CaribWorldNews, NEW YORK, NY, Mon. Nov. 10, 2008: Cuban American Senator, Mel Martinez, feels the strong anti-immigration rhetoric spewed by some members within the Republican Party contributed to their massive loss last week.

Martinez, appearing on Meet the Press on Sunday, said if those Republican members, meaning largely far right ultra conservatives, ` continue with that kind of rhetoric, anti-Hispanic rhetoric, that so much of it was heard, we're going to be relegated to minority status.`

He said `that the very divisive rhetoric of the immigration debate set a very bad tone for our brand as Republicans,`  especially since he said `Hispanics are going to be a more and more vibrant part of the electorate, and the Republican Party had better figure out how to talk to them.` 

`We had a very dramatic shift between what President Bush was able to do with Hispanic voters, where he won 44 percent of them, and what happened to Senator McCain,` said the Florida lawmaker. 

Many political pundits feel Senator McCain`s flip-flop on immigration reform cost him the Hispanic vote, which went overwhelmingly to President-elect Barack Obama and the Democrats.

President George Bush had been able to hold on to the Hispanic vote in 2004, with his commitment to immigration reform, a hot button issue for this voting bloc. Senator McCain, once an ardent supporter of the President`s plan, changed his platform in the Presidential race as he pursued more Conservative Republican voters. His change of stance cost him with Independents and Hispanic voters as the campaign ran more around themes that suited `Joe the Plumber` and small, town Republicans than those moderate voters in the party.

Bobby Jindal, the first non-white governor of Louisiana and first Indian-American elected governor in the U.S., has also slammed the party for being `stuck in a 30-year-old feel in tone and image` while ,`demographically, culturally, technologically and economically the country is changing.`