This was the election when Hispanics came of age. Two were famously elected into the Senate, providing a powerful symbol of their political advent. To Ken Salazar in Colorado, and to my fellow Cuban-American Mel Martinez in Florida, I send congratulations. But to my mind, much more important are the following numbers from pollsters: 72, 62 and 54. These are, respectively, the percentage of Hispanics that voted for Clinton in 1996, Gore in 2000 and Kerry last week. Two more figures, 50% and 40 million, are, respectively, the increase in Hispanic voters in 2004 over 2000, and the number of Hispanics now in the U.S., a country of 280 million.

Two more stats are really important (and then I'll stop). The first is that 22% of Hispanics told pollsters they were voting for the first time. Of these, the party split was even. This might be the most ominous number for Democrats, since party loyalties are cemented early.

But for the Republicans this is unadulterated good news. It vindicates "Jorge" Bush's hunch that aggressively pursuing the Hispanic vote would pay off. His familiarity with Mexican-Americans in Texas formed in him an instinct. Here was a people who believed in family members looking after each other, who shook their heads in disbelief at the thought of homosexual marriage, and who saw flying the flag as noble. As they owned homes and became middle class, the lure of affirmative action dimmed. And they were still voting Democratic?

Conversely, the emergence of the Hispanic Republican disproves apocalyptic warnings that it could never happen from nativists like Pat Buchanan. It is yet one more sad reminder of the wreck Pete Wilson left behind him in California. Maybe Arnie, with his pro-immigrant ethos, can fix this, too.

The Hispanic entry into Republican ranks comes, for many, at an earlier phase in their American journey than for other immigrant groups. Just think of the Irish, Italians and Jews, who generations after arrival on these shores can still reflexively pull the Democratic lever. Their vestigial loyalty is the result of what has been the Democratic Party's strategy for over a century. The bargain back in the days of Tammany Hall was: We give you the fire and police departments, you give us your vote. Later, patronage changed to goodies like preferences and quotas.

That this is the case can be clearly gleaned from the fact that in the 2000 census around 48% of Hispanics identified themselves as white. The label "Hispanic" has always been misleading anyway, since it isn't descriptive of anything racial or ethnic, and basically boils down to having a Spanish surname.

Census officials are envisaging simplifying matters from 2010 by encouraging "Hispanics" to choose one of the traditional racial categories recognized by anthropologists. It is indeed a mystery why actress Cameron Diaz, Yankee hurler Orlando Hernandez, or union activist Cesar Chavez should all be lumped into one group. Of course, the activists at the Puerto Rican and Mexican-American Legal Defense and Education Funds, see something sinister about the proposed change.

John Kerry fell for the monolithic myth, too, and paid for it. For example, he targeted the Hispanic audience in Colorado by spending on Spanish-language radio, against the advice of local politicians, who urged the Kerry campaign to buy airtime in English-language media.

A more comic example of miscast pandering came--surprise, surprise!--from his wife Teresa. At a rally in Albuquerque in July she suddenly chilled a formerly cheering crowd by grabbing the mike and gushing, "I'm an immigrant too." A Kerry supporter at the rally, Erlindo Castillo, told the New York Times, "You know what the problem is with this state? Too many Mexicans."

The differences in the groups are wide, and are reflected in our two new senators. Mr. Martinez was born in Cuba and in 1962 was sent here to live with a foster family by parents who couldn't leave Castro's totalitarian hell. Mr. Salazar is the product of a very different story. His ancestors left northern Spain and settled in what is today Santa Fe in 1582. Then, nearly three centuries later, before Colorado was even a state, they set up a ranch in the San Luis Valley that is still in Mr. Salazar's family. He is representative of the 42% of New Mexico's population that is "Hispanic," but thinks of itself as European (and definitely not immigrant).