that we need to resist the temptation to consider "the regime" as this unchanging, exogenous force that imposes itself on the people.  The regime is made up of people, and it can renew itself through co-option as well as purges.

These things being said, I would not at all say that China is "pre-revolutionary."  I think that Americans take for granted a certain capacity for independence of thought that is extremely scarce here in the PRC, even among the educated.  For example, in several oral English classes I had the students give a speech about their "hero."  The most frequent hero was Chairman Mao, who "built China and fought China's enemies."  I remember one post-graduate student sitting in the back (let's call him Paul) whisper in my ear that his hero was Chiang Kaishek, whose ideas of freedom and capitalism were right even though he lost to Mao.  He went on to say that he couldn't say this in front of the class.  I remember Paul also telling me after the first class that his favorite movie was Rambo because "it's not about killing; it's about American ideas:  freedom."  

My point is that Paul is outnumbered and he is scared, so he sits in the back and keeps his mouth shut.  I teach my students American values, but I have to do it indirectly or else...  The revolution will not be televised, folks.

Excellent piece, Paul.

I am a young, male American foreign expert currently teaching English at a second tier university in China.  I can't speak to all of the claims you make, but I can confirm that my colleagues and I are discouraged from failing low effort, low performing students, of which there are many here. If we fail them it only means that we have to re-test them at the beginning of the next semester on our own time.  After the "re-test" they will inevitably join their classmates at the next level no matter what their score is.  The result is that we focus our attention on the students that want to learn and let the rest play video games on their iPhones.  This is not an exaggeration.  This is common practice.  

With regard to the pre-operative "gift" discussed by Scott Reusser, I can tell you that that is absolutely true.  Locals call it the "red envelope."  As my tour guide in Beijing explained to me, "If you forget the red envelope before surgery, the doctor may forget something during surgery."  This too is common practice.   

I stole mine from the most clever anti-Obama bumper sticker I've ever seen.  I saw it on a pickup truck.  

A key question just occurred to me: do you all oppose targeting Hispanics because it's unlikely to work, or because it goes against your ideology? That's an honest question. Me?  I just want to win every two and four years and take back America.

One more question occurred to me:  what was the difference between Bush and McCain on the immigration issue?  Both were in favor of "comprehensive immigration reform," but Bush did better among Latinos. Bush, being from Texas, was culturally disposed towards Hispanics and spoke Spanish on the campaign trail.  According to my calculations, if Romney had won the 40% of Hispanics that Bush won in 2004, it would have netted him an extra 2.2M votes, which would not have put him over the top, but we could use all of the votes we can get in the next couple of election cycles.

Finally, I'm thinking we could do better job of selling self-deportation as an immigration policy.  Maybe we could call it "voluntary territorial evacuation" or "freedom of choice to get the ____ out."  Come on guys, did we really have to pull our candidate this far to the right so early?

I fail to see your point.  The Democrats have the native-Spanish speaking voters, so we have to try to sway them somehow.  Most native English-speaking voters of both voters are not out knocking on doors or writing political ads.  That's the operatives' job.  We can't outdo Dem's on handing out goodies or granting amnesty, but that doesn't mean we should just give up trying to win over demographic groups that regularly hand us our head at the ballot box.

http://www.freepress.net/sites/default/files/resources/Missing_Out_files_final_copy_11.2.12.pdf

According to this report, neither side spent much on Spanish language ads in 2012, but Obama and his PACS spent double what Romney and his PACs spent.  It seems like an area ripe for exploitation. 

I think it's a question of tone and respect.  If you want to win historically Democratic voters over to your side, you have to ask for their vote in a respectful way.  Sending Spanish-speaking operatives to where they live to ask for their vote in their own language is a great way to show respect.  Belittling their language and culture is not a good way.  

Writing off 47% of the electorate as leaches lost the election for Mitt Romney.  If you want to win over young voters and low income voters, you should not implicitly call them leaches just because they don't happen to make enough money currently to pay Federal income taxes.  

The polling shows that people who voted for Obama overwhelmingly felt that Obama sympathized with them more so than Romney:  

http://conservativehome.blogs.com/international/2012/11/why-romney-lost-by-davidfrum.html.

 Now we find out that these voters don't agree with Obama's programs:  

http://hotair.com/archives/2012/12/03/polls-nation-that-re-elected-obama-wants-more-spending-cuts-than-tax-hikes-still-hates-obamacare/

So it's a problem of tone not policy.  Writing off voters is irrational.