Reihan wants the GOP to welcome them. He follows up:
In my column, I reference Susana Martinez, the Republican governor of New Mexico, who was, until the 1990s, a Democrat. Were Martinez to develop a higher national profile, she could, in theory, unlock the key to wooing upwardly-mobile female Mexican American voters concerned about issues like education (her signature issue), wage growth, and crime and disorder.
One of my favorite examples of a potent party-switcher is Randy Altschuler, a successful young Jewish American entrepreneur who lost the narrowest congressional race of 2010 in the East End of Long Island. The key thing about Martinez and Altschuler is that neither of them seems to have repudiated their group affiliations. Martinez is quite comfortable with her regional and ethnic identity, and the same is true of Altschuler. Republicans in the Northeast must project that they aren’t conservative Southerners in disguise, but rather that they reflect the cultural style and the priorities of their region. For example, it should be entirely natural for Northeastern Republicans to favor public investment in mass transit, provided it is cost-effective, transparent, and open to competition.
The Dish 