Rubio and Cruz as Great Brown Hopes show how little Republicans know about Latinos

*Gustavo Arellano makes this point: Picking a Latino presidential candidate from their own ranks in order to attract Latino voters is the worst thing the GOP can do. VL

By Gustavo Arellano, The Guardian

You gotta hand it to the Republican Party. When one of their own makes history in the diversity game – say, Clarence Thomas on the Supreme Court, Sarah Palin as a vice president nominee, or Ronald Reagan becoming our nation’s first actor president – that trailblazer is so noxious that their origin group largely disowns them, leaving the party to lick its affirmative-action wounds. That’s exactly what’s going to happen to Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, the first-ever Latino Republicans to seriously campaign for their party’s presidential nomination (sorry, Ben Fernandez).

Sí, let’s pause and marvel at the progress of Latinos in this country, that they can become also-ran presidential candidates as vacuous and bloviating as gringos!

But now that our moment of respect is done, let’s get real. Not only do Cruz or Rubio have little chance of becoming the GOP’s sacrificial lamb against Hillary Clinton in 2016, they are by far the worst candidates that Republicans could pick to recruit the very constituency that they so desperately need to stay relevant in a changing country: Latinos.

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