Milwaukeean Perfecto Rivera has a tough assignment: Rounding up Hispanics to vote Republican.

Judging from a report by WisPolitics, Rivera's job is a lot tougher than he realizes.

In its Milwaukee Notes, WisPolitics quotes Rivera as saying Republicans, including Mark Green, who insist on referring to illegal immigrants as "illegal aliens" have alienated (no pun intended) Latino voters.

It says:

Rivera chalked up part of Republican gubernatorial candidate Mark Green’s loss in Milwaukee to language he was using on the stump to describe illegal immigrants.

“Green lost the Hispanic vote here,” Rivera said. “Had he been able to get another 7 percent of the Latino vote in Milwaukee, we'd have a different governor.”

Something about that didn't quite ring true. Turns out that's because it's not true. Not even close.

Jim Doyle defeated Mark Green by 159,688 votes statewide -- a 7.4% margin among all voters, according to official returns.

For the Rivera statement to be accurate, there would have had to be 2.2-million Hispanic voters in the last election.

In reality, there were only 2.16-million voters total, counting everyone who cast a ballot for governor.

Let's do the math.

According to the 2000 census, the state's total Hispanic population was about 193,000. Forty-two per cent of them lived in Milwaukee at that time. That makes the Milwaukee Latino population about 81,000. The median age was 22 to 23, so half of the population was probably not old enough to vote. That reduces voting age population in Milwaukee County to perhaps 40,000. Typically, Latino voter turnout is low. But even if it were 50%, the total is now down to 20,000 voters. Seven per cent of 20,000 is 1,400.

That leaves us about 158,288 votes short of what Green would have needed to defeat Doyle.  Granted, the Latino population has grown in the last six years, but not by a factor of 100 or more.

Perhaps Rivera just misspoke or was misquoted or misunderstood. But it wasn't just his math that was off.

Rivera, the Republican sacrificial lamb against Congresswoman Gwen Moore last year, said:

"... we can't continue to call them illegal aliens,” a term Rivera said is as offensive to Hispanics as the “n-word in the black community...”

... Rivera said the Latino vote went strictly on the anger Hispanic voters were feeling about having their friends and relatives described as illegal aliens.

Rivera said the immigration debate and the feeling that they were being treated as “political footballs” overshadowed his message to Hispanics while he campaigned against U.S. Rep. Gwen Moore in 2006.

“As I was running for Congress, I spent more time defending the party which was being painted as enemies of the immigrants,” Rivera said, “and everywhere I went people said 'well they're your friends,'” referring to U.S. Rep. Jim Sensenbrenner, a vocal illegal immigration opponent, and Green.

Rivera told Republicans they don't need to change their policies, just their language. But this week's vote in the Senate, with Republicans lining up to kill a compromise immigration bill supported by their own President, won't do much to convince Latino voters that Repubicans are their friends.