Blame Pedro

Other strategists are even more alarmed. "This issue is destroying the Republican Party of the West and Southwest — annihilating it wholesale," says Richard Nadler, president of the archconservative think tank Americas Majority. A study of precinct-level data released by Nadler's group projects that a full-scale backlash among Hispanic voters would drive formerly red Nevada, New Mexico, Colorado, Florida and Iowa into the blue column in November — and with them, the presidency.

Democrats, meanwhile, can hardly believe their luck. They predict that a swell of Hispanic support could even tip Arizona their way — and that the party's chances grow stronger with every mile of border fence pledged by the Republicans. "We've seen this movie before," says Simon Rosenberg, president of the Democratic think tank NDN. "It's Pete Wilson. Here was a Republican governor of California in the 1990s who lashed out at immigrants and made a state that had produced Richard Nixon and Ronald Reagan irrevocably blue, because of the huge demographic tide that went against the party."

Looking at the same trend, Norquist points to an even more dire precedent: In 1884, the GOP attacked Democrats as the party of Romanism. "It cost them the Roman Catholic vote for 110 years," he says. "So it is entirely possible for a political party to be that stupid. It is my hope that it is not possible for a party to be that stupid twice."

THE REPUBLICANS' XENOPHOBIA hit a fever pitch in recent weeks. When Mitt Romney unveiled the first GOP attack ad of the season, he hit Huckabee for being soft on illegal aliens and picked up the endorsement of Tom Tancredo, the immigrant-basher whose TV spots demonized illegal border crossers as gangbangers, child rapists and backpack bombers. Even Rudy Giuliani — praised by immigrant advocates as "a god" for championing the cause of undocumented workers as mayor of New York — joined in the act, blasting Romney for employing Guatemalan gardeners and calling for Big Brother biometric data collection on every immigrant in the country. John McCain — whose support of immigration reform devastated his candidacy last summer — now says he "got the message" and speaks only about securing the border. So perverse has the debate become that Ron Paul — whose entire campaign is premised on restoring the letter of the Constitution — has proposed rewriting that sacred text in order to prevent the children of immigrants from receiving health insurance and welfare.

The party's eagerness to demonize Latinos is puzzling in light of the president's remarkable success at luring them into the GOP fold. "Bush did a great job making inroads with the Hispanic vote," says Sen. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.). "It's obvious that Republican support is eroding with all of this immigrant-bashing."

In 2000, Karl Rove understood that the GOP could not remain a viable national party unless it improved its standing among Hispanics. Embarking on an unprecedented outreach project, he peeled off Latinos by appealing to them with a "values agenda" that focused on family and faith. In short order, Bush carved out a thirty-five percent share of the Latino vote — up from the pitiful twenty-one percent who had supported Bob Dole four years earlier.

In 2004, Bush built on that support, garnering forty percent of the Hispanic vote. "The Bush campaign certainly understood this strategic opening," says Rosenberg. "The Kerry campaign didn't — and it may have cost him the election."

But after the election, red-meat commentators like Sean Hannity and Rush Limbaugh needed a new scapegoat. "Right-wing radio couldn't harp on the Democrats about the war or anything else because the GOP was basically in charge of every branch of government," says Joe García, director of Hispanic strategy at NDN. "So they turned the resentment of white Americans to this new 'threat.' It's not your fault you're fucked economically, it's not the president's fault — so it must be Pedro's fault."

"I blame the Bush administration for not giving talk-show hosts something else to talk about," says Norquist. "They got everybody riled up on this." By 2005, the House passed HR 4437, which would have made felons not only of the nation's undocumented immigrants but of those who clothed and housed them — in short, their legal relatives. The bill stalled in the Senate, but not before unleashing the anger of Hispanic Americans, who staged massive protests — including marches by 500,000 demonstrators in Chicago, Los Angeles and Dallas.