End of an Era for GOP and Latinos?

It seems that for the first time in decades, the GOP standard bearer will have taken positions that are openly antagonistic to a the concerns of a demographic that made up 7.4 percent of the electorate in the 2008 elections and is the fastest growing minority group in the U.S.

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Romney is against providing a pathway to citizenship for undocumented immigrants and promised to veto the DREAM Act, which would give legal status to children of immigrants who attend college or serve in the military. This could turn off Latino voters who may determine the winner of a group of Southwestern states, and perhaps the election.

Unlike previous presidential elections, this year's race is taking place in the midst of a battle between the Obama administration and states that adopted Arizona's Draconian immigration law, which is tougher than any past legislative efforts to curb immigration. Latino families have already relocated from states that have enacted these laws.

And even though a majority of Latinos disapprove of the Obama administration's record level of deportations, the president would get 68 percent of their vote against Romney, according to a December report from the Pew Hispanic Center.

"You would think Republican candidates would learn by now that Latinos are going to vote with who they feel safe with," said Dee Dee Garcia-Blase, founder of Somos Republicans, a grassroots organization that endorsed Newt Gingrich Monday.

Where the GOP is Not Like Reagan

Romney's hardline on immigration is a departure from the other Republicans who made it to the top of the ticket over the last several elections.

In a 1980 Republican primary debate, candidates Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush called for sensitivity while devising a solution to the problem of undocumented immigration. "These are good people, strong people; part of my family is a Mexican," Bush said. Reagan went on, as president, to sign a law giving amnesty to 3 million who had come to the U.S. illegally.

And though the GOP standard-bearer in 1996, Sen. Bob Dole, the man who helped Reagan pass immigration reform, tacked hard to the right on immigration, he rejected a plank of his party's platform against birthright citizenship to U.S.-born children of undocumented immigrants.

The 2004 election was high point for the Republican Party's efforts to attract Latino voters, when George W. Bush was able to crack 40 percent of the Latino vote.