Guest Column
Hispanics Are Returning to Democrats for 2008
- Hispanics Are Returning to Democrats for 2008
- By Susan Page
- USA Today
SAN ANTONIO - June 28, 2007 - Like no
Republican before him, George W. Bush drew Hispanics to the GOP.
In the 2004 election, at least 40 percent of the voters in the
nation's largest and fastest-growing minority group backed Bush,
double the share of Hispanics who had supported Republican Bob
Dole eight years earlier. But the inroads Bush made are vanishing.
The chief beneficiary for 2008 so far is Democrat Hillary Rodham
Clinton.
A new USA TODAY/Gallup Poll indicates that Hispanics, by nearly 3
to 1, say they're Democrats or lean that way. Of those, 59 percent
support the New York senator over her presidential rivals -- her
strongest showing among any major demographic group and a huge
potential asset for early contests in Nevada, Florida, California
and other states with large Hispanic populations.
One big factor behind the flight from the GOP: a heated debate
over immigration in which congressional Republicans' remarks on
illegal immigrants have offended many Hispanic voters. The fallout
from that battle, shifting Latino loyalties and a changing
political calendar have scrambled political calculations made
about Hispanics after the last presidential election -- and raised
the stakes for their role in choosing the Democratic nominee for
the next one.
"At one time, I think Hispanics were viewed by the people who were
running campaigns as a little bit of a distraction, a little bit
of a nuisance," says Jose Villarreal, a San Antonio lawyer and
Clinton supporter who was a top adviser to Democrats Al Gore in
2000 and John Kerry in 2004. "Now the community is like an IPO.
Everybody wants to invest in it."
Even though the presidential candidates are frantically raising
money in the final days before the end of the month -- the
second-quarter fundraising totals are seen as benchmarks for their
standing -- all the Democratic contenders accepted invitations to
address NALEO, the National Association of Latino Elected and
Appointed Officials. They will speak to the group's convention in
Orlando on Saturday.
In a sign of how GOP priorities have changed since President
Bush's careful cultivation of Hispanic voters, all the Republican
candidates declined invitations to join a similar forum there
Friday, citing scheduling conflicts.
"On the one hand, they say that they're not willing to concede the
Hispanic vote," says Arturo Vargas, executive director of NALEO,
whose convention opens today. "On the other hand, it's actions
that speak louder than words."
During his races for Texas governor and president, Bush made a
point of campaigning among Hispanics, praising their values and
sometimes speaking Spanish. He's pushing an immigration overhaul
now before the Senate that would provide a path to legal status
for illegal immigrants now in the USA.
His efforts paid off: After Dole carried just 21 percent of the
Hispanic vote in the 1996 presidential election, Bush built the
GOP share to 35 percent in 2000 and at least 40 percent in 2004.
By 2005, nearly one-third of Hispanics called themselves
Republicans or leaned that way.
"It was the family values thing" that persuaded some of her
Hispanic friends and co-workers to vote Republican in 2004, says
Millie Linares, 47. The middle school librarian was waiting in San
Antonio's muggy heat Sunday for a rally featuring Democratic
presidential contender Barack Obama.
Hispanics will be more wary in 2008, predicts her sister, Gilda
Lopez, 56, a speech pathologist and reliable Democrat. With a
crisis in Iraq and questions at home about the GOP's attitudes
toward Hispanics, she says, "I cannot understand how a Hispanic
person could vote Republican."
The new survey finds fewer who say they will. Only 11 percent of
Hispanics now identify themselves as Republicans, down from 19
percent in 2005, while the proportion who call themselves
Democrats has jumped to 42 percent from 33 percent.
Including independents who "lean" to one party or the other,
Democrats lead Republicans among Hispanics 58 percent to 20
percent.
In a matchup between the candidates who lead in national polls,
Hispanics overwhelmingly support Clinton over Republican Rudy
Giuliani, 66 percent to 27 percent.
Hispanics' importance rising
Florida Sen. Mel Martinez, general chairman of the Republican
National Committee, says there is time for the eventual GOP
nominee to recover among Hispanic voters next year -- and that
doing so is becoming increasingly critical. Hispanics represented
1 in 8 U.S. residents in 2000 but are projected to be 1 in 4 by
2050.
Martinez, a Cuban emigre, says Republicans can't win the White
House with today's level of Hispanic support. "It would be in my
view virtually impossible," he says.
Patti Solis Doyle, campaign manager for Clinton and the daughter
of Mexican immigrants, says the New York senator is determined to
reverse the gains Bush made.
"We did see President Bush make some real inroads among Hispanics,
and she is very aggressively going after those votes," says Solis
Doyle, Clinton's former scheduler and the first Latina to head a
major presidential campaign. Her office is decorated with
photographs of her husband and two children, a Diego Rivera print
and framed copies of three Time magazine covers featuring Clinton.
The campaign has hired a leading Hispanic pollster, a director of
Hispanic outreach and a liaison to Spanish-language media. Clinton
also has landed some prized endorsements from top Hispanic
officeholders, including Los Angeles Mayor Antonio Villaraigosa
and New Jersey Sen. Robert Menendez.
In part, Clinton's strength among Hispanics reflects the fact that
she is the best-known candidate. Many Hispanics also have
lingering affection for her husband, who got 62 percent of the
Latino vote in the 1992 presidential election and 72 percent when
he was re-elected in 1996.
"I like Hillary," Margaret Crutchfield, a 61-year-old
Mexican-American, says after the San Antonio rally for Obama, whom
she says she also likes. Then Crutchfield adds, brightening: "I
love Bill Clinton."
New Mexico Gov. Bill Richardson, the son of a Mexican mother and
American father, also sees Hispanic support as "a critical part of
his constituency," campaign manager Dave Contarino says.
