RUSH: The Daily Caller, ladies and gentlemen, has an interesting story. “A new report by Gallup suggests that the GOP is unlikely to boost its support among Latinos to much more than 25%,” no matter what, especially if they go for amnesty. “‘It appears that young Hispanic adults will remain lopsidedly Democratic throughout their lives, [and] there is also no generational evidence at this point suggesting that they will become more Republican,’ said the Monday report, which combines data from GallupÂ’s daily tracking polls of 26,264 Hispanics.”

Yeah, yeah. This is not your usual sample of 1,024.

“‘Majorities or near-majorities across all age groups among Hispanic adults identify with or lean toward the Democratic Party, including 50% of middle-aged Hispanics and 59% of older Hispanics,’ said the report…” Now, you might ask, “Why?” By the way, you might also ask, “When was the GOP high point? When did they have the largest percentage of the Hispanic vote?” It was actually 2004. In 2004, George W. Bush got 40% of Latino vote.

Now my thinking is, “Well, if we did it once we could do it again.” He got that without amnesty, by the way. Wait a minute, 2004. Yeah. He was not pushing amnesty in ’04. That came later. Folks, there’s a reason for this. I have shared with you the scholarly research data which proves, at least according to the data, that the Hispanic population of this country is not basing their vote on whoever’s position on immigration.

According to the surveys done of these 26,000 Hispanics and then extrapolating that across the US Hispanic population, they just happen to believe what the Democrat Party believes, and that is that the government’s the primary source of prosperity. They’re liberals. Now, I have to tell you that for most of my adult life, I have been hearing people like Jack Kemp — not to single him out, but just that far back.

Since the nineties, late eighties, I’ve heard Republicans say, “Hispanics are natural conservatives, particularly on social issues. They have family values, and hard work, and so forth,” and I’ve always wondered, “Why? They don’t vote that way. Why does anybody think that?” Because the Republicans always said, “Well, they’re there to be had. We just gotta improve our outreach effort.” Well, you know, we’ve been conservative pretty consistently here.

I think it’s been another — not trick, but it’s been a way the Republicans have been fooling themselves. Anyway, the point now of all that is that the Republicans can author and be the sole sponsors of amnesty, and it isn’t going to matter. It’s not gonna win them the Hispanic vote. If the Gang of Eight Republicans or any of the others are engaging in changing their position on illegal immigration primarily to attract Hispanic voters, it isn’t going to work because that’s not the primary issue they vote on.

They vote on economic issues and the belief that the government is the primary source of prosperity, not themselves. I am not offering a criticism of the Hispanics here. Do not anybody misunderstand me. So the way to “reach out” to the Hispanic vote is to become big government Republicans, and then somehow convince the Hispanics that you’re a better big government guy than the Democrats are. According to this.

Now, I happen to believe — and I have never changed it. I happen to believe that an honest, legitimate, genuine, cheerful-in-his-heart conservative who knows it, believes it, and doesn’t need notes to explain it will attract a majority of every group. I think conservatism is the answer to the Republican Party. You know this. You know that that’s what I think. But with Gallup putting out stuff like this, that there’s nothing the Republicans can do, they’re still gonna think otherwise.

Because the Republican consultant class — and by that I mean the group of people that are campaign consultants — are gonna be telling every Republican candidate, “You’re gonna have to moderate on amnesty. You’re gonna have to moderate on immigration. You’re gonna have to get rid of this image you have of wanting to deport everybody and build a giant electric fence to keep everybody out.” They’re just gonna ensure Republican defeat after defeat after defeat.

‘Cause according to this… The Republicans, there’s no way they can outdo Democrats on big-governmentism. They can’t outdo Democrats on amnesty. All they can ever be is Johnny-come-latelies on any of that. They can’t be the real deal! The Democrats are. All they can be is the tagalongs or the pretenders. It would seem to me, why don’t you try conservatism? Because it really hasn’t been tried since Reagan. Instead of nominating Northeastern liberals, why don’t you try to nominate conservatives?

That’s the one thing that has worked. It’s what worked in the 2010 midterms, was the rejection of liberalism, the rejection of Obamaism. I still maintain that that’s what happened in 2010. I know, different electorate two years later in the presidential race than in the midterm electorate, I know, but still, you look at polling data, the American people, policy by policy by policy, disagree with Obama.