LOS ANGELES - Of all the disasters the Republicans endured in the midterms, perhaps none was as clamorous as the way the party lost the fastest-growing segment of the population - Latino voters.
Almost 70 per cent of them voted Democrat, according to exit-poll estimates, fuelled by angerover the extremist position many Republican legislators have taken over immigration and by the disproportionate number of Latino men and women fighting and dying in Iraq.
Two years ago, by contrast, 44 per cent of Latinos voted for President Bush's re-election - a number that may take years to recapture.
George W. Bush came into office six years ago determined to woo Latinos nationally in much the same way he had as Governor of Texas - appealing to their socially conservative instincts, promoting strong ties to Central and South America and peddling a soft line on immigration policy. It certainly helped that his brother Jeb was married to a Colombian and was Governor of Florida, home to the reliably conservative Cuban exile community.
That all changed a year ago, when Republican hardliners in Congress began to demand the criminalisation of 11 to 12 million undocumented immigrant workers and the militarisation of the border with Mexico.
Bush first tried to counter the hardliners with a package of reforms including a guest-worker programme and a path to citizenship for long-term US residents. When that failed, he kow-towed to the hardliners by agreeing to the construction - but not the funding - of 1100km of border fencing.
One of the political surprises of 2006 was the way US voters evolved in their thinking on immigration. Many are upset by the lack of legal framework for so many foreign workers, and worry about the impact on health, education and other public services. When offered the choice, however, between a hardline policy of mass arrests and deportations, or a comprehensive solution that would keep the workers in the US on a proper, formal basis, they expressed a clear preference for the latter.
