They have eyes to see

LITTLE ROCK — THE HEADLINE in your statewide paper said it: Republicans rethink stance on immigration laws. Will wonders never cease? All it took was a shellacking in the Electoral College. Final result once Florida had been called: 332 electoral votes for President Obama, 206 for Mitt Romney.

Yes, even Republicans have eyes to see. It’s occurred to them it’s time-past time-to rethink their party’s stand on immigration-for political if not for basic moral reasons. Unless the GOP just enjoys watching a Democrat take the oath of office at presidential inaugurations.

Look at the numbers: 10 percent of voters on election day were Hispanic. That number rises each year. More than 70 percent of those votes in 2012 were said to have gone to President Obama. The Wall Street Journal reported the other day that if the country’s borders could be sealed tomorrow, the number of Hispanic voters in this country would continue to grow for decades because of birth rates alone.

Now, more and more bleary-eyed Republicans, still hung over from the election, are beginning to sound rational when it comes to immigration and immigration reform.

The other day the Republican speaker of the House, John Boehner, told the press that immigration reform was long overdue. This from a man who’d long resisted such long-overdue reforms-either on principle or just to keep the president from scoring politically. Whatever his reasons, they weren’t acceptable. They’re even less so now.

Haley Barbour, one of the GOP’s elder statesmen, has now come out for a pathway to legal status for immigrants who don’t have their papers in order. So did Sean Hannity, the radio/TV talking voice/head who’s a reliable echo of thinking on the right, or at least feeling.

And one Rand Paul, he of Kentucky, the Tea Party, and the family that gave us money crank and libertarian Ron Paul. When those on the right, righter and rightest come out for immigration reform, you know there’s a chance that something could be done about illegalimmigration-like bolster the border and provide a path to citizenship for the millions of illegals who now must hide in the shadows. Who knows, such reform could be enacted even next year. After all, Democrats and more sensible Republicans came to that conclusion years ago.

Rand Paul, too, has eyes to see. And he sees that the Northeast, the West Coast and the Great Lakes region have lots of voters, many Hispanic, and enough electoral votes to decide presidential elections. And new pockets of Hispanic voters are forming all over the South and Midwest, too, and wherever economic opportunity can be found:

“We have three big regions where we’re not competitive,” Senator Paul says. “And we have to be competitive in those regions.”

What will the more frothing types in the GOP say to all this? After all, Rand Paul isn’t John McCain. Sean Hannity isn’t the Wall Street Journal’s editorial page. Will the Secure Arkansas types and those like them across the fruited plains decide the Tea Partiers are soft on immigration? What will the knownothings in the Republican Party say to their leaders, even Tea Party leaders, who have eyes to see? Will they be banished with the John McCains of the world as too liberal, too open to reality?

We’ll see.

SOMEBODY asked the other day: Is the Republican Party’s disconnect with the Hispanic voter temporary? Or is it permanent?

If it’s permanent, get ready for a string of Democratic presidents-and Congresses, too. And Democratic judicial nominees to the courts. Including the Supreme one.

Why would a party now in decline turn away from the fastest-growing ethnic group in the country? The sensible course would be to recruit those voters-not snub them. Which is what many in the Republican Party have found out the hard way. But can they persuade the fire-breathers?

We’ll see.