Minority outreach

At the The Americano's first forum, Newt Gingrich "nam[ed] incoming New Mexico Governor Susana Martinez as an example of a Republican candidate who is a 'law and order conservative' who 'also understood her ability to go out and campaign in the community and to be sympathetic.'"

While Martinez had an obvious advantage in speaking to the Hispanic community, plenty of other Republicans, such as Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell, have done a great job at opening a dialogue with Hispanics and other minority groups. And if the Republican Party is going to be a majority party, they need to speak to those groups more. That doesn't mean offer better handouts than the Democrats; it means understanding what issues they care about and offer better opportunities.

As McDonnell put it himself in an interview with Gingrich months back:

First, I realized just looking at the demographics and long-term projections of increasing diversity in Virginia and America that if we conservatives and Republicans don’t do a better job with outreach to minorities and New Americans we are going to be a permanent minority party....We started a year out building coalitions and identifying key leaders in the Chinese, Filipino, Hispanic communities -- even the Cambodian and Pakistani communities -- and I just started being present. I really felt that the issue of job creation and economic development is one that transcends nationality and ethnic origin. No matter how they voted in the past, if I was there early and often talking about the issues, it would help. Particularly in the Asian community where you have so many small business people and entrepreneurs who are very much in sync with the Republican ideas of limited government and free enterprise.

The other thing we did that was very practical was that we translated bumper stickers into about 12 different languages, into Tagalog, Spanish and Chinese. We had big banners that had our message in those languages. We also got Congressman Cao to come campaign with me and that helped create a bond with the Vietnamese community and we did very well in that community....

I think again it was me not just assuming that they were going to be on the other side....Never assume that just because somebody has a long-term record of supporting the Democrats that there aren’t issues more important than political affiliation. Right now, people who are leaders in the business community are really concerned about overly intrusive federal policies. They’re concerned about the movement of the Democratic Party to more taxes, more regulation, more litigation and more unionization. I think even a conservative, pro-business Republican making a pitch to a long-term Democrat on these free enterprise issues has a shot in this environment.

McDonnell also made the same point about young voters -- whom he did very well with -- that simply showing up on campuses and not ceding any single vote went a long way.

The Americano

Last year, Newt Gingrich launched The Americano, a news site for Hispanic Americans. "[I]t is the bilingual brainchild of Sylvia Garcia, a longtime employee of Gingrich Communications, the former speaker's consulting business," wrote Michael Scherer on Time.com. "The idea came during the election," Garcia says. "There really isn't any media that is covering conservative values for Hispanics. Everything you see is very one-sided."

Today, the first annual Americano Forum will kick off in Washington, D.C. Three of the presentations:

• Why Hispanics are Natural Conservatives.
• Melting Pot or Salad Bowl?
• Hispanics and the American Experiment: The Greatness of Conservatism.

Some of the guests include Jeb Bush, Jr., former Secretary of Commerce Carlos Gutierrez, former Prime Minister of Spain José María Aznar, and Mexican Ambassador Arturo Sarukhan.

The Washington Post notes that Fox News launched a Latino website, latino.foxnews.com, in October and that the Heritage Foundation will soon have Libertad.org. But "Gingrich's efforts are drawing the most attention," writes David Montgomery.

Montgomery quotes Lionel Sosa, "who pioneered GOP outreach to Lationos on behalf of Ronald Reagan and both George Bushes": "This is the first time that planning for the Latino vote and getting together all the conservative Latinos in a major effort has been done outside of a campaign.

Juan Hernandez told Montgomery, "Newt is setting a table that had not been set before."

Univision anchor Jorge Ramos: "It's a matter of respect. Newt Gingrich understands that." Part of that respect is that Gingrich has been studying Spanish an hour a week lately.

Gingrich told the Post:

My firm defense of American exceptionalism gets its strongest endorsement from first-generation immigrants, who walk up with tears in their eyes and say, 'This is why we came to America.' On one hand, they want to know that I'm sensitive to, and care about, their historical background; on the other hand, they really want me to be aggressively for America. It's the integrating of that balance that's so important.