TAMPA, Fla. — Los Angeles's Democratic mayor, Antonio Villaraigosa, on Tuesday called Republican efforts to win over Hispanic voters insincere "window dressing," and blamed the party's policies for alienating Latinos.
“You can’t just trot out a brown face or a Spanish surname and expect that people are going to vote for your party or your candidate," he said.
Villaraigosa charged that the GOP supports deporting all of the 11 million immigrants estimated to be in the U.S. illegally.
“What country in the world has ever deported 11 million people?” Villaraigosa told reporters at the Democratic National Committee’s convention “war room,” just a couple blocks away from the site of the Republican National Convention.
He said the Republican party platform “feels like 1812.”
“They are losing the [Hispanic] demographic not because of anything but their policies,” he said. “Window dressing doesn’t do much for a candidate — it’s your policies, your platform.”
Villaraigosa also accused Republican presidential contender Mitt Romney of flip-flopping on important issues.
“He does one thing, he says another — he taken one position after another time and time again,” he said.