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  1. #1
    Senior Member Brian503a's Avatar
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    Schwarzenegger courting Latinos

    http://www.sacbee.com/content/politics/ ... 1484c.html

    Schwarzenegger courting Latinos
    If he gets more than a third of their vote, aides say, he'll win.

    By Aurelio Rojas -- Bee Capitol Bureau
    Published 12:01 am PDT Sunday, September 3, 2006
    When Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger travels the state this fall, he is more likely to stop at Spanish-language media outlets than the conservative radio talk shows he frequented his first two years in office.

    The Republican governor's re-election team has targeted Latino voters, calculating that if he gets more than a third of their votes -- a threshold a GOP gubernatorial candidate has not reached in the state since 1990 -- Democratic challenger Phil Angelides cannot win.

    "We'll probably be spending more time, more money and resources among Latino voters than any Republican statewide has ever done," said Schwarzenegger's chief strategist, Matthew Dowd.

    The fastest-growing share of California's electorate, Latinos have rebuffed Republican candidates since 1994, when Gov. Pete Wilson campaigned for Proposition 187, which would have denied most public services to illegal immigrants.

    Wilson was re-elected, but the acrimonious race reversed Republicans' progress among Latinos, who voted in rates of 40 percent or more for Govs. Ronald Reagan, George Deukmejian in 1986 and Wilson in his 1990 gubernatorial race.

    Since then, the Latino share of the state's registered voters has more than doubled to 15 percent. In a close race, Latinos could determine the winner, as they did in 2002, when they provided Gov. Gray Davis with his margin of victory over Republican Bill Simon, according to a study by the Tomás Rivera Policy Institute.

    With polls indicating Schwarzenegger's support among Latinos is lower than the 31 percent of the vote he received during the 2003 recall election, the governor has tempered his comments on illegal immigration.

    Holding an eight-percentage-point lead over Angelides in a Field Poll released in July and buoyed by a series of deals he struck with lawmakers during the legislative session that ended last week, the governor will now seek to broaden his coalition.

    This summer he appeared alongside a group of civic leaders called "Hispanic Families for Arnold," who credited him with improving the state's business climate, and made regular visits to Latino communities.

    Democrats are countering with a strategy that includes registration drives launched by the Legislature's Latino Caucus and Spanish-language radio disc jockeys credited with getting thousands of people to march in this year's massive immigration demonstrations.

    The caucus has raised $1.2 million to set up a nonprofit whose mission is to tap into the 4 million Latinos in California of voting age who are not registered, said Assemblyman Joe Coto, a San Jose Democrat who is vice chairman of the 27-member caucus.

    The focus of the nonpartisan effort will be precincts with between 30 percent and 40 percent Latino registration. Meanwhile, caucus members, working with local Latino activists, will appeal to voters who supported Schwarzenegger in 2003 based on his image as an action movie star.

    "The message is simple: Phil shares our values, and Arnold is not a man of his word," said Sen. Gil Cedillo, D-Los Angeles, who is leading the caucus' ground operation.

    Cedillo maintains Schwarzenegger broke his promise to sign a bill two years ago that would have allowed illegal immigrants to obtain driver's licenses -- an assertion the governor has denied.

    Meanwhile, Schwarzenegger has employed the proverbial canoe strategy, paddling on one side of the cultural divide and then another.

    At last month's state GOP convention, he moved to assuage concerns of conservatives, casting himself as tougher on illegal immigration than Angelides.

    Schwarzenegger reminded the party faithful that the state treasurer supports granting licenses to illegal immigrants and has criticized the governor's deployment of the National Guard on the California-Mexico border.

    Three days later, the Schwarzenegger campaign released a new Spanish-language television ad lauding his investment in schools, job-creation policies and reduction of the car tax.

    During an interview with the editorial board of the Spanish-language newspaper La Opinion, he said he was "wrong" to vote for Proposition 187.

