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Thread ID: 7403 | Posts: 2 | Started: 2003-06-16
2003-06-16 17:47 | User Profile
New GOP Caucus Races After Latinos Group Will Register Voters, Groom Future Candidates
By Nurith C. Aizenman and David Snyder Washington Post Staff Writers Monday, June 16, 2003; Page B01
Moments after Alma Preciado was sworn in as a U.S. citizen, a volunteer with the Democratic Party asked whether she wanted to register to vote.
She readily agreed. Within weeks, Preciado says, her mailbox was flooded with campaign literature from Democratic candidates, and she soon became a reliable party-line voter.
It wasn't until nearly a decade later that Preciado, a native of Mexico, happened upon a rally for presidential candidate George W. Bush and realized that her views were actually more in line with the GOP.
In retrospect, muses the Silver Spring mortgage broker, it seems incredible that her revelation was so long in coming. "But I didn't really understand what was going on when I registered," she said. "And I had no reason to question it because there were no Republicans in Maryland reaching out to explain the party's values to Hispanics like me."
Now Preciado has helped found a group of conservative Latinos dedicated to doing just that. Known as the Maryland Hispanic Republican Caucus, the group is the first statewide organization of its kind and was recently recognized by the state Republican Party.
There have been county-based attempts by Latino Republicans to organize in Maryland, including two small clubs recently formed in Prince George's and Montgomery counties.
But the caucus's leaders -- many of whom have lived in the United States for decades and are veteran volunteers for Republican causes -- predict that their group's impact will prove more lasting this time because of two factors: the state GOP's increased clout since Republican Robert L. Ehrlich Jr. was elected governor in November, and the growing presence of Hispanics, now the nation's largest minority group, in Maryland -- where they make up 4 percent of the overall population, 12 percent in Montgomery and 7 percent in Prince George's.
Being a Republican and a Latino in Maryland had been "very lonely for very long," Carmen Farinas-Camacho of West Laurel, a caucus member, said with a laugh. "But no longer."
Since its first meetings in November, the caucus's dues-paying membership has grown to more than 100. And in May, when the group held its first election of officers in a chandeliered hotel ballroom in Columbia, there was a palpable sense of anticipation.
Most of the roughly 45 members, who chatted excitedly in a mix of English and Spanish, were from Montgomery County, where the caucus's first chapter was organized. Baltimore County was also well represented, and there were several delegates from Prince George's, Howard, Anne Arundel and Harford counties.
The group -- which also wants to groom Hispanic Republicans to run for office -- aims to attract 300 members every three months by next year and ultimately have chapters in every county, said Chairman Jorge Ribas, a native of Ecuador who lives in Laytonsville.
"This is going to grow very big," he said.
If so, the caucus will dovetail with a nationwide strategy by Republicans to break the Democratic Party's traditional hold on Hispanic voters -- an effort that gained momentum when Bush won an unprecedented 35 percent of the country's Hispanic vote in 2000.
Since then, several state GOP leaders, including Gov. George E. Pataki in New York and Gov. Jeb Bush in Florida, have won election to office at least in part by wooing segments of the Hispanic vote.
The idea, said Roberto Suro, director of the Pew Hispanic Center, is not necessarily to win over a majority of Hispanics, just a significant number.
"In a really contested race, that could be enough to make a difference," Suro said. "And just being able to nullify the Democrats' advantage can really change the dynamics of a campaign."
In Maryland's gubernatorial campaign last fall, both candidates spent unprecedented amounts on Spanish-language advertising and other outreach.
It is unclear to what extent Ehrlich succeeded in attracting Hispanic support. Exit-poll statistics are not available for the gubernatorial election, and the Hispanics who won other races -- including the first two Latinos elected to the state's House of Delegates -- were Democrats.
In Virginia, the presence of a large branch of the state GOP's Hispanic National Assembly has not resulted in a visible role for Latino Republicans in state politics. For instance, although two Hispanics ran in the Democratic primary for a General Assembly seat representing Northern Virginia's mostly minority, largely Latino 49th House District last week, the Republicans have been unable to muster any candidate.
Still, members of Maryland's Hispanic Republican Caucus say they are convinced that their moment in the sun is close at hand.
"The ideals of the Republican Party are really the ideals of Hispanics," said Preciado, who is a vice chairman of the caucus. "Hispanics are not as liberal as Democrats are. And we're very hardworking. We believe in giving a hand up but not a handout."
Suro said there is some merit to this view. "Latinos are potentially politically in play because they don't fit neatly in the standard ideological categories," he said. Many have "very conservative social values on things like abortion and homosexuality with fairly liberal views on fiscal issues like the size of government and taxes," he added.
"You also have a large part of this population that is starting its way at the bottom and trying to work its way up, so an aspirational message really resonates with them. And it's hard to say which party has a lock on that message."
Ribas, the caucus chairman, argued that party ideology won't drive the Hispanic vote. Instead, whichever party makes the first face-to-face contact with Latino voters will have the advantage, he said.
John M. Kane, chairman of the state GOP, agrees and said the party has recently adopted Democrats' practice of sending representatives to register voters at naturalization ceremonies.
One challenge Maryland Republicans may face in appealing to Latinos, however, is the party's opposition to two legislative efforts this spring.
The first, a bill to allow undocumented immigrants to obtain a driver's license, was amended to simply call for a study of the issue after its failure seemed assured.
Another bill, which would have allowed undocumented immigrants who had graduated from Maryland high schools to pay in-state tuition rates at state colleges and universities, passed in the General Assembly but was vetoed by Ehrlich.
Many members of the Hispanic Republican Caucus favored both measures -- and lobbied the Ehrlich administration to support them. Yet they argue that the governor's failure to do so will not hurt his or his party's standing with Hispanics.
"We don't have to agree on everything," Preciado said. "This just gives me the job to enlighten the party on the situation, to make them understand the issues" behind the legislation.
**"And I know that next year, they will approve it." **
é 2003 The Washington Post Company
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2003-06-16 18:02 | User Profile
The future for America:
[img]http://www.americanpatrol.com/RECONQUISTA/IMAGES/whiteygetout000211CRP.gif[/img]