But Richardson still has to introduce himself. Six in 10 Hispanics
polled say they've never heard of the former congressman and
Cabinet member, the first Hispanic to seek the Democratic
presidential nomination.
Richardson is trying to remedy that. He announced his presidential
bid in Spanish as well as English. He has accepted an invitation
by the Spanish-language TV network Univision to participate in a
candidates' debate in September, though he threatens to withdraw
unless he's allowed to speak in Spanish rather than through an
interpreter. He has announced key Latino supporters even in New
Hampshire, a state that's less than 2 percent Hispanic.
Obama, meanwhile, is playing catch-up. Nearly half of Hispanics
nationwide say they've never heard of the Illinois senator. Among
Hispanic Democrats and Democratic-leaning independents, 13%
support him. That's his weakest standing among any major
demographic group, according to an analysis of combined USA
TODAY/Gallup Polls taken this year.
A local Latino rhythm-and-dance troupe performed at his midday
rally here -- brown plastic cacti and colorful pioatas decorated
both sides of the stage -- before Obama was introduced to the
crowd by Juan Garcia, a Texas state representative and Harvard Law
School classmate, and San Antonio Spurs forward Bruce Bowen.
In his speech, Obama noted that his work as a young community
organizer in Chicago included Latino as well as black and white
neighborhoods. He listed Cesar Chavez, the Chicano farm workers'
organizer, among his civil rights heroes and pledged as president
to build better relations with Latin America.
"We're not going to fan the flames on immigration," he shouted as
the crowd cheered. Local campaign volunteers were sporting bright
blue T-shirts declaring "AlamObama," a word play on the Alamo
landmark a mile away.
"We're going to solve the problem and we're going to work
together," he said.
Some Republicans reach out
A month after the 2004 election, members of the Congressional
Hispanic Caucus were so concerned about erosion among once-solidly
Democratic Hispanics to Bush that they sent a letter to the
Democratic National Committee warning that Republicans were
"clearly winning the battle for Hispanic voters."
That was then.
Now, the same angst over the Iraq war and the economy that has
cost Bush support among independent voters generally also has
dismayed Latinos. Bush's job-approval rating among Hispanics is 29
percent, lower than his 32 percent rating overall.
Some Hispanics have been alarmed and offended by the harsh
rhetoric of some congressional Republicans in the immigration
debate and the opposition by most of the GOP presidential field to
designing a path to legal status for illegal immigrants now in the
USA.
"People think just because I'm Hispanic, I'll open the gates and
let them all come over," says Martha Gutierrez, 52, a middle
school history teacher from Corpus Christi. That's not true, she
says, but "a lot of us look at this as a more practical matter."
The idea of forcing an estimated 12 million illegal immigrants to
leave is "crazy," she says.
"This country is based on immigrants, and now they want to send
them all back?" says Mario Morales, 29, an engineer in San
Antonio. "It'll hurt the economy, and it is a little racist."
Some GOP candidates are trying to reach out to Hispanic voters.
Arizona Sen. John McCain, an architect of the Senate's immigration
bill, in the last GOP debate emotionally extolled the bravery and
sacrifices of Hispanic veterans in the Vietnam and Iraq wars.
Former Massachusetts governor Mitt Romney began airing
Spanish-language TV ads in South Florida in March and has posted a
video on his campaign Web site of son Craig touting "mi papa" in
Spanish.
With the exception of McCain, however, the major Republican
presidential contenders have been more concerned about appealing
to tough-on-immigration conservatives who are likely to be
important in the GOP primaries than to Hispanics who are swing
voters.
Former New York mayor Giuliani dismisses the immigration bill as a
"typical Washington mess." Colorado Rep. Tom Tancredo is basing
his long-shot campaign on fervent opposition to illegal
immigration.
Still, in the end, many Hispanics are more likely to be swayed by
a personal connection with a candidate than by ideology, Martinez
says. That could create an opening for a Republican nominee.
"Once a candidate is identified, if that candidate is a person who
can effectively represent himself to that community, we could be
back in the game," he says.
Here today, where tomorrow?
Even if Democrats win back Hispanic voters in 2008, Latinos aren't
likely to become the sort of reliable Democratic partisans that,
say, African-Americans are.
Hispanics are twice as likely as non-Hispanics to describe
themselves as independents who don't "lean" to either party.
And while the GOP share of Hispanic votes overall fell sharply in
the 2006 elections, some Republican candidates did well. Gov.
Arnold Schwarzenegger carried 39 percent of Hispanic votes in his
re-election race in California, for instance. Sen. Kay Bailey
Hutchison won 44 percent for hers in Texas.
That's a signal to both parties, says Roberto Suro, director of
the non-partisan Pew Hispanic Center.
"You can see the difference with a constituency that doesn't budge
and one that's got play in it, depending on the candidate in the
race," Suro says.
Vargas agrees. "It's a mistake to say that if Latinos are swinging
back to the Democratic Party, they're there to stay," he says.
Frank Guerra, a San Antonio media consultant who worked on
Hispanic-oriented advertising in Bush's campaigns, is preparing a
report to the opening session of the NALEO convention that
analyzes Hispanics as voters in the same ways that corporations
analyze them as consumers.
Hispanics "are moving away from traditional brand loyalty" as more
companies -- and candidates -- target them for their business and
their votes, Guerra says.
"It's very mobile," he says, "and no one owns it."
Source: (c) Copyright 2007 USA TODAY, a division of Gannett Co. Inc
(In accordance with Title 17 U.S.C. Section 107, this material is distributed by HispanicVista.com (www.hispanicvista.com) without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes.)