SAN DIEGO -- To understand what happened with Republican voters in Florida, keep in mind four things:
No. 1 -- The Hispanic vote went to McCain by an overwhelming margin of almost 4-1. According to exit polls, Hispanics made up 12 percent of Republican voters and, of those Hispanics who voted, 54 percent supported McCain. Romney got 14 percent of the Hispanic vote, despite spending heavily on ads in Spanish-language media.
No. 2 -- With Tom Tancredo and Duncan Hunter out of the race, and Mike Huckabee having difficulty convincing GOP hard-liners that his lurch to the right on illegal immigration is sincere, Romney has become the de facto choice for nativists, restrictionists and closed-border enthusiasts. Tancredo, who endorsed Romney, had drawn the ire of Cuban-American voters for referring to Miami as a Third World country.
No. 3 -- McCain has been criticized by the right-wing media for objecting to an amendment to the 2006 McCain-Kennedy immigration reform bill that declared English the "national language" of the United States. According to National Review Online, McCain scolded colleagues in the Republican cloakroom and accused the cultural conservatives pushing the measure of "insulting" Latinos, who have often objected to such declarations as divisive and unnecessary.
No. 4 -- There is something of a McCain paradox developing in primary states where Republicans tell pollsters that immigration is a top issue and have the most trust in McCain to handle it, despite the fact that some conservative radio talk show hosts and members of Congress portray McCain's views on the issue as unacceptably lenient. Some might say that this is because McCain now understands that he has to put border security first, but it's a conversion that apparently his conservative critics aren't buying.
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What does it all mean? Since McCain beat Romney overall by just 5 percentage points -- with 36 percent of the vote for the Arizona senator to 31 percent for the former Massachusetts governor -- it's likely that Hispanics contributed significantly to McCain's margin of victory. And among Hispanics, it's also likely that Romney was hurt by his hard line on illegal immigration and McCain helped by his more moderate position, since a majority of Hispanics support allowing illegal immigrants to stay in the United States in one capacity or another. And, lastly, it seems possible that -- despite Republican voters listing immigration as a top concern -- either they're not taking such concern into the voting booth, or they're not buying attempts by some right-wingers to depict McCain as soft on the issue, or they're just not as fired up about deporting illegal immigrants as you would think from monitoring the conservative media.
Exit polling in Florida showed that nearly 60 percent of voters in that state would allow illegal immigrants to stay as temporary workers or on a path to citizenship. Among Hispanic Republicans, only 20 percent said illegal immigrants should be deported. Forty-three percent said they should be allowed to stay as temporary workers, and one-third said they should have a shot at citizenship.
Other polls from around the county tell us much the same thing . It's starting to look as if the Republican Party's anti-illegal immigration zealots may represent a loud and obnoxious faction of conservative voters, but a small one at that.
This is good news for McCain on the eve of Super Tuesday. Look for him to do well in California and the Southwest, where voters have lots of firsthand experience with both legal and illegal immigration, know the impact on their communities -- both positive and negative -- and remain skeptical of macho talk and simple solutions. It's bad news for Romney, who seems to have become persona non grata with Hispanic voters. Many of them are frustrated because, while they don't support an outright amnesty, they do think there is a middle ground. And they resent opportunistic politicians who try to scare up votes at their expense, and then attempt to cover their tracks with Spanish-language commercials.
Once again, out West, the sleeping giant is stirring. And he's in a foul mood.
Ruben Navarrette's e-mail address is navarrette@wctrib.com .
