Steve: Thanks for making that point about Hispanic voters in California. The state’s changing demographics clearly have played a role in the state’s liberalization, but something else is at work there, too. You can’t just blame immigration. Also, consider this. If no Hispanics had voted in the 2000 presidential election, George Bush would have won the popular vote nationwide but Al Gore would be president–because the absence of Cuban voters would have switched Florida from Bush to Gore. Having said all this, Republican success among Hispanics requires Hispanic assimilation. That’s why the Bush administration should pull the plug on bilingual education, which is something that it won’t ever do. Unfortunately.