Hillary, Si! Republicans, No!

The bet now is that, whoever is the Republican candidate in 2008, he will not get the Latino vote even if he picks la Virgen de Guadalupe as his running mate.

If Hillary Clinton is the Democrats’ candidate, which is a given unless she stumbles badly in the primaries or runs off with Eddie Fisher, she can be assured a large chunk of the Latino vote.

Her formidable campaign organization already has recruited Raul Yzaguirre, the former president of the National Council of La Raza, as her Latino co-chairman. A Latina, Patti Solis Doyle, is her campaign chairman.

Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa has signed on, as has human rights leader Dolores Huerta. Former Latino political boy wonder, Henry Cisneros, a Hillary favorite during his Washington days, must be waiting in the wings.

Hillary, or whoever is the candidate, may not need all that Latino firepower, because the conventional wisdom is that Republicans committed political suicide when the immigrant reform bill failed in Congress.

That, and all of the hate and bigotry spewing forth from the Republican base.