    The governor also downplayed his praise of the Minuteman Project, the border patrol brigade of private citizens. Last year, he told a conservative radio talk show that the group was doing a "terrific job" -- a comment that infuriated many Latino leaders.

    Dowd, a Texas-based expert on Latino voters and a chief architect of the Bush-Cheney 2004 presidential campaign, denied Schwarzenegger has changed his views on immigration.

    "What I see is the governor representing the approach that most people in California support," he said. "On one hand, they're concerned about border security. On the other hand, (he's) being compassionate to the families that are here."

    Angelides has sought to use the governor's recent comments to undermine the governor's support among Latinos. His campaign is likely to continue to do so through the Nov. 7 election.

    "If there's something that Latino voters have figured out about Arnold is that he's a giant, flip-flopper tortilla," said Sam Rodriguez, political director for the state Democratic Party, which is coordinating Latino outreach for Angelides.

    Schwarzenegger's campaign has hired its own Latino outreach director, former Univision political analyst Arnoldo Torres, a past executive director of the League of United Latin American Citizens and lobbyist.

    Torres grew up in Sacramento and worked as a legislative aide when there were few Latinos in the Capitol. He maintains the new generation of Latinos in the Legislature has failed its constituents.

    A passionate advocate, Torres once grabbed and broke a legislative staffer's finger during a heated argument. He has used his contacts in the Spanish media to set up a series of interviews for the governor.

    The strategy is part of an effort to shed the right-wing label that Democrats pinned on Schwarzenegger last year, when he supported a package of ballot measures opposed by unions. Studies show Latino union members vote more frequently than Latinos in general.

    Torres said Schwarzenegger has done more interviews in the last three months with Spanish-language media than any Republican governor in history.

    "In the month of June, he interviewed with Univision, he interviewed with Telemundo, he interviewed with print -- Vida en el Valle (a McClatchy newspaper) -- and he did Spanish-language radio," Torres said.

    In July, besides his headline-creating interview with La Opinion, the governor did another round of interviews tailored to Latinos, Torres said.

    Rodriguez calls Schwarzenegger's focus on Latinos commendable, but predicts it will be fruitless.

    "Latinos correlate Arnold with Bush and the Republicans -- and that causes them fear and anxiety," Rodriguez said, citing polls.

    Dowd concedes that for Latinos to vote for Schwarzenegger, they "have to see the governor as somebody who is working in their best interest and that they can trust."

    The governor, he said, will succeed with the same issues that appeal to other voters: education, a strong economy and health care.

    Rodriguez said Democrats will remind Latino voters that Schwarzenegger broke his deal with the California Teachers Association last year to restore $2 billion to schools. This year, the governor increased school spending by $5 billion.

    The governor proposed $23 million for counties to spend on health care for illegal immigrant children. But Schwarzenegger and Democratic lawmakers removed the funding as part of a budget compromise with Republicans.

    The governor suffered a brief setback this summer when Sen. Abel Maldonado, who was one of his lieutenants in the Legislature, told the Los Angeles Times that the governor was showing "a lack of respect" to Latinos by not visiting Mexico enough.

    Maldonado, R-Santa Maria, lost his primary race for state controller and was irked the governor did not endorse him or any other candidate. He told the newspaper: "Our governor cares about one thing only, and that's Arnold Schwarzenegger."

    A day later, Maldonado reversed himself, releasing a statement in which he apologized. He said he looked forward to working with the governor on "important issues beneficial to California's Latinos."

    Dowd denied Republicans officials pressured Maldonado to recant.

    "I like to judge people based on the last thing they said," the governor's strategist said.


    About the writer:
    The Bee's Aurelio Rojas can be reached at (916) 326-5545 or arojas@sacbee.com.
    Support our FIGHT AGAINST illegal immigration & Amnesty by joining our E-mail Alerts at http://eepurl.com/cktGTn

  2. #2
    Senior Member nittygritty's Avatar
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    I am a republican, I have to say though I hope Arnold is soon back to making movies!
    Build the dam fence post haste!

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