In a tucked away ballroom, away from the fireworks and applause lines of the main stage, Republican strategist Mike Madrid was fighting a lonely battle at the annual Conservative Political Action Conference: encouraging Republicans to talk differently about immigration.
In a presentation titled “Talking to Minority Voters; Making the Case for Conservatives Nationally,” the California-based Madrid sounded the alarm that the Republican Party may be on the verge of losing Latino voters for a generation if it did not soften its message.
“This is a tipping point year for the party,” Madrid said. “The damage could be at least a generation, possibly longer.”
Madrid, who supported George W. Bush’s campaign in 2000, said he was both “heartened” and “heartbroken” by the Republican Party’s 2016 primary. On the one hand, the candidates were demographically diverse. On the other, Trump was leading the nomination with a dog whistle message.
“Don’t talk about building a wall and don’t talk about adding ten feet to the wall, don’t draw people out and create a fight with former heads of state,” Madrid said. “Look, we are asking to be irrelevant.”
Trump “Make American Great Again” hats were prevalent Thursday as CPAC voters appeared ready to embrace the man leading the race for the Republican nomination. But Madrid was resolute, using a slideshow of the ballooning Hispanic population to argue that a message of mass deportation like Trump’s could undermine the party’s ability to make inroads with Latinos.
“We make it so easy for them to make villains out of us,” Madrid said. “We just fall into the trap over and over and over.”
“Do you have suggestions about what we should say,” one CPAC attendee asked in the hall after the official presentation.
“Don’t talk to people the way you wouldn’t talk to your family,” Madrid responded. “I am not going to give you silver bullet words. I am just going to say don’t say bad things. Don’t offend people.”
