I just read your two cents, and just wanted to tell you that you could be a million dollar writer. Beautifully done. Spot on. Track me down and let’s talk about getting you a writing job.

You’re terrific.
Bravo, Rachel

A favorite trick of the Germans during WW II was to change the road signs in the hope that the good guys would get confused and go in the wrong direction.

Sir, I know the difference between a helpful arrow and one that points people in the wrong direction. And you, sir, are trying to send the Republican Party on a wild ganso chase.

How many times did Obama accuse the Republican Party of using fear tactics to get elected? If I had a dollar for every one of them, I’d be rich enough to buy Chicago’s best Mexican restaurant, Su Casa. Well, you, sir, are simply parroting Barack’s tactics. Raising red herrings like margarita glasses salted around the rims.

You say Republicans shouldn’t focus on cultural or language issues, or be racist. Should, on the other hand, offer complex solutions and be pro-immigrant.

Thanks for the tips.

Now here’s one for you.

Try writing about something you know.

The way one gets votes is to match up what you stand for with the feelings of the people you’re trying to reach. Then you say it in a way that both respects your audience and appeals to their hearts and heads.

“Tone”, (the word in your subhead) which you point out the Republicans have to change, refers to message mood. It can be light, fun, funny, serious, intelligent, respectful, preachy etc.

Your piece, Mr. Navarrette, makes me suspect that not only are you out of your element when you start telling Republicans what they did wrong, but, as I said before, I suspect you’re trying to lead us in the wrong direction. And that, to me, makes you the south end of a north bound horse.

THIS is why the GOP doesn’t need to imitate Democrats and pander along ethnic/racial lines.

I will take ONE Mr. Gonzalez over TWO La Raza types any day. If I lose elections, so be it. At least I’ll know I’m standing with a fellow citizen who shares my values and loyalties.

Only one of the two major political parties is supported by a group called The Council of the Race. And it ain’t the GOP, my friend. Please join us in the 21st century.

Stop lecturing. Some of us have given this issue a great deal of thought. Stop making it about the illegal immigrants themselves. It’s about US – the citizens. WE HAVE CHANGED. Our expectations for immigrants have changed. To pretend there is no downside to millions of people pouring across the border, into lands they feel are rightfully Mexico’s, is just that: pretending.

Reality is more difficult.

Bingo. We should build a fence across our southern border. But, the fence will have doors for legal entry. Above the doors it will read, “WELCOME.”

It’s a myth that anyone argued that was the case.

The critical change is not in the immigrants (from Latin America today vs. Europe yesterday) but our expectations of them. What would happen if a U.S. president said the following today?

“In the first place, we should insist that if the immigrant who comes here in good faith becomes an American and assimilates himself to us, he shall be treated on an exact equality with everyone else, for it is an outrage to discriminate against any such man because of creed, or birthplace, or origin. But this is predicated upon the person’s becoming in every facet an American, and nothing but an American. There can be no divided allegiance here. Any man who says he is an American, but something else also, isn’t an American at all. We have room for but one flag, the American flag. We have room for but one language here, and that is the English language. And we have room for but one sole loyalty and that is a loyalty to the American people.”
–President Theodore Roosevelt’s 1907

But the GOP ran exactly the kind of Republican liberals wanted and still got thumped. McCain was for a soft and fuzzy immigration plan, and Hispanics didn’t care. Navarette carefully avoided that fact.