The Tequila Party kicks off in Tucson on Saturday

[pampango]

http://www.kvoa.com/news/the-tequila-party-kicks-off-in-tucson-on-saturday/

It's political and social movement aimed at the Latino community to push to get them to the polls and to end anti-immigration legislation.

"Tequila is much stronger than tea," said David Morales, speaker for the new Tequila Party. "To bring awareness to the issues that affect Latinos, that is the exact opposite of what the tea party would represent."

They are a non-partisan group, although their views are generally more liberal. "The democrats aren't perfect either, they had a chance to pass The Dream Act. They had a chance for immigration reform they failed on that so we'll hold them accountable," said Morales.

Peter Goudinoff, a retired political science professor, said if the Tequila Party is successful, it could have a big impact on the vote. He said, "In a state like Arizona where we have what is an overwhelmingly republican state today, if you had ample Hispanic turnout, suddenly the state would become a democratic state."

Hispanics on brink of altering American politics forever - (Opinion piece in the Chronicle Herald in Halifax, Nova Scotia)

http://thechronicleherald.ca/Opinion/1246347.html

There are now more than 50 million Hispanics in the United States, or one in six people. More than 20 million of them are eligible to vote. They make up 16 per cent of the population, outnumbering African Americans, who represent 12.9 per cent. One in four American children is Latino.

Most vote Democrat, but not overwhelmingly so. While far more voted for Barack Obama than John McCain in 2008, there wasn’t such a rejection of Republicans in 2004, when 5.1 million Hispanics voted for Democratic candidates compared to 4.3 million who voted for the GOP.

Nonetheless, most political observers agree the Democrats are currently better positioned to take advantage of the growing demographic than the Republican party, which now has Tea Party adherents among its legislators — and they’re largely anti-immigration.

The question now is this: Which party will have the political courage to accept what demographers already know — the United States is becoming a nation predominantly made up of minorities, not of white people. That’s an inescapable reality that does not sit well with the aging, socially conservative white people who make up so much of the Republican party’s base, and in fact fuels much of the anti-immigration sentiment in the U.S. But whoever deals with immigration reform once and for all will almost certainly win the enduring loyalty of a demographic that grows mightier and more numerous by the day.