IF NOVEMBER'S presidential election, in which some exit polls had Mitt Romney winning just 27% of the Latino vote, was a wake-up call to Republicans, the sleep must have been deep indeed. For months it had been clear to anyone with half an eye on the polls that the Republicans were tanking among Latinos. In August, Mr Romney emerged 39 percentage points behind Barack Obama in the first of 11 weekly tracking polls carried out by Latino Decisions. (Those, of course, turned out to be the good days.) Whether or not Mr Romney's fondness for "self-deportation" was to blame, the Republican pre-election spin that a focus on jobs and growth would be enough to win around Latino voters is not only risible in retrospect, it was obviously wrong at the time. OK, election campaigns do funny things to people's brains. At least the Republicans are on board now. After all, as Reagan is once supposed to have said, Latinos are natural Republicans. They just don't know it yet. Ditch the crazy rhetoric, silence the wingnuts and take at least partial ownership of immigration reform, and the shared values of Republicans and Latinos—aspiration, pro-enterprise, social conservatism—should emerge clearly enough to help satisfy Reagan's formula. (If it's good enough for Susana Martinez...) This is certainly how John McCain is selling the proposals put forward by his "Gang of eight" senators. His home state of Arizona, where the Latino population grew by almost half between 2000 and 2010, is one that many Democratic strategists see as ripe for competition in 2016. (The state has backed the Republican candidate in every presidential election bar one since 1948.) Elsewhere in the mountain west Latino votes have already helped shift the 20 electoral-college votes of Nevada, Colorado and New Mexico, all of them once reliably red states, into the Democratic column in the last two elections. Mr McCain acknowledges the danger. But because of "small business, less regulation, big service in the military, pro-life, all these reasons," he argues, Republicans should be able to attract enough Latino support to keep the demographic tide at bay. Mr McCain's commitment to sorting out America's broken immigration system is not in doubt. And the Republican tin-ear to immigration concerns certainly helps explain Mr Romney's dismal performance among Latinos. But it's worth unpacking Mr McCain's claim. Perhaps the most common element of the "natural Republican" argument for Latinos is the cultural-conservative one. It doesn't stack up well. Support for same-sex marriage is now stronger among Latinos than other ethnic groups. If support for second-amendment rights counts as a conservative value, there is scant consolation for Republicans: last year just 29% of Latino voters told a Pew poll that gun "rights" were more important than gun "control". Mr McCain is right about abortion, an issue on which Latinos are marginally more conservative than blacks or whites. But it's not a priority for many voters. And as with other Americans, younger Latinos are considerably more liberal on all these issues than their older counterparts.

What about Mr McCain's "less regulation"? Well, leaving aside the Dodd-Frank Act, which happens not to make an appearance among the top priorities of any voters, Latino or otherwise, one of the heftiest pieces of regulation produced in the first Obama term was the Affordable Care Act. And, as Mr Romney turned out to be aware, it's a hit with Latinos. OK, so what about all that business-stifling red tape the Democrats are so fond of? Well, there sure are a lot of Latino small-business owners. Some should be receptive to a Republican message that emphasises entrepreneurial vim and freedom. But we haven't heard much of that from the GOP lately. (Marco Rubio's convention speech in Tampa was an honourable exception.)

This is partly because the party's energies have been dedicated to keeping a lid on spending and shrinking the size of government. And while these may be worthy goals, they do not appear to fly with many Latinos. Immediately before November's election just 12% said spending cuts were the best way to reduce America's fiscal deficit. Neither is trimming the deficit is a priority. Indeed, many Latino voters appear to be moving in the opposite direction from today's Republicans: in 2011 Gary Segura of Latino Decisions reported that 82% of Latinos wanted a more active government, next to 59% of non-Hispanic whites.

Education may present an opportunity for Republicans. Latinos are among the worst victims of the terrible public schools in many parts of the United States, and the lock that teachers' unions often have over state Democratic parties leaves an opening for the GOP. The Republicans will also be helped by a saner message on immigration, voter-friendly Latino faces like Mr Rubio's and, if they can craft it, a 21st-century version of the American dream. But against these potential bright spots are the demographic trends: the Latino share of the electorate grew from 9.7% in 2008 to 12.5% last year and will continue to rise quickly. Most of these new voters will surely continue to back Democratic candidates, even if the Republicans can eat away at the gap.

(Photo credit: AFP)