LAS VEGAS, Nev. ? Ron Paul dropped his standard stump speech on Wednesday and aggressively courted Latino voters.
At a senior center in East Las Vegas, the Texas congressman told about 100 Hispanics that they have been unfairly made ?scapegoats? for the country?s economic troubles. He said it?s ?part of human nature? for newcomers to be shunned, but that prejudice toward outsiders worsens when unemployment is high. He said that illegal immigrants were being scapegoated in a similar manner as Jews were in Nazi Germany because of tough economic times.
Continue Reading?When things go badly, individuals look for scapegoats,? he said.
?I just do not believe that barbed-wire fences or guns on our border will solve any of our problems,? he added.
In focusing on Latinos, Paul is reaching out to an important voter group that can help him show strongly in the state?s Saturday caucuses, which will award delegates on a proportional basis. But it also revealed a new and softer side of the Texas congressman, who typically derides government in harsh terms and whose foreign policy is considered outside the Republican mainstream.
Paul was the only GOP presidential candidate to attend the morning event hosted by the nonpartisan group Hispanics in Politics. Afterward, he did a media availability exclusively for Spanish-language press. He also held a Hispanic Roundtable at a restaurant in the hotel where he?s staying.
Latinos make up a quarter of the Nevada?s 2.7 million population. They are closer to 14 percent of the electorate and an even smaller share of Republicans. Three-quarters of Hispanics voted for President Barack Obama over John McCain in 2008.
In the 2008 GOP caucuses, Latinos accounted for 8 percent of the GOP vote and Paul nabbed just 7 percent of it, placing fourth among GOP contenders, entrance polls said. Mitt Romney won the state and the Hispanic vote.
The bulk of the growing Hispanic vote is in Clark County, which includes Las Vegas. ?You hunt where the ducks are, and there?s a lot of ducks in Clark County,? said Paul campaign chairman Jesse Benton.
Paul?s focus on winning over these voters also reflects his more professionalized operation compared to his presidential run in 2008, when he garnered 14 percent of the Nevada vote to finish second. He is trying to expand his traditional base of hard-core, small-government libertarians.
Paul hardly discussed the immigration issue on the trail in Iowa, New Hampshire and South Carolina. But he devoted almost half an hour to it at the Wednesday morning forum.
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