Why Isn't Colorado Red ?

First I think this would be a great title for the sequel to "What's the Matter with Kansas" (WTMWK below) this one explaining how the Democrats manage to win elections.

However the text I would write if I weren't so lazy would be an explanation about how the joke in the title is just a joke.  The joke for the linguistically handicapped is that "Colorado" is Spanish for "red" and the Republicans seem to have a problem with communication with Spanish surnamed Americans.

Having confidently predicted victory in 2012, Republicans are now explaining their debate WTMWK with the WTMWK argument (or maybe its mirror image). They claim that most Americans agree with them on most of the issues, and they lost because single issue voters voted for the Democrats.  The candidate single issues are abortion, the contraceptive mandate and amnesty for undocumented aliens.  The idea is that the sluts and the Spi - uh - anish surnamed Americans voted based on their gonads or their skin color.

The problem is that the argument is not just switched from Kansas to Colorado, but also from true to false.  The WTMWK argument was that most US adults agree with the Democrats on the central point where the parties differ -- tax cuts for the rich vs social insurance.  A majority wants higher taxes on the rich and a huge majority opposes entitlement reform.  This makes the Republicans' electoral performance surprisingly good.

Republicans are not reality based and evidently have decided that all issues polling is skewed.  They insist on two obvious falsehoods:  That there program isn't to cut Social Security and Medicare so we can cut taxes on the rich and that their program is not rejected and detested by the majority of US adults.

So they have decided that they lost single women because of positions related to sex (hey at least I didn't type sexual positions).   In fact abortion is one of the issues with a relatively small gender gap.   Women are much less likely to support war than men and much more willing to risk some of their money going to those people compared rather than risking starvation in the USA.

Republicans are convinced that they lost hispanics because they oppose a path to citizenship for undocumented aliens.  This is an issue on which the opinions of hispanic Americans are relatively similar to those of US adults over all.

I just googled "hispanic polling" roughly the first link which wasn't obviously just about who will be elected president in 2012 sent me (with a couple more clicks) to this pdf

Here I saw that Hispanic respondents opposed repealing Obamacare 61 % to 25%.  Also a big big 12% support the Republican proposal to reduce the deficit without tax increases.  These data are not consistent with the view that all Republicans have to do is drop their opposition to comprehensive immigration reform.  Of course there is a more direct question

30 If the Republican party took a leadership role in supporting comprehensive immigration reform, with an eventual pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants, and Republicans worked to ensure it would pass would this make you

More likely to vote Republican 31%
Less likely to vote Republican  11 %
Have no effect on my vote       48%

Notice the hypothesis in the question goes way beyond the possible with Republicans pushing for reform not just tacitly accepting it.  Note the 11% who claim to oppose reform so much that this would actually make them less likely to vote for Republicans, but especially note the 48% who say it would make no difference.

This is not what one would get if one polled people who generally agree with the Republican party but voted Democratic because of a single issue.

Most Hispanic Americans disagree with Republicans on most of the big issues.  I have linked to only one poll, but everyone who is willing to look at polls knows this.

The Republicans are delusional.  Colorado is purple not red, because there isn't a solid majority of Coloradans who want a sink or swim society or who trust that the wealth will finally start trickling down.

In particular the vast majority of hispanic Americans reject the Republican ideology.  Republicans can't save themselves from Demographic change by focusing on special interests. If current trends continue, there will be a majority which thinks their approach is inconsistent with the common good, the interests of the nation as a whole, the evidence, common sense, human dignity, decency and ponies.

Note I am not predicting current trends continue.  But I sure am hoping.