US: Can GOP Hopefuls Win Over Hispanics?

Tue Dec 11 14:48:06 UTC 2007

Can GOP Hopefuls Win Over Hispanics?
Immigration Rhetoric Creates Uneasy Relationship Between Republican
Candidates And Spanish-Speaking Voters
Dec. 10, 2007

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GOP Losing Ground With Latinos

Republicans appear to be falling behind in their drive to win the
Hispanic vote. As Wyatt Andrews reports, the issue of illegal
immigration is fueling Latino disaffection with the GOP. | Share

GOP Faceoff At Spanish Language Debate
Perils Of Immigration Debate Cut Both Ways

(CBS) This story was written by CBSNews.com's Brian Montopoli and
Alfonso Serrano.

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You won't find Spanish on the Web site of most of the GOP presidential
candidates. But click on a link on the upper right corner of Mitt
Romney's site and you're greeted by a fresh faced young man speaking
the language in an almost-perfect accent. "Hola," he says. "Soy Craig
Romney."  Craig, one of Romney's five sons, spent two years as a
Mormon missionary in Chile, and his appearance in the half-minute
video, in which he introduces his father in Spanish, is telling: Among
the GOP candidates, Romney has been perhaps the most aggressive in
courting the Spanish-language community.  The former Massachusetts
governor, unlike his rivals, has a Spanish-language page on his Web
site. He's run Spanish-language ads in Florida, including one
featuring Craig. His campaign has a Latin America Policy Advisory
Group, and Romney was the only Republican to attend the Republican
National Hispanic Assembly's annual meeting. His press shop has pushed
the ways in which Romney is "putting conservative principles to work
for the Hispanic community."

"I don't think we're trying anything specifically different with
Hispanic voters than with the voters in Iowa or anything else," Craig
Romney, who has been doing Spanish-language interviews in Orlando and
Miami, tells CBSNews.com. "We're just presenting my dad for who he
is." But Mitt Romney faces an uphill battle with Hispanic voters, and
not just because a Miami Herald poll last month put rival Rudy
Giuliani at 70 percent support among Hispanic Republicans in Florida.
According to a new Pew Hispanic Center poll, Republicans have seen the
gains they made among Hispanic voters under President Bush evaporate;
Hispanics now favor Democrats over Republicans 57 percent to 23
percent. That gap can be explained, in part, by the increasing
prominence of illegal immigration as a campaign issue. Romney and
Giuliani spent the opening portion of last month's CNN/YouTube debate
sparring over who has taken the hardest line on the issue, and rival
Mike Huckabee has taken criticism for backing a plan to offer college
scholarships to the children of illegal immigrants. Huckabee and Fred
Thompson have taken strong anti-illegal immigration positions, and Tom
Tancredo and Duncan Hunter have made their opposition to illegal
immigration central to their campaigns. Tancredo has aired two
sensationalistic ads in Iowa, one linking illegal immigration to
terrorism and the other focused on crime and South American gang
activity in America. (Watch the ad.)

When asked in a November CBS News/New York Times poll which issues the
candidates should be discussing, likely Republican caucus-goers in
Iowa put illegal immigration at the top of the list, ahead of the war
in Iraq and the economy. 44 percent said illegal immigrants should
lose their jobs and leave the country.

Reverend Luis Cortes, a prominent Latino evangelical who supported Mr.
Bush in 2004, recently invoked Nazi Germany in discussing Republican
rhetoric over illegal immigration, saying a solution to the
immigration problem needs to be found that does not "vilify an entire
race."

At 46 million, Latinos make up 15 percent of the U.S. population and
about 9 percent of the eligible electorate, and the Pew Hispanic
Center estimates that they will make up 6.5 percent of voters in the
upcoming presidential election. It's a relatively small group, but one
that could make a big difference in a general election. Latinos
represent a sizeable slice of the electorate in four of the six states
Mr. Bush carried in 2004 by less than five percentage points: New
Mexico (37%), Florida (14%), Nevada (12%), and Colorado (12%).

In the key early primary states of Iowa, South Carolina and New
Hampshire, however, Hispanic voters make up just three percent of the
electorate, according to Hispanic Business Magazine.

"It's important to point out the difference between enforcing the laws
on immigration and respecting Hispanic culture," says Craig Romney.
"There's a line that gets crossed sometimes when it comes to
disrespecting the Hispanic culture and it's not something my dad is
willing to do."

Raul Romero, National Chairman of Viva Rudy, Giuliani's Hispanic
outreach program, stressed that Giuliani, despite the illegal
immigration rhetoric, has a "very, very strong" record on Hispanic
issues.

"There are very many issues that pertain to the Hispanic community
that are not just the illegal immigration issue," he tells
CBSNews.com.

That's particularly true in Florida, a crucial early primary state in
which Hispanic voters are disproportionately Cuban and Republican.
Giuliani's dominance in the state can be explained in part by his
image, according to Luis Clemens, editor of CandidatoUSA, who closely
follows the candidates' outreach efforts to the Hispanic community.

"He's the kind of politician - temperamental, strong character, strong
mayor - that has traditionally appealed to Cuban voters in Miami,"
says Clemens.

Romney, who does not speak Spanish, made a gaffe in the state in March
when he uttered what he characterized as an inspiring phrase - "Patria
o muerte, venceremos" - which is associated with Cuban leader Fidel
Castro.

According to Clemens, Arizona Sen. John McCain, who has urged
restraint from his colleagues in their illegal immigration rhetoric,
"is seen as someone, by virtue of his support of immigration reform,
who is particularly receptive to the Hispanic populations' support of
immigration and is sensitive to the notion of not using strident
language."

But McCain has not been particularly active in reaching out to the
Hispanic community, though he recently launched a Hispanic Advisory
Council. Thompson, who has a Hispanic media consultant, has done more
outreach, and polls a distant second to Giuliani nationally among
Hispanic voters, followed by McCain and Romney.

On Sunday, most of the GOP candidates gathered at the University of
Miami for a Univision-sponsored debate broadcast in Spanish. (Tancredo
boycotted, suggesting in a Miami Herald op-ed that the
Spanish-language format "offends the spirit of democracy.") Many
stressed that their values were also the values of the Hispanic
community.

"I think some of the rhetoric that many Hispanics hear about illegal
immigration makes some of them believe that we are not in favor of or
seek the support of Hispanic citizens in this country," McCain told
the audience.

http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/12/09/politics/main3596483.shtml